New Ulm Weekend

This past weekend was our annual trip down to New Ulm with Wayde & Shelley and Klaus & Ann.

On Friday Jonathan, Daniel & Big Joe came back to the cities to pickup Lilly to bring her to the lake while we are in New Ulm. While they were here, Jonathan and his friend Daniel (he is the foreign exchange student from Norway that goes to school with him) went to Ficocello's to get haircuts. Apparently the salons in Chetek, Rice Lake and Eau Claire aren't up on the current trends. Joel & I met with our Realtor, Brad and decided to reduce the purchase price of the SSP house from $175,000 to $169,000. Doing so, we got a lot of action with 3 showings & another open house on Sunday. It looks that Joel's job transfer is slowly moving forward and hopefully will be in full progress by March. After we sign the new papers, we headed to St Peter to meet Wayde & Shelley at the Embassy Bar for a pre-New Ulm cocktail. We usually leave in time to make it to the Schell's Brewery for the 3:00 pm tour, but not this year. So we decided to just stop by the gift store for Shelley to do so Christmas shopping.

Then it was onto to the B & L for a couple more cocktails and to wait to meet up with Klaus & Ann. They arrived shortly before 4:00 pm and we all decided to stay around to eat dinner early rather than go check into the B & B. At 5:00 pm we headed down the street to Kaiserhoff's for fine German dinner for 6! Once again, wonderful food.

It was off to check into the Deutsche Strasse Bed & Breakfast where we have been staying for years. The innkeepers, Gary & Ramona Sonnenberg are the most wonderful hosts which is why we keep going back after all these years. Once we were all settled into our rooms we cleaned up a bit and headed off to the vineyard. Let the rest of our New Ulm trip .....it is all about tradition, so our next stop is Morgan Creek Vineyard for their annual Candlelight wine tasting. The vineyard is always decorated beautifully for Christmas. It was a better year for the grapes, which produced so fine wines. Last year it was a terrible crop, therefore the wines were not wonderful & plentiful. After we had our fill of appetizers and wine, we took off to go back to the B & L to end our evening with cocktails & beers. As usual, Ann & myself dropped off first and decided to go back to the B & B to hit the sack. Next to follow was Shelley with Klaus, Wayde and Joel shortly after. Wayde was a smart man and went straight off to bed while Klaus & Joel stayed up to shoot the shit with Gary, the innkeeper, until 2:30 am.

Breakfast was served at 9:00 am and once again Ramona didn't let us down with her 10 course breakfast and Gary as our waiter. Dang, we love these guys! They shared with us that Gary was laid off from his job as Chief Financial Officer at Martin Luther King College back in April. To liquidate, they were putting the Deutsche Strasse for sale on the market. I am sad because I can't imagine going down there and not being greeted by them. If you are every in the area, please check them out.........you will love it. Here is the link to their website: www.deutschestrasse.com

After a fine breakfast and fabulous conversation, it was time to move on. After we all checked out and gave our hugs & kisses to all, we headed to the lake. First we needed to make a pit stop to this little German store to pickup Jonathan's advent calendar & chocolate bar. Once again.....it's an annual thing.

After a couple of pit stops, we arrived at the lake around 4:00 pm. After our greetings, Big Joe started dinner, I rested my shoulder and Joel got the Christmas tree ready to bring into the house.

Christmas is my favorite time of the year.......I love to celebrate the birth of our Lord, I love the smell of real Christmas trees, I love to decorate the house, I love to listen to Christmas music, I love to watch my son's eyes light up when I have tracked down that impossible gift and most of all.......I love the time spent with my family. This year is going to be doubly special as it will be our first Christmas at the lake, so we have new traditions to make and I am looking forward to making them happen. Well, now the dilemma.......I am finding it very hard to find my Christmas spirit this year. I have had to dig very deep to attempt to find out what my problem is........but I will figure it out.

Sunday morning I got up bright & early to start decorating our house for the holidays. I do have to say, it helped a tad in putting me in the spirit. I didn't get everything done, but it was a start and I should finish next weekend. We left early to get to the SSP house in time for us to go to the grocery store and Joel to watch the Vikings game.

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Lots of Love to All,
Joel, Amy & Jonathan