St Martin Pictures

So Gardner mentioned St Martin's already and things that took place that night. So I am going to simply upload some pictures here of that night. Since I am the one who walked around with the kids as they went door to door, I do need to add one funny thing that happened.

At one house, the kids got a clementine. It took the people awhile to answer the door and then afterwards, that is what they received. Later on that night, the same thing happened. It took them awhile to answer the door. Shantal laughs about how they are looking frantically for something to give them before they answer the door. And sure enough, they got fruit again.

It Seems like those that were not prepared thinking the kids wouldn't come gave out the fruit. just was funny with the comment Shantal made. When they finally got a banana, I joked that we could now make a fruit salad.

The kids had a blast that night. And I must say, I was really impressed at how well they knew these St Martin Songs. We went around with a neighbor friend who has 2 kids. And our kids knew the songs better than the other kids. So I was very impressed.

I did get sick from being outside in the cold for so long. I now have a cold, dry cough and my eyes hurt like crazy. Like they are always tired or something. And then my ears have started to hurt as well. But it was a fun night for the kids.

And then they took candy into the school the next day. Remember, this is the first year the kids took candy to the school to give away. Last year, my kids didn't do the door to door, or the store to store thing. We had only been in germany a month and we did the parade and then went home. Well, the kids took in their candy. They were so excited about it. Well, all the kids were kind of laughing at them because that was *all* they brought. These kids really took almost all their candy. I was impressed by that when I saw their big bags. Shantal didn't care though. She said, she would rather keep her candy anyway. That's my girl!

Here are the pictures I promised! Also, just found a 9 second video of the parade I took. It is really dark and that is why I didn't make it longer. Now I wish I would have.

This is a Weckmann. It is a bread shaped like a man with a pipe. Gardner spoke of this in his last post.

This is St Martin riding his horse and leading the Parade of kids with their lanterns through the street. Hard to see it because my camera doesn't take pictures in the dark very well.

Spencer so re-luctantly getting his picture taken with his lantern right before the parade started.

Hannah standing with her class right before the parade started. Her Lantern is a fish aquarium.

Emma with her store bought lantern.

Shantal during the parade. I was lucky to get the shot!

The kids singing at a door to get their candy. You can see how much stuff they have in their bags already.

This is some of the bigger candy bars that they took out of their bags after we got home.

A look inside their bag after the big stuff was taken out.

After the three big kids took out their big stuff, this is what it looked like inside our big bowl.

This is how much fruit we came home with. 24 Clementines, 6 apples and 3 bananas.