Winter Wonderland and other happenings

Today the trees remained beautifully frosted all day, as the sun never quite made it through the clouds/light fog. It was too grey to capture a good photo, but all around we could see a lovely winter wonderland. Every branch, every blade of grass...lightly frosted and purely white. Beautiful.


Of course, Ellie's crazy mama decided we would go to the zoo on a playdate this morning, despite the fact that it was -4 degrees Celsius and snowing intermittently. At least it wasn't crowded! The kiddos had a blast! They don't care that it's cold, and we stayed in the indoor Oceanarium most of the time anyway.
We also had our first appointment with our dentist here this afternoon. We had been seeing the dentist back in New Orleans since we were making such frequent trips, but one has to admit that gets silly when one lives on a different continent. The new dentist here is very nice and sweet with Ellie too. Markus and Jennifer had check-ups and cleanings, and Ellie had her first experience of sitting in the dentist chair, reclining and seeing some of the equipment. The dentist wants to acclimate her slowly, so today she just gave Ellie a handmirror to look at while reclining and showed her the small dentist's mirror she uses to look at teeth. Not surprisingly, Ellie was not in the chair alone. She was in Papa's lap and none too thrilled about the process...but she did enjoy the little mirror and she got to turn off the exam lamp when she was all done. Our dentist even had a little treat box, from which she procured a ring that somehow exactly fits Ellie's finger. What a proud girl she was wearing that!