Happy Birthday to Me!

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Love-Peace-Joy blog, which will now be chronicling the 28th year of my (Stephanie's) life. Yes, today is my 27th birthday.

So, Happy Birthday to me!

I had a wonderful birthday weekend. On Friday night we went to Nate's work's Christmas party. They had it at a wonderful Italian restaurant in downtown Stuttgart. We dressed up in our finest, and enjoyed the best Italian food I have had since moving to Deutschland. Delicious pasta and fish, and some very tasty wine. They were still serving the dinner course around 11:30, so we missed dessert and got to bed by midnight.

We then woke up at 5:00am and traveled to Nurnberg to tour the Nurnberg Christmas market with Jeff and Abby. They had about an hour and fifteen minute drive from their house, and we spent about two hours and forty-five minutes on a train. It was rocking and shaking, and I felt sick for the entire ride. Yay!!! But, when my feet touched solid ground in Nurnberg all was well.

We met up in a parking garage and exchanged Christmas gifts. Jeff and Abby got Nate a stylish new shirt, and for me a cute little teapot. We got them a collective gift of a rice cooker. They were very excited. Just like us, they've missed having yummy stir-fry. We then spent the next two-three hours walking around the market, freezing our toes off. We didn't buy much, but it was nice to be out in the chilly air checking out all of the stands.

We did lunch at a little Italian place. My pizza was oh so good. So big that it was flopping off the side of the plate. After lunch we went clothing shopping. This was Nate's favorite part of the journey. We both got new shirts. I deemed it my birthday shirt, and you see it on the picture above! After more strolling and shopping we ended up at a little German restaurant for dinner. I had potato soup and the rest shared a seemingly endless plate of little sausages.

Nate, Abby, and I took the train back to Stuttgart. On Sunday Abby and I took a trip out to another Christmas market in the Stuttgart suburb called Esslingen. They had a medieval market, complete with medieval costumes, leather workers, and even bow and arrow contests. Once again, I didn't buy anything but I have some great ideas for Christmas gifts next year!!!! On Sunday evening we met a group of friends at a Thai restaurant for a Birthday dinner. Nate let me pick out our meals (yay!) so we got to try a variety of Thai dishes. After dinner we went back to our house for cake and icecream.

My husband made my Mommma's homemade frosting recipe, and the cake was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!!!

I woke up today feeling not any different than the day before. I really do feel 27 years young!

Today is my last day of German class (class A2.1). We're having a holiday party, so I'm going to bring little chunks of the birthday cake for them all to try. We'll see how much a group of Turkish, Indian, Syrian, Iraqian, Iranian, Columbian, Brazilian, and German people like American chocolate cake with chocolate frosting!!! If they have any sort of taste buds, I'm sure they'll fall in love ; )