A very merry Christmas...

Our Christmas holiday started in San Diego about 2 weeks prior to Christmas day. Matt was scheduled for a job conference and he was planning on getting the chance to interview with a couple of companies while we were there, unfortunately though, the companies he was scheduled to interview with ended up dropping out of the conference, so no luck there. That was a bummer, but on the bright side, my parents were visiting San Diego for my dad's work and we got the chance to spend some time, and share some meals with them. One especially notable meal was at Morton's Steakhouse (Matt's favorite), it was oh-so-good!

After a few days in San Diego we headed up to Redlands to spend the rest of our time with Matt's family. We had a few days at first with his mom and dad; a little later his sister flew out and the family was all together! We enjoyed last minute shopping, some awesome meals, HDTV, and just spending time with everyone!

On Christmas Eve we celebrated our Lord's birth at Matt's parents' church. Afterwards, Matt and I drove around town looking for local newspaper machines...our wedding announcement wound up in the paper that day and it surprisingly took some searching to find the 12 copies we were hoping to get! After our "tour of the town" we stopped off at Panera to pick up some bread and headed home to an awesome Christmas Eve dinner with the family!

After we finished dinner we moved to the living room to open some presents! It was so fun to watch everyone open their gifts, and we are so thankful for the gifts that we received. The next shot is me opening up a gift from Matt, he got me a teapot!

This was such a wonderful gift since I had been mentioning my desire to start a little teapot collection...everytime I talked about it though Matt would laugh and roll his eyes, so I figured it wasn't going to happen! I am afraid though that he will view my teapot collection as approval for him to start a Porsche collection, since everytime he mentions that, I laugh and roll my eyes!

We had a great breakfast on Christmas morning then spent the day gearing up for a little get together that Bill and Susanne were hosting. Friends stopped by all throughout the evening, we had such a nice time catching up with folks that we don't get to see often enough.

The day after Christmas was a long one! Both Matt and I woke up early to go on our runs, then we went out to breakfast with some of Matt's friends, after that it was off to a couple of stores and the post office. When we got back we had about two hours to pack, then it was off to LAX for our long trip home.

Our flights and drive home all went well and now we are trying to recover from jet lag and get back to life here in Germany. Our search for jobs still is not over, please keep us in your prayers as we continue to seek out a variety of opportunities.

A wonderful Thanksgiving!

What an awesome week we had for Thanksgiving! It started on the Sunday before Thanksgiving with an very tasty Thanksgiving meal at the Hospitality House (one of the ministries going on here in Heidelberg). Then Tuesday of that week the Dining Facility at Matt's work had their formal Thanksgiving meal, which was also so very good! And finally for Thanksgiving Day itself we were off to.....

Switzerland!!

Yes, again. Can't get enough of that place! We actually went down with a group of folks who go to the Hospitality House, and had such a good time. This time we were in Interlaken, it was truly beautiful! The snowy mountains all around us were incredible!

We had a ton of fun touring around Interlaken and some of the surrounding area, and some of us had a great day sledding! We literally sled down a mountain, yes a mountain, really. It took two hours to go on one run...yes we had to stop some, and yes we got lost, and yes we ended up on a road dodging cars...very exciting. The second run was a little shorter (we only went halfway down the mountain) but still had the same adventurous feel, we took a wrong turn and decided the best way to get back was to go down the "closed" area, we had a humorous time going down steep slopes that at some points had snow hip deep. Our third run went off with out a hitch, that was until the ski patrol caught up with us and escorted off the mountain...(it was closing time and I'm pretty sure we were the only ones left!)

Here are some pics from our weekend!

The Hostel's Dog, couldn't resist this pic!

Comin' round the bend!

Stuck in the snow!

Group Picture!