Happy New Year Everyone!! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season, between Christmas and New Years I think I have gained 5lbs but the food was delicious so it was well worth it! It was so weird to spend this time away from family. I never thought I would see the day that I would have to miss Christmas with family but God has seen to it that we have an Army family of our own to spend time with over here :)
On Christmas Eve we went got to have dinner with four other couples at a friends house just a few short miles away. It is so nice that we only live a few miles at most from all the people we are getting close to. We had a great time time together. After an amazing meal the girls taught me how to play Yahtzee then we played Just Dance. It is an awesome game where you follow along with a character on screen and dance to your choice of popular song, then it gives you a score. It is a lot of fun trying to out dance your friends and top your own personal high score. By the end of the night we had all decided that we would spend New Years Eve together as well.
The next day on Christmas was nice but weird without being home and having Kyle wake us up at 6 AM! We were able to sleep in until about 10 and I made some breakfast and we watched Elf while we waited until a decent time to start trying to wake up Mom and Kyle. Around noon, our time, they finally got up and we were able to open our presents from them and do our stockings. I am so thankful for technology because it allowed us to see each other and spend time together on Christmas even though we are so far away. Then a few hours later Kyle had made it to Dad's house and we were able to open gifts with them. After time with them Daniel and I opened gift from each other. We got so many wonderful gifts from everyone! I got some awesome clothes and jewelry, great kitchen stuff, an amazing North Face jacket I have been drooling over, and other fun things! Daniel got lots of great stuff too! Daniel is seriously one of the best present guessers I have ever met so I am never able to truly surprise him because by the time he starts to open his gift he already knows what it is. So this year I was beyond excited that I finally was able to surprise him. Instead of just wrapping his gift I printed out a picture of it and put it inside of a video game case and then wrapped it. Naturally when he guessed what it was he guessed the video game he was been wanting and boy was he shocked and excited to find out that I had got him the electric drum set he has been wanting for over a year now! Luna baby also made out great on Christmas too; she got four new things of treats, a new brush, and about five new toys! :)
The next few days after Christmas were pretty uneventful and relaxing. We also spent a lot of time with our new friends the Vazquez's. Daniel works with Josh and they get a long great and his wife, Natalie, and I just click. The day before New Year's Eve we spent all day cleaning the house up so that it would be ready for the party the next day as well as getting some of the supplies together. On New Year's Eve we had three other couples over and we had a great time together. We got to cook out and that was awesome. We bought a gas grill when we first got here for really cheap but have not used it because we didn't know how so some of the guys helped to teach us! Then after our meal we had a spades tournament and then just sat around talking until it was almost midnight.
New Year's Eve in Germany is the one night of the year when there are no restrictions on fireworks; and as I am sure you can imagine people go crazy. So at five minutes til we headed outside to see if we could catch any fireworks. Sure enough there were a few people in our neighborhood who set off big ones we could see. Then Daniel noticed if we moved to the back yard we could see so much more. Our back yard over looks a huge area, including about four or five spread out towns. So from the back yard we could see all of the fireworks being set off in all of these towns. It was absolutely incredible. I wish that words or pictures could do it any justice but nothing short of seeing it in person could truly depict what an amazing sight this was!
Another great bonus of all the time off during the holiday season was that I was able to skype with Daniel's mom and two year old sister a few times! I love love love that I am so close to them. They are seriously amazing and it more like just having another mom and a real mom in law. And I am just in love with his sister, Lily Ann, and I am pretty sure the feeling is mutual :) I love just listening to her talk and nothing is cuter than her ending every sentence with my name. And she adores Daniel just as much. I really hate missing out on her growing up because of the distance but I am so so grateful for technology and our close relationship to them <3
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