New Beds and Chocolate Festival

You may (or may not) have heard that we got the girls some new beds. It's true! It was quite a find. Jon ran across an ad at our church for a free double bed (just pick it up) so we called and checked it out. The German idea of a double bed is to screw two single beds together (so there's still a space between the mattresses), which works well in our case because we unscrew the beds and voila--two singles. They're pretty big--the size of an extra long twin--and they just barely fit in their room.

Here's Jon, assembling and rearranging. (Kate's helping)



Kate was pretending she was Noah in the ark. The crown is from church that day.

The completed set. Don't ask how long it took to get the sheets, duvets, etc but we did and here they are. Kate loves her bed but Ellie is taking a bit longer to adjust. I can't say I blame her--her bed is easily twice as large as her crib was. But here are our two big girls in their big girl beds. Now please pray they can get more sleep in them! :)

This is just for fun--they've been watching a lot of Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving so Kate put together their indian costumes. Ellie supplied the feathers with a craft from Sunday school.




This past weekend, we went to another Christmas market, this time in one of our favorite towns, Tuebingen. Here's a look down one of the streets in the alstadt (old city)

Some decorations for the fest. It's well-known because it's the only chocolate festival in the country--as far as we know. It's called Chocolart, or the Schokoladenfestival.

Jon and Ellie, taking in the delicious sights.

Enjoying some Daddy time too.

Here's an idea of how crowded it was. VERY. Jon is attempting to give the girls chocolate while holding on to his mug of gluhwein. He's such an expert! We also met our friends the Gallaghers there (Siobhan is in the green coat, off to the left) but I didn't get a good picture of them. In fact, we forgot our camera, so all these shots are taken with my phone.

Ellie, missing her nap but enjoying the outing. (Lovie's having a ball as well.)

We didn't get too much chocolate, but a good time was had by all. What a privilege it is to spend Christmas time here in Germany and experience these fun sights!