Our last day in Oklahoma

We managed to fit just a little more into our last day in Oklahoma. We met a local celebrity at L&B Yarn Co., Gnorbert. Gnorbert is a traveling gnome with a daily photo blog. He will be making his first international trip this Spring. We are hoping to keep up with him. He is following our blog too. It was nice to meet another traveler. We visited historical Main Street in Norman. American flags lined the street and many of the buildings looked much like they did in 1900. We saw the James Garner statue. He is a famous actor from Norman. His statue was dressed as the professional gambler Bret Maverick in the comedy Western series Maverick. After walking around Main Street we had our last meal in Norman at Tarahumara's Mexican Cafe and Cantina. We tried the carne asada tacos. We were told that it wasnot really Mexican food but Tex-Mex, a style of food influenced by Mexican cuisine served in Texas and Oklahoma, we aren't really sure what that means but it tasted good. Norman, Oklahoma was fun. We enjoyed the Christmas celebrations with our hosts and their family. We cooked a lot and made a lot of people smile. But our bags are packed and we are off to California. We are excited to see our next destination.

We visited a local yarn store

We visited a local yarn store, L & B Yarn Company,
http://www.lbyarnco.com/ Johannes and our host met on Ravelry and we thought it only fitting to visit a yarn store. They had a lot of nice yarn and we made some new sheep friends. Mr. Acrylic gave us a ride around the store, showing us some of his favorite yarns.

Christmas and Sylvester celebrations

We had a great Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve in Oklahoma City, were our host's family cooked a huge turkey and ham. Paul proudly pointed out that the craving knifes were German made :) and we were also excited to see homemade Apfelstrudel.

Earlier in the day we helped our host make cranberry relish. We've been cooking a lot for the holidays. We had a lot of fun on Christmas day.

We even had Christmas stocking hung buy the fireplace with the family's. We helped open presents and our littlest hosts got some fun toys that were just our size. Our New Years/Sylvester celebrations were quiet, but we had a traditional New Year's Day meal. Black-Eyed peas, with ham and cornbread. Apparently you must eat black-eyed peas to insure a prosperous new year. The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity.

We arrived at Danika in Oklahoma

We arrived in Oklahoma safe and sound. It was a nice trip but very cold. But Oklahoma is warm, 57 Fahrenheit that's about 14 Celsius. Our host Danika said it was unusually warm for this time of year, just wait a few days and the weather will get cold again. When we arrived, our host family was making a holiday candy with chocolate and peppermint, called Peppermint Bark. We thought there was some kind of wood product involved but it only looks like birch bark. Hans was pretty hungry and enjoyed the pretzels dipped in white chocolate and peppermint. We got the recipe and hope to make it for our friends back in Germany. We spent most of our day getting to know our host family and resting. After our long rest we decided to get a closer look at the family's Christmas tree and took a long climb to the top. Hans was the first to make it to the top. We are pretty excited about Christmas and can't wait to see what things are in store. Our host Danika keeps talking about running "errands". We like hiking and backpacking but are willing to go "running" with our host if that is what the family is doing.
P.S. Found out "running errands" means, going in and out of stores and family members houses very quickly with a long list of things to do. It looks like a lot of preparations are being made for the Christmas holiday and meals.