Christmas Movies

Ok I actually stole this from my good friend Tony's most recent blog (his blog addy is www.tonypags.blogspot.com if you are interested). With Christmas just around the corner, he has added a list of his favorite Christmas movies and so I'm going to copy him. I hope you don't mind, Pags!!

1. A Muppet's Christmas Carol
2. White Christmas
3. A Christmas Story
4. The Holiday
5. Love, Actually
6. A Charlie Brown Christmas
7. Mickey's Christmas Carol
8. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
9. Home Alone
10. Christmas Vacation
11. Home Alone 2
12. It's a Wonderful Life

I've already cheated and watched numbers 1, 4, and 5. I say "cheated" b/c it wasn't even close to December when these movies were viewed.

And yes, to my mother and everyone else: PICTURES ARE GOING TO BE POSTED ON SUNDAY I PROMISE!!!!!!

Funny quote!

We are learning about Ecosystems in Science and on Monday I asked my kids "What is a nonliving thing in our ecosystem in class that helps people live or survive?" One of my students, Marvin, replied "Coffee is a nonliving thing that teachers like you drink every day to survive"!!! I thought that was so great..and very true!

Black Saturday

Today Anne and I along w/Delynn, Aubrey, & Amy-Jo went into Basel for the Anglican Church's Annual Christmas Bazaar. The Bazaar has gone on for 50 years now and is a Basel tradition. Plus it's nice b/c this is the church that Anne & I go to. We had a ton of fun and it was like our own "Black Friday" except we called it "Black Saturday." We found some really cute candle holders, great VHS movies at the cheapest price imaginable, and ate some wonderful British food. I had a cornish pastry and Anne had cottage pie. MMMM!!!! We also tried mince pie for the first time which was so yummy!

Afterwards, Anne & I went over to the Basel Christmas Market which started today. It was so nice to see all the beautiful Christmas decorations and stalls lit up. Basel was bustling with holiday excitement and all the stores were ready for Christmas shoppers. We then walked over the bridge to Claraplatz and browsed a few shops before heading home. Of course we stopped at Starbucks to get some hot chocolate before hopping on the bus back to Weil!

It is still freezing over here but my body has adjusted well. It's supposed to snow on Monday but we've been hearing that for a month now so I will believe it when I see it. I hope to be updating with a huge slideshow of pictures from the last month either tonight or tomorrow. I know I'm overdue for that!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'm off now to watch a movie and try to get warm!!

Happy (Late) Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. Despite the fact that I had to be at school, Thanksgiving turned out to be a ton of fun. Anne's friend from England is visiting us and so we had her and our friend Jo from church over for a traditional Thanksgiving meal. It was my first time making mom's sweet potato casserole as well as baking a turkey. The casserole turned out great, despite being a little soupy (the recipe calls for evaporated milk and all we have is condensed milk) and the turkey was delicious! We also had macaroni & cheese and Anne made green bean casserole...YUM! After dinner we had some tea and watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving before Jo had to catch her train. All in all, it was a very memorable Thanksgiving nad really made yesterday feel somewhat like a real Thanksgiving Day.

This weekend we are going to our church's annual Christmas Bazaar and it's also the first weekend of Basel's Chrismtas Market! We might also try to head over to France to see the Christmas Market in Mulhouse.

And last but not least, I will be in Jacksonville in 4 weeks! YAY!

Enjoy Black Friday!

Christmas Survey!

I thought this was fun to fill out. If you want to send it back to me w/your answers, simply copy & paste and email to allirae78@gmail.com

Have fun reading/doing :)

Body:
1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
He used to sit them under the tree and now he wraps them all...

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
white

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
nah

5. When do you put up your decorations?
my parents start on Thanksgiving...however, I don't really have any (yet) over here but if I did it would be this weekend

6. What is your favorite holiday dish?
Granny's mac & cheese

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child.
waking up at 4am w/my brother to go look at our presents...also making dough ornaments w/my mother

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Lisa Rutherford told me in 3rd grade...I then went home to confirm the truth with my mother...I was devastated

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
We used to open one gift but now we just wait for Christmas Day

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
ornaments & lights

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
love it for about the first day and a half...over it after the third day...

