Happy Birthday, baby Burnham!

We are so excited to welcome to the world our newest little granddaughter.  She was born yesterday, Jan 30/2017 and she was a tiny 5lbs. 13 oz. and 19.5 inches long.  she was born in Williams Lake, BC.  Although she came a bit early (about 3 weeks) and came quickly with an emergency c-section we are so happy that she is healthy and so is our wonderful surrogate mom, Andrea Wilson.  I don't know the words to express our gratitude for this wonderful, kind woman.  She has been determined from the start of the process to be able to carry a baby for Jolayne and Dave. She suffered through 2 failed attempts which are difficult not only for Jo and Dave but for her as well.  It would have been very easy for her to say no to trying again but she persevered and we are beyond grateful.  Andrea, we love you for giving us this gift.  May you be forever blessed for your charitable heart.  I know we are.

Jolayne was by Andrea's side during the surgery but Dave had to fly in from Edmonton and missed it.

Here he is --holding his daughter for the first time.

SNOW!

Snow in Bari is rare.  If it does snow it will usually stay for about ten minutes then melts away.  January was very different for the Barese people as the snow actually stayed and continued to snow for a few days.  They have not had snow like this for over 35 years.  The members say that the senior coppia brought the snow from Canada.  I don't see how that would be possible so I disagree.  They have said that when we go they want a couple that is from Hawaii.  It was entertaining to watch the people deal with the snow.  Everything seemed to be closed.  Schools, businesses, --even some roads.  They just don't have the equipment to take care of it when it stays on the ground for any length of time.  A lot of people stayed home from church or just park their car and walk everywhere as they are afraid to drive on the roads.  

 Looking outside our apartment on the farmer's field below.

Made me a little homesick for home...  In Bari you have to have winter tires put on by Oct 1 or have chains on your tires if it snows or you are given a big fine.  Most people don't do this because the snow rarely stays.  They will just park their car.  We had to take a picture of this bus on dry roads with chains on their tires.....

We explained to our English class that this was called a blizzard.  They had never seen one before.

New Years Eve in Fiuggi

We traveled about 3 1/2 hours from Bari to Fiuggi which is quite close to Rome for a YSA Single's conference and party.  We got there on Friday the 30th and went home on the 1st.  We all stayed in one hotel and we were the only people there so we took over all the rooms--and didn't need to be quiet either night after midnight....hmmmm....The hotel catered every meal and cleaned everything after so it was a great deal for the people that organized it.  They had classes for the day on Saturday or they could just go exploring--whatever they wanted.  The classes were so interesting--one of the instructors was our Bishop Valentini who is the South Italy Institute director as well as Ugo Perego who is the Institute director for all of Italy.  On Friday night they had a dance and the kids painted their faces and arms with neon paint that glowed under the black light.  Chris and the Bishop were the bar guys who made "mocktails" for everyone.--they could choose from: "RM", "Gadianton Robber", "Mormonito".  On Saturday night--New Year's Eve they had a 20's theme and lots of the kids
came dressed in 20's style.  I was so happy to see so many participate in costume.  They had appetizers and stood around while a few different people sang with someone playing piano for them.  The atmosphere was perfect!

Then they danced until midnight , rang in the New Year with lots of baci and we were ready to say goodnight--but no--it was time for a huge meal.  We went into the dining room and they fed us pasta, turkey, etc etc...Great fun!

Happy New Year !!!

We have to admit that being in Italy for Christmas is very different than we're used to.  We were involved in a couple of choir concerts the week of Christmas--which we love to participate in but other than that it was very quiet.  We missed our family a lot but we are thrilled to be able to be on a mission for our Savior and celebrate Christmas in the way it should be celebrated.  There were no gifts for us (except one from Scott and Erin that arrived at the last minute) --just the gift of skyping family at the end of our day was present enough.

I neglected to take any pictures on Christmas Day.  We were kindly invited to the Santoro home for Christmas Day pranzo.  They also invited Sorella Santoro's brother and wife and their two children along with others.  We had a few wonderful courses and felt like we didn't need to eat again for a few days.  We started with sliced prosciuto (cooked and smoked) along with cheeses, lots of different olives, and breads.  After that was pasta--linguine with clam sauce.  Then came the broth --turkey and beef that had rice in it--a traditional Christmas course--it was delicious!  Managed to polish that off with no problem--then the meat dish--turkey and beef chunks that were so tender it just melted in our mouths.  Fruit was next--every type imaginable--and then Pandora or Panetone which is also a tradition!  EVERYONE has panetone or pandora for Christmas dessert.

It comes with a bag of icing sugar and you open up the bag that the pandora is in and cover it with the icing sugar.  It's pretty good.  (All panetone and pandora have expiry dates of 6 months or more...!....)

MERRY CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS AND FAMILY!!  We love you all

Valeria's Christmas Eve baptism

We have been so happy to have participated in Valeria's baptism on Christmas Eve morning.  Valeria is a very special lady--early 30's and has a little 4 year old daughter, Elizabeth.  Valeria speaks a few languages and is working on a few more.  She asked Chris and I to speak at her baptism and we were honored to do it.  This is the 4th time I have had to speak in church in Italian and I think I'm getting better at it.  Below is Anziano Brown who baptized her and Sister Dustin and Sister Sargeant who taught her.

With Elizabeth and us after the baptism.

After the baptism was over we had a missionary Christmas Eve party with all the missionaries in our district at our apartment.  We had tortellini soup and yummy buns!

After the meal we played some games then watched "Its a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart. Had lots of popcorn and Root Beer (that we found in an "American store" here--each can cost 2.50 Euro! and a box of Fruit Loops was 16 Euro!!!!)   That was one of the approved movies for the mission.  It was great because a few of them had never seen it before so they really enjoyed it.  After that we headed over to a Senior's home to do some caroling  and then to Centro Bari to carol some more.  We got a bit silly when we were in downtown Bari since very few people were there.  The lights were beautiful and music was playing--all American Christmas carols so we just sang with them and had a blast.