I got to play soccer in the snow! Even though it was below freezing, the weather was good so we were able to have practice this evening. There weren't very many of us there, actually only 8 plus the trainer, so we just played a little 4 v. 5 scrimmage. Within about half an hour it started to snow just slightly, and a little after 8 it was really snowing, so we stopped. I made a snow angel before we went into the changing room. I love it when it snows, and being able to actually play soccer while it was snowing was a brand new experience for me. It made for a good night.

What did not make for a good night was losing my freaking keys in the snow while I was out walking Amelie after I got home. We had to take a relatively long walk anyway (at least, longer than we usually do at night) because Amelie was a little sick and was searching for grass to help her throw up. When we got back to the house, I reached into my jacket pocket to get the key, and it wasn't there. Shit. I figured it had to have fallen out when I took my hands out of my pockets to put Amelie on the leash, so I went backtracking. I ended up going the whole route backwards and not finding the keys. Son of a... So I went again, this time slowly (I had hurried on the last round because I wanted to find the keys before they were buried in the snow) and spent extra time in the area where I put her on the leash. Thank god I was able to find them, completely buried and leaving only a small bump in the snow as a trace of their existence. We ended up being out for almost an hour in what according to Southern California standards would be considered a blizzard. Good thing Amelie and I both love the snow.

On Saturday Olaf and I made a little outing with the kids. We drove to Geyen, which is in the way to Pulheim, to the little castle there. Heins and Karin discovered this on the way to Gustav's swim lessons while they were here last time, and were told by the woman who owns it to come by on the Saturday of the Third Advent for the Christmas market and lunch that they have there. So the 4 of us drove over there to meet Heins, Karin, and Karin's sister Gita, and one of Olaf's cousins, his wife, and her parents met us there, too. We looked around the grounds a little bit, ate a delicious lunch of goose, red cabbage and knödel, and then came back to the house to have coffee and cookies.

This weekend was also the first time in a long time that I actually went out and did something. Saturday evening I took the train to Hürth to hang out with Elena and her roommates at her apartment. She had been at home in the Ukraine for a week or two so I hadn't seen her in a while. We didn't really do anything exciting, just hung out watching TV and talking. I stayed the night there at the apartment, and then on Sunday Elena and I went into town to visit the Christmas markets. She had only been to one in the entire time she's been in Germany, so we visited 4. There are still 3 more that I have to make it to this year, but there's plenty of time for that. Although there wasn't anything particularly exciting going on, aside from the fact that the Christmas markets are really cool, we had a great time just hanging out and talking. I really needed the weekend away from the house, too.