Annie and Markus had their first ski day! It has been snowing here quite a bit the last two weeks and several of the mountain runs are already open. I was so disappointing I couldn’t join them, but a series of health problems have been plaguing me the last few weeks, (today it is a bad sinus infection) so I spent most of the day in bed. Annie was excited to tell me that she went with Dad down the big hill twice. Last year it took about an hour to get down the full run with Annie, so she has obviously improved.
I did rally for the Krampus parade and we all went together. Last year was a bit of a trial with not only tears but outright screaming, and I swore we wouldn’t go again until Annie was older. But Markus has been prepping her for the last few weeks and Annie said she really wanted to go. Alright then. Well, I guess all the original, non-Disneyfied Grimm Brother tales have toughened my girl up, as she barely blinked when the scary monsters came by. When they were up really close she did need me to hold her, but I think I’d be more worried if she was completely immune to those creatures.
We didn’t stay long as there was a strong wind making it unpleasant outside. But that was fine. Annie got her St. Nikolaus sac filled with oranges, nuts and chocolate (volunteers must be filling those for weeks!) and all was well.
On another note, I like these yearly events as they are a good gauge of my German skills. I understood everything that was being said by St. Nik, which certainly wasn’t the case last year. And when I came home I read 20 pages of the novel we are reading for class in less than an hour. I used to read less than 10 pages per hour not too long ago.
I guess both Annie and I are making progress in our own way.