Alexander Family's Big Adventure: Mom is here!!!!!

I'm so happy that my mom is here!! We met up in the airport without incident, even though we had no way of communicating and it took a little while for us to connect, but the reunion was so sweet!

I had the great idea to take Mom and the family to the Wiesbaden Christmas market the day Mom arrived in order to help her stay awake until later and get on our schedule. I also had the bright idea to take the train so I didn't have to fight for parking in town. That train was crowded! It was challenging on the way there to navigate the train with the stroller (David), Griff (Mom), and the other three kids (me), but we did it okay.

When we got to Wiesbaden, two stops only which is so convenient, we ate at McDonald's. Was it gluttony? We ordered 60 chicken nuggets and three large fries. You should have seen the look on the lady's face when I said "sechszig"! But the cashier was pleasant enough and the kids tore into them. I think Lilly wasted half of one and that was it!

As soon as we left McDonald's, I realized it was colder than I had expected, so I thought we'd make our trip short. It wasn't easy, since we still had about .8 km to walk to get to the Christmas market. I let the kids ride the merry-go-round and bought them some candy. Neither Mom nor David got to look around much, and the kids were ready to go home. I thought about the bus since the train was so crowded, but David wanted to take the train again anyway so we didn't have to switch.

It was even more crowded on the way home! Same arrangement, but this time I got separated from Mom and David inside the train car. I signaled to Mom "two stops", and got off when it was time. I didn't see Mom's door opening, so I hurriedly gave Livvy and Alex to David and ran to the door while carrying baby Lilly. I didn't have enough time to shuffle her over to David! When I pressed the button to open the door, it was so full that people almost fell out backwards! I yelled "Mom!" in a near-panicked voice, and fortunately she heard and answered. She and Griffy pushed through the people. They no sooner got off and the train started moving. Whew! I thank God that wasn't the disaster it could have been!!!

I thought we might take the train to the Rudesheim Christmas market the next day, but her luggage hadn't shown up, and they were going to deliver it, so we stuck around the house. I was glad for the excuse because I wasn't prepared to fight a crowd like that again so soon! Maybe we'll just stick to weekdays while she's here, instead. (We eventually made it to Rudesheim. See? And we visited the Mainz Christmas Market. Lovely!)

Update: Mom's luggage showed up, and we spent the entire day shopping in Wiesbaden, including a nice visit to the Christmas market on a weekday without the kids and with a much smaller crowd. Saturday we had a small birthday party for Alex. However, Lilly had been sick again with a fever. She's all better!

I had planned to work four days this week. I changed my mind! I need to take Mom to a couple more cities in Germany, and I'm already running out of daylight! It's been so wonderful having her. I'm so happy she's here.