Next was X-mas. I made my own cards. I may put up a pic in the future (can't find the files)

We went to a traditional Christmasmarkt in Nuremburg. It didn't feel very festive because we didn't get much snow this year. The decorations made up for it though.

The church was decked out on every side...



There was a Kiderpark with the neatest carousel I've ever seen. It had two stories and hot air balloons hung from the roof...



There was also the creepyest carousel. Notice the complete lack of children on or near this one...



finally, came New Years. I have no pictures of this. The law says we had to wait until midnight to launch off the big fireworks. The boys filled the time by throwing smaller firecrackers at each other. I'm surprised no one lost an eye.

When we finally got to launch fire works I was uber impressed by them. We had stuff that would be illegal in the states. Huge bottle rockets that land on the other side of the neighborhood, giant fountains, and boxes of little things to keep the kids occupied. Between the participants we spent only about 100 Euro and lit them for 2 hours. The party was only slightly interrupted by someone's drinking problem. I won't go into it.

It has been a pretty good year so far. I hope to update more but please take into account that we aren't really doing much lately. Mike has been training our forces to be prepared to fight the bad guys. Plus he should have his own possible deployment training coming up soon.