2nd Annual German Thanksgiving!

For the second year in a row I have not had to cook, clean, or figure out what to do with all the Thanksgiving meal leftovers. No, Germans do not celebrate Thanksgiving but the American Edelweiss Lodge and Resort in Garmisch Germany cooks up a mean Thanksgiving feast! The boys did not have all week off from school so we took them out Tuesday and we made the 5 hour trek to Germany.

All Luke could talk about for the week leading up to our trip was the swimming pool, so the 5 hour drive must have seemed like weeks for him. Even after we got there he wasn't going to be satisfied until he was IN the pool! However Clark and I were not going to be satisfied until we got food and the yummy 32OZ ritas!! :) So swimming would have to wait a little bit longer.

On Wednesday we ventured up to the "top of Germany!" We rode the the top of Zugspitze in a cable car. We all thought this type of transportation was so cool, however there had to be someone in our family that had to shout out the "what ifs!" Would have been alright had we been the only ones on the cable car and not headed straight for the mountain side! The view from the cable car was breath taking and some of God's glorious creations at their finest. There was not much snow on the mountain  but there was just enough to get in some good sledding! Zugspitze has an altitude of 2,962 meters above sea level. We really felt that in how winded we got walking up the sledding hill.

 After a day of sledding and having some lunch we ventured back down the mountain. On the trip down we took a train, which took us to the bottom via THRU the mountain. Couldn't see much but was a cool trip down. We of course ended the day at the pool and the not so hottub! :)

The next day was Thanksgiving so we didn't want to venture out to far....since we surley didn't want to miss our dinner reservations. So we ventured into Garmisch and walked the town looking for souviners. We went to a part of town we walked through last year and then we found a big shopping area and poked around there for a while.

With the afternoon coming to a close it was time to get ready to go to the Thanksgiving feast. We made sure to skip lunch just so we would be nice and hungry for turkey and stuffing and so much more! The food was delicious and we all made severeal trips to get more food! :) My favorite part was not having to clean up! 

Bet you don't know what we did after dinner! LOL

On the last day we ventured to Munich for their Christmas market. We did this last year too but it was COLD and SNOWY! This year was perfect weather for a Christmas market. We got to see a lot more and spent more money!

The adults enjoyed lots of Gluwein which is hot wine. MMMMM kept us nice and warm and feeling good. The kids enjoyed some yummy German hot chocolate! We enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Hard Rock, and the guys (no not the boys) enjoyed a beer at the Hofbrauhaus house. We were after all in the beer capital of the world so they couldn't leave without having a beer!

So this concludes our wonderful annual German Thanksgiving. We are hoping to make next year our 3rd visit there for Thanksgiving! :) Hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and that you reflected on all that you have to be thankful for!

"We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us not lose sight of the reason for the journey."
~ Gloria Gaither