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes but I fall a lot

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
a My Little Pony bed tent when I was 7

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
getting home and seeing my family

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert?
anything Reina makes on Christmas Night

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
on Christmas Eve we go to the Christmas Eve service which is really special...on Christmas Night my brother and I go to our cousins house and play games

17. What tops your tree?
Santa Claus

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
both

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
O Holy Night, What Child is This, Carol of the Bells

20. Candy Canes?
sure

21. Do you feel Christmas is too commercialized?
oh definitely

Thanksgiving Week

Yet another year being away from my family on Thanksgiving. It's only Monday but I'm already starting to feel the pining in my heart to be with my loved ones on Thursday. I miss waking up and smelling my mother's home cooking and my dad reading from the Psalms before we eat dinner. We have a teacher planning day Thursday, but afterwards, Anne & I are preparing dinner for Anne's friend, Lisa, who is here from England, and our friend Jo from church. We'll be having a turkey breast, macaroni & cheese, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, rolls, & English pudding. It will be a mix of some American & Brit treats! YUM! So not all is lost and I probably won't be as homesick on Thursday as I was last year, but I will still miss seeing the parade (unless that goes on strike, too!) and being w/my fam. The good news is that it's only 4 weeks until I'm home for Christmas! Yippee! This weekend Anne & I will be going to the Basel Christmas market, our church's annual Christmas Bazaar, and getting ready for Christmas in general. No tree to put up, but we will hopefully have some fun decorations around our apartment.

I hope you are all doing great and had a wonderful weekend. I spent the weekend w/the family I used to au pair for and babysat. It was wonderful! I hope to be putting up some more pictures soon. I was going to do that today but of course I left my camera at my apartment! Anyways, hope all is going well Stateside.

Auf Wiedersehen.

14 degrees fahrenheit

This is what the temperature is supposed to be tomorrow. Still no snow but I'm sure that will come fairly soon. I'm so sorry I haven't been updating like I normally do. I've been so busy with school and getting ready for our school play that I've hardly had time to write anything clever!

Last Sunday Anne and I went with our good friends, Jo & Vanessa, to our friend Sarah's house for a birthday lunch. Vanessa's b/day is Saturday but she is leaving for Argentina tomorrow on vacation so we had to celebrate early. We had a great time together and I just adore being around these four people! We all go to the Anglican church together so we only see each other once a week but it makes for the best Sundays ever!

Speaking of church, I'm now helping out with the 11-13 yr olds in Sunday School. In January I will be one of the head teachers but right now I'm just helping out with the upcoming Christmas play and being an extra body in the classroom.

So now it is nearing 6:15am so I need to get in the shower and get ready for another Thursday at school. I'm so grateful for the upcoming weekend as these last 2 weeks I've been so tired! It will be nice to relax for a few days yet again :)

Freeeeezing!

Today the weather is about 39 degrees Fahrenheit. This morning we had our Fit for FUNds program for the kids to raise money for our playground by doing different exercises. While we were outside it started to flurry and got extremely windy. I think I'm still thawing out from being so cold! During our time outside I said to Anne "Ok, I'm really in Florida, the sun is shining and it's 90 degrees!" I was trying to warm myself up but of course it didn't work! Tonight we are supposed to have snow showers with more snow tomorrow so Anne & I have planned on making hot chocolate and watching White Christmas. My heavy winter coat is still in the basement and after today, I really need to go and fish it out! I hope everyone else is staying warm right now! Looking out of my classroom window there is definitely a snow sky and it looks like it's about to let loose all over Weil am Rhein.

Me & my kids

This was taken the other day in the backyard of the school. This is what's going on my Christmas card this year :) Enjoy! Thanks to all of you who are praying for me right now. I am so grateful and blessed!!

Limbo

I haven't typed a post like this in a long time. A post where I'm brutally honest and not just "Hey look at this picture!" Not that those are irrelevant posts but I promised myself I would be honest on my blog from the first day I started it.

The last month or so I felt as if I've been in Limbo. When I got back from summer break, I just knew I would be leaving Germany at the end of the school year and go back to Jacksonville. As the months progressed, I started feeling as though Germany was where I was supposed to be at least for another year. But now? Now I don't see myself anywhere and I don't know why. I feel as though I'm walking in a big question mark. Decisions have to be made but I don't know if I can make them without a strong dosage of prayer. I miss my family. I miss my friends who are all having children now and that I won't get to see until those babies are at least six months old. I feel like I'm missing out on so much, but at the same time I'm experiencing so much! The town that I live in is so beautiful and I love the fact that if I wanted to, I could walk into another country on any given day. I am so, so blessed that this is where God wanted me to be, if only for 2 years. But the year is going by so quickly and each time I try and ponder what life will be like a year from now, I want to chase the thought away.

I need direction. I need God's direction to lead me like never before. I don't like this whole "limbo" thing.

If you're reading this, please pray for God and his infinite wisdom to take over me and direct me in the way that I should go.

Limbo isn't fun.