Concerts and ball games...

That night I went to a TSO (Trans-Siberian Orchestra) with Tyler. TSO is described as ‘a progressive rock band’. To explain a little a little better I got this excerpt from Wikipedia “the band’s musical style incorporates classical, orchestral, symphonic and progressive elements into hard rock and heavy metal. The orchestra is most famous for their Christmas themed series of rock operas” I had a great time at the concert! Lots of special effects and pyro show bits.

TSO concert

I attended a Bucks game, in Milwaukee. (The Milwaukee Bucks are our local NBA team) unfortunately they lost the game, but when friends are together that doesn’t really matter anyway cos we still had a good time!

Bucks vs Hawks

We wish you a Merry Christmas…

Christmas this year, was celebrated with some of Amanda’s family (her dad, mom, brother and sister-in-law) which was really fun. On Christmas eve I went over to Amy’s (a fellow South African au pairs) house during the day and we just hang out and later went our into the cold to play around with my new camera (a NIKON…dad don’t be a hater ;) the pictures are on facebook for those of you that haven’t seen them.

Fun in the snow

That night she came over and we had a lovely Christmas Eve dinner with my host family and their family. It was great to all be together. Later on my friend Julia joined us, which was awesome…us three had a great time talking about  our Christmas traditions from home and since we usually have Christmas in Summer, while we were now getting ready to celebrate Christmas in Winter.

Me and "my" boys on Christmas Eve

Christmas day was so much fun, we woke up early (Dave and Amanda convinced Annabel that 8am was early enough) opened all our presents sitting around the Christmas tree together. The rest of the day was a pretty chilled; later on I went and visited a few friends of mine. A lot of American kids get together after Christmas festivities with their families and just hang out, which was really awesome, because it gave my host family time to be a family and I got to spend time with friends.

Aj, Zach, Bucktail, Erica, Nonna, FInn, Braden, Me, Dave and Amanda
My wonderful extended host family

One of my Christmas presents was a ticket to go the Nutcracker (on Boxing Day) with Amanda, her mom, sister-in-law and Annabel. I watched the Nutcracker last year, but it was nice to see it again, and of course it made me think of my little sister. Riley, you would have loved it!

Christmas morning surprises

Music scene in Milwaukee…

December has been a fun month for me, it started with the Kissmas Bash concert where we got to see Shontelle, New Boys and Taio Cruz (who by the way is amazing!) Bruno Mars was meant to be there but rescheduled for a later date. Julia, Tyler and I had a great time rocking out to *Dynamite* and an array of popular songs.

Julia and I at Kissmas Bash

Mall of America...bridges and pretty lights

Despite that I decided to continue with my road trip to Minnesota plans, meaning a friend and I were going to (okay he was going to) drive 6 hours to the state West of us, that just so happens to colder than Wisconsin. Yes, apparently that is possible! And of course I have terrible timing and planned the trip in winter…

Filling up with gas in the freezing cold!

We arrived in MN in time for a drink at the bar and an early night, I had big plans for Saturday, that entailed…shopping! Not because I wanted to buy anything in particular but rather because we were going to The Mall of America, which is the third largest mall in North America. We had an amazing time at the mall, all 6 hours of being there, and I’m still not sure we saw it all.

Mall of America, MN

In the middle of the Mall is an amusement park. We went on this one “structure” that is basically 4 floors of various climbing it’s called the Flying Dutchman and is described as ‘the tallest sky trail rope course in the world (56 feet).’

The decision to try it out went something like this.

‘Tyler, do you want to try this?’

‘Um, not really unless you want to’

‘I really want to do it!’

‘Okay let’s go’

Flying Dutchman in Mall of America

After being harnessed, given instructions and once we were on approx the 3^rd level…I turned scared. Tyler told me I had better keep going as the whole thing was my idea in the first place. I soldiered on tightly hugging each pole as I reached and saying a silent prayer, but eventually I really started to enjoy the ascend to the final level and of course the descend on to solid ground!

Map of the amusement park in Mall of America, MN

The rest of the time in MN was spent taking pictures of bridges, sculptures and churches. Unfortunately like I said before, Minneapolis/St. Paul are both freezing, which made taking endless amount of pictures a little hard as I wasn’t quite prepared for the snow that was already covering the ground.

Pretty bridge...with pretty lights

We also visited a sculpture garden which was covered in snow but really pretty. That's where the cherry on a spoon sculpture is...if you're ever seen or heard of it.

Cherry on a spoon, MN

The drive back was…well…6 hours…I slept for a lot of those hours, leaving my road trip buddy alone to drive. I guess I’m not a very good road trip buddy! 

Hmmm, see what happens when I fall asleep?!

Thanksgiving *puke*

I attended a ‘Folk fair’ celebration which was advertised as “bringing the culture of peace together” which I thought sounded great, my host parents on the other hand were a little concerned and told me NOT to breathe the air there! So I had to explain that it was not a hippie fest, but rather a festival of bringing various cultures together. I had a really good time watching dancers from Poland, Germany, Hawaii and a few other places and it was really great to see all the different food from the different countries.

Dancer at the Folk Fair, WI

This year I celebrated Thanksgiving with my host family and a few of their friends. The boys were super cute and spend most of the time smiling and making everyone laugh. Annabel entertained us all with her talents singing “this land is your land”, “how much is that doggy?” and “welcome to music” I was really impressed that she was so confident and outgoing. Dinner was great…unfortunately throwing up for the remainder of the night was not! The day before I was playing with Braden, we were having a great time and 10 minutes before Dave got home, Braden ran up to me and I reached my arms out to him only to have our hug session end with him puking all over me! *sad face* Hence the fact that the next day it was me that was puking.

The boys sitting by the Thanksgiving table

Double Royalty…

I attended 2 crownings this month, which are basically the beginning of Mardi Gras season where every German cultural group chooses a Prince and Princess to represent the group for the year. The first crowning was fun although I only knew about 5 people that were there. The second crowning was a friend of mine’s aunt and uncle that were being crowned, so that was really great to be a part of!

Heather and I at the 1st crowning

Heather and her brother Andy were in the band that was playing for the second crowning, which meant I had to hang around and wait for them to get in a quick rehearsal before the event began. Luckily Andy’s best friend Tyler was also left in limbo so we decided to team up and go for dinner before.  We get along pretty well so that’s a good thing.

Heather and I at the 2nd crowning

Games night…

November has been a great month, we arranged a games night at a friend’s house. We played this one game called Partini, which is super fun! It was girls versus guys (till a few more arrived then we added a guy to our side) the game is a mix up of a bunch of different games, so it’s luck of the draw what games you play every round. There is a horrible one called “Hum Punch” where you have to hum songs to your group and they have to guess them. Then there is a confusing one called “What Not” where you have to describe 5 things on your card without saying the word. (So you use things that are opposite and seem really logical to you, then you realize not everybody looks after kids and ‘gets’ you.) There is a coordinately challenging game called “Bouncers” where you have to catch a ball in a cup or throw it to your partner’s cup and so forth (surprisingly I did not totally suck at this game). The easiest games were “Mime Twist” (where you act out your card) and “Clay Smoothie” where you mold the objects on your card. So after much giggles and funny moments (Dan trying to mold toilet paper and like me having to act out “stripper”) it was decided the girls (and Dan) were victorious! I mean with all those X chromosomes…what did you expect? 

The winning team!