Saying Goodbye to 2008

After Greta’s baptism, there were two more days left for J before he flew back to California. On Sunday the 28th, we went back to Kaster (where we had our wedding celebration). It has a cute little “old town” and we had dinner at the local “Pfannkuchenhaus”.

J had a “Wildbeerpfannkuchen” (mixed berry pancake) I had a plum pancake. J loved it. I might have to mention that our German pancakes are nothing like the American pancakes. They’re more like “thick crêpes” filled with berries, apples or something like that. They’re delicious!

On Monday, we met some family friends for breakfast. We went to a café with a breakfast buffet and had eggs, bacon, rolls and cheese, ham and salami. There were waffles and müsli, cereal and fresh fruits, just everything one’s heart desires. I love breakfast buffets!
In the afternoon, we went to see my cousin and my godchild Luca. It was a cold, but sunny day and we went for a nice long walk with the kids.

Tuesday morning, we had to get up quite early and I took J to the airport at 4:30 a.m. He was kind of sad that he had to leave and that the two weeks had gone by so fast. I wished he could have stayed for New Year’s, but the flights were booked in advance and there was nothing we could do about it at this point.
When I returned back home, I went back to bed for a little while, had breakfast with my parents and went shopping with my Mom and sister later. Then we met at my Granddad’s place to celebrate his 87th birthday with some coffee and cake. A big birthday dinner was going to follow after New Year’s.

I spent New Year’s Eve at my sister’s place with Nina, Dirk, Greta and my friend Ira. It was a nice and quiet New Year’s.
I went over there around 6 p.m. and helped my sister prepare dinner. We had decided to make fondue. I hadn’t had it for a very long time and was really looking forward to it :) We had quite the meat selection :)

After dinner, we played “Mensch ärgere dich nicht”(Ludo) which I hadn’t played for a very long time… but it was so much fun! We laughed and laughed, not only, but also because Ira’s game figures where so funny. We almost missed midnight, because of the game… but we made it outside just in time to welcome the new year and watch the fireworks. Ah, how I miss that in the US!

We definitely had a lot of fun and kept playing until 2 a.m.

Then I took Ira home (yes, I didn’t drink) and then I went back to my sister’s place where I was going to spend the night and we kept playing more board games until 5 a.m. when Nina mentioned that it might be a good idea to get some sleep before the night was over for Greta ;)
Fortunately, she’s still so small that she sleeps quite a lot (even if it means that she wakes up every couple of hours because she’s hungry), so we were able to sleep in on New Year’s Day.

In my humble opinion, it was a perfect New Year’s Eve and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way (ok, beside the fact that I would have LOVED to have J with us, but oh well).

Happy New Year again to all of you lovely ladies (and guys!).