Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Everyone! I can't believe another year has past and that TJ and I have now lived in Germany for 16 months. It was also a nice change of pace that we stayed in the area rather than traveling for the holiday, but with Tut's questionable health it all worked out for the best. We were invited to a Silvester Party (they call New Year's the Silvester because its the day of the feast of St. Saint Silvester) by a German friend of ours as he was renting out a facility, but I wasn't supposed to be able to attend because Tut was to have surgery. To our pleasant surprise, Tut's tumor is shrinking and the surgery wasn't needed...leaving me to have a Happy New Year as well. Tut, on the other hand probably didn't like it because he was scared to death the whole day with the Germans lighting off firecrakers in the streets for the Silvester celebration...but he survived that as well!
TJ and I started out the night with some well-deserved sushi, and then headed to the party only a few blocks away. We took our token "beginning of the night picture" to make sure we have a good one and then partied on through the night with our friends.



Our friends consist of some people that work at the office with TJ and then significant others as well. The party was fun with a full bar and tons of food provided by Konrad's brother, who is a chef, and also we had great music and plenty of room to dance! Here is a picture of the guys before the stroke of midnight...TJ, Konrad, and Tobias.



About 5 minutes before midnight everyone grabbed some champagne and their drinks and headed outside to watch and set off fireworks. There were also an abundance of sparklers...and smoke from sparklers and the streets burning up with fireworks!

After we rang in the new year, everyone headed back inside for more food, drink, and of course dancing!!! As many of you can imagine, TJ was cutting a rug all night...and in this one so is Rico!

TJ and I only made it until something like 2:00 in the morning before we were in bed and only slightly disturbed by the remaining fireworks on the streets. All in all it was a great time here in Germany...as per usual!

Auf Wiedersehen