Snowed In!!!

This is Gloria talking. Hi peeps. Being snowed in is kinda fun and not. I mostly got frost bites. If you live in the mountains you'll have fun in the snow