During the month of December and part of January, my Mom, aka Oma came to visit us all the way from Switzerland. A couple of weeks after she go here her best friend Maggie joined us as well and we had such a great visit!
We had an absloute blast building a Christmas Tree, baking cookies and spending lots of time on the beach. We also played a lot of Remy, explored tons of pot-holes (little inside joke there) and had a wonderful New Year's and then a lovely birthday celebration/breakfast for me, followed by a dinner with the customary handing out of presents to all members of the family.
The premise of the birthday gift handout is that it's MUCH MUCH more fun to give than receive, so about 5 years ago I started getting little gifts for everyone in the family, which tends to get even the little one's excited about my birthday :-)
Having Mom here and being able to spend so much time with us and the kiddos has been just wonderful and we miss her already. Oma is the coolest lady over 60 that you'll ever meet and she'll easily beat you in anything from belly-dancing, baking, long-range bicycle riding or foreign travel, as well as staying up all night dancing to reggae or salsa. Just don't ask her for directions or let her drive (on the left) and all will be well.
I am incredibly proud to have such an interesting and generous and confident person as my Mother, much less the Oma of the kids and I am excited for them to learn many years of 'life education' from her.
Oh and Oma, I wasn' tkidding when I said I was shipping all four kids to Switzerland when the boys are 18, 16 and the girls are 13 and 13.
Check out the pics from their visit here.