Happy Birthday Steve!

Steve had a relaxing birthday today! He took the day off from work since we had our big Thanksgiving Feast yesterday. That was a great idea! The girls treated him to breakfast in bed which he of course loved. He got to spend day with his best girl (me) and ended with a steak dinner at a fabulous restaurant in a neighboring village. Oh and of course Apple Pie for birthday cake!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gertrude the Gratitude Turkey

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with a HUGE group of friends. 35 of us gathered at our house for a Thanksgiving feast! It was truly a collaborative effort - everyone contributed to the "fixings" and three of us cooked turkeys. Our us was Steve - he impressed all our friends with his turkey fryer! No one had ever had a fried turkey but they all thought it was incredible!

Seating for 35

We moved the furniture in our house and added two biergarten tables so we had seating for everyone. And even though my family was a bit skeptical it could work, it was perfect.

Cornucopia Favors

The Fixings

The make-up of our group was - German, Swedish, Danish, Canadian, Mexican and of course American.

All the kids

And the adults

Stef's the Real MVP

Stefanie & Joe

Tonight was the fall sports awards ceremony at MIS. This year Stefanie was captain of the varsity girls volleyball team and Rachel was the only ninth grade member of the girls varsity soccer team. At the awards ceremony only two awards are given per team - Coach's Award and Most Valuable Player. Stefanie was psyched to win MVP for her team this year! We of course think it was well deserved! For a little added fun her boyfriend Joe won Coach's Award for the boys varsity volleyball team.

Herzogstand Hike

Although it is November the weather is  unusually warm. Steve and I wanted to take advantage of it so we drove down to Herzogstand.  This the same mountain I took our parents to in May but instead of riding the cable car we hiked. It was a good two hour hike, not impossible but a steady climb. It was a beautiful day and the bonus was we felt like we had really earned our lunch when we got to the top.

We did take the cable car back down and when we got to the bottom we were shocked by the number of people. It turns out everyone wanted to enjoy this beautiful day.  The parking lots were full, the line for the cable car was enormous and cars were parked haphazardly all along the side of the road.  We were grateful we had headed out early before the crowds.