We finally have a decent internet connection at home. We found out about a service through Deutsche Telekom for DSL via satellite. It is not as fast of a connection as Cable or DSL, but it is certainly better than dial-up. The service was finally installed in mid-December. While the installers were installing the internet, though, half of our satellite TV went out (we've got two satellites on our roof -- we get Free to Air channels from Germany on one, and Free to Air channels from the UK on the other. I think they added a contraption to one of the satellites to enable it to send and receive an internet connection, and in the process they fouled up one of the satellites. That was right before Christmas, and they promised to come back soon and fix it - hasn't happened yet. The whole telephone and internet experience here has been frustrating, to say the least. Going without TV certainly isn't killing us -- we rarely watch it anyway, but it is nice to be able to watch CNN every once in a while.
We had the missionaries over for Thanksgiving dinner -- even made them wear the traditional pilgrim hats. The boys still had school, but I took the day off work Thursday & Friday, and Heidi and I did some Christmas shopping on Friday. We all ate much more than we should have, of course - I think Nash was trying to impress the missionaries by how much he could eat.
We tried out the ice-skating rink in Bonn one Saturday.
The German's celebrate Sankt Niklaus Day on the 6th of December, and it was a very busy Saturday for us. in Germany. The kids set out their shoes the night before, and in the morning when they woke up, Sankt Niklaus had left some chocolate, an orange, and some small gifts in their shoes.
After breakfast, we went to a Christmas tree farm half-way down the hill into Bad Godesberg, and we wandered around looking at the trees for a while until we found one we all liked. It was cold and rainy, but that didn’t seem to speed up the decision-making process. The trees all seemed to be a bit scrawnier than the ones we found at the Christmas Tree farms in Michigan, but we are just happy to have a real tree again after 3 years of fake trees in Indonesia. We brought the tree home, put it up in the stand, and then I took Grant to a birthday party, while Heidi took Mallory in to a school that had Santa coming to visit.
Grant left the birthday part early so that we could be back here in time for his violin lesson, then after Grant’s lesson, he left with Heidi and Luke and Mallory to go to the church for a Primary Christmas activity. Nash had his violin lesson, then went to a friend’s house to do something for his friend’s birthday, including going into Bonn to go bowling and ice skating. Over the next week or so we finished decorating the house for Christmas.
Mallory took a lot of time decorating the little tree that she put in her bedroom.
Nash had the honor of topping off the tree with the star this year.
