Karin's Life in America

Saturday, December 18, 2010

How often can you meet Nikolaus!

After our return from Tahoe everything went into Christmas mode. We decorated the house and got a Christmas tree. The snow is long behind us and it is warm and rainy again. Snow would be nice if it would not mean that we miss school. We had a Nikolaus celebration at Church with Andrew dressing up as St. Nikolaus. The the actual Nikolaus (oh yes, we are believing) came to German School to attend our annual Nikolausfeier. He brought his golden book and read some of the kids names and praised them; Amelia was one of them. She heart her name called and asked me later if that meant that she was on the good or naughty list.
A week later it was time for St. Lucia. Again both girls were in the procession as attendants. Marlene can not wait until it will be her turn to be Lucia!

Thanksgiving 2010

This year the Cooper family gathered in Lake Tahoe to celebrate Thanksgiving. Usually everyone gets together there in summer, but since this did not happen this year the idea was to go for Thanksgiving. No one accounted for the 4 feet of snow that we had. Well, it was the first time in 30 years that Lake Tahoe had that much snow for Thanksgiving. We left Seattle Monday morning just before the snow started to come down here. It turns out we avoided a complete chaos! But we hit snow too on our way south. It is great to drive an Outback since every time there was a tire chain check they just waved all the outbacks through! The girls were so excited to touch the first snow this year!
We arrived in South Lake Tahoe on Tuesday afternoon after some tense driving in wind, snow blizzard and rain. The condo at the Lakeland Village was beautiful. With 4 bedrooms, a sleeping loft for the kids, and large spacious common living areas with a gas fire place there was enough room for everyone in the family. The kids loved hanging out with the cousins. We walked and played in the snow. It was a postcard winter wonderland. The nights were very cold with 5 F but the days were pleasant with 30-40 F. We built snowmen, had snowball fights and made snow angels. The icicles were of massive proportions. We had brought our snowshoes and the last day we were able to go on a nice hike in the mountains.
Thank you to all the Coopers for a great Thanksgiving!