The Brewers in Hamburg: MERRYchristmas GO ROUND

i didn't mention in the weihnachtsmarkt post the other day that another commonality of these christmas markets is that a bunch of them have merry go rounds (or carousels) for the kinder (yep, that's german for kids). but what's cool is that these merry go rounds are all gussied up for christmas--see the ornaments and garlands and lights? really fun and festive.

this was the perfect merry go round for our kinder. you see, we have merry go round history with the prince. we took him to griffith park once when he was really little and i think he was a bit traumatized from the whole ordeal. the blaring music, the horses going up and down, AND it spinning round and round at the same time were a bit too much for him. he was not a fan at all. but when we saw this one, we thought, PERFECT. it was small, had no music, and no up and down horsies. so we bought the tickets.

but, the prince was nervous.

no sireee. not gonna happen.

grace, on the other hand, is pretty fearless. she hopped right on. this was her first time on a merry go round and boy did she think it was the greatest. she was beaming from ear to ear.

here's daddy giving his girl a high five. each time she came around she just had the biggest smile plastered on her face. it was really sweet to watch her love it so much. and as she rode around, jose would wave to her. but then the real fun began:

he started to run after her.
it was the cutest thing ever.

he was RUNNING after his sister, laughing and smiling. and we didn't have to pay for a ticket for this sort of fun. oh, how we delighted in watching the two of them. he just kept going ROUND AND ROUND--MERRILY along. it was absolutely precious. priceless. very, very, MERRY i must say.

then there was the ticket guy. notice the big maple leaf to the left of him? while grace was riding her 3rd time around (by then jose had stopped running after her!) jose kept giving the ticket guy this leaf, and then would want it back. they kept giving it back and forth to each other like a little game. it was really cute, and you could tell the man was blessed by jose.

then, to our surprise, jose was ready to join in on the action. he wanted a ticket.

but he didn't ride solo. he had a friend...and this kid was really cute. they kept smiling at each other and jose kept trying to steal the kid's hat.

please notice miss motorcycle mama in the background here. by now this was grace's 4th ride, and she had now ridden a horse, car, elephant and now a motorcycle. she was having a ball!

as for jose, he was being a lil monkey. he could barely sit still the entire ride--but he was loving it. he also kept waving to everyone--to the ticket guy included, who waved back at him. i think jose made his day--jose has a way of bringing simple JOY into people's lives--often to strangers. it is his gift.