Monday, December 19, 2011

Merry Christmas 2011

Liebe Familie und Freunde,

I want you all to note the use of German words in the greeting of this letter. This is because we now all speak fluent German. Or rather, we can say important German phrases such as, “Wo ist die toilette?” (Where is the bathroom?), and “Ich möchte bitte mehr Schoggi essen.”(I would like, please, to eat more chocolate.) This one is actual a bonus statement because Schoggi is actually Swiss German, so you can see that we have learned two new languages.

After 2.5 years we still love living in the heart of Europe. We take advantage of this as much as we can and travel as much as possible. This year we visited Portugal, where Suzanne's parents are serving a mission, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Greece. (During the riots! We have great timing.) We are looking forward to spending Christmas in Israel.

Jason should get some sort of award for his multiple trans-atlantic flights this year. He flew the equivalent of 8.5 times around world. He also managed to stay in 60 different Starwood hotels this year. That's not 60 nights, mind you, that's 60 different hotels from one chain. He's still pushing drugs for Novartis (well, diagnostic testing now) and likes to cackle about how the sun never sets on his empire since he now has employees in California and India. Or rather, he would cackle about that if he could see straight through all the jet lag.

Suzanne wrote 4,786 blog posts and chatted with 9743 people, none of them who were in our house. In doing this, she managed to wear out multiple computers. (Daniel may have helped with that.) She also declared war on mismatched socks, although this was unsuccessful. She did fulfill a lifelong dream of being published in Reader's Digest.

Sarah (8) is the one person in the family who can claim she speaks German. She won the role of the Evil Queen in Schneewittchen (Snow White) in her school production. After the performance, one of the German teachers said to Sarah's German teacher, “I didn't know all your kids were native speakers.” In addition to speaking German, Sarah reads like a fiend and hides things under her bed. In a feat yet to be explained by science, she can actually fit more things under her bed than can otherwise physically fit in her bedroom. Sarah was baptized this summer.

Daniel (3) loves science. His experiments this year include, “What happens when you put socks in the pickle jar” and “if you coat the bathtub in toothpaste, will that prevent cavities?” Daniel attends Forest School, which is a fabulous thing where toddlers go to the woods for 4 hours, rain or shine, and play with saws. This is not an exaggeration at all. They also roast their own hotdogs over an open fire.

We hope you are doing well, and have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Liebe Grüsse,

Jason, Suzanne, Sarah and Daniel

1 comment:

  1. Loved the letter. This is such a good idea and as I have yet to send a real one out (via snail mail) I just might have to do the same! Have a great time in Isreal.

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