New Year's Eve

We celebrated NYE with our German neighbors. One of the couples hosted a catered dinner for approximately 30 people at their home; the dinner was ambrosial. We were told that the dinner was a dressy affair and that women were to wear dresses and men jackets and ties. When we arrived, I was struck dumb when I saw that a great many of the ladies were wearing formal dresses. Some with tiaras.  Littlest was in heaven.

We stayed awake far longer than I thought we might've done as we're usually reading in bed by 2100. After dinner, we talked with everyone, used the Bleigiessen kits (most of our re-hardened lead looked like seahorses or ducks save for J's which looked like a person holding a baby. He told me not to get any ideas.)

Arriving home at 1140, we stayed awake until after midnight so that we could enjoy the hour or so of fireworks being shot off. The kids skyped friends in the States and chatted in Latin and Greek. I couldn't make this stuff up.

J doesn't make resolutions, and I never stick to the ones I do but I will say that because of the all the heartbreak I'm witnessing in the lives of friends at the moment that I won't let a day in 2012 go by where I don't try and fully let the people I love know how much they mean to me.

Gutes Rutsch!

See last year's post to read about Bleigiessen; the elephant charm took ages to melt.

Some of our first German neighbors.  While at the dinner, one of our neighbors said that after three months of living in the States that he was sure we'd come HOME.  The one prospect that truly saddens me about 2012 is that I know we'll leave Germany, and Germany has been our home in so many ways.  Some of those ways have everything to do with the lovely people we've met.  People like our neighbors. 

I spent a good deal of the time translating for these two!  The gentleman below is the father of one of our neighbors.  He was full of interesting stories most of them to do with how he came to Germany from Palestine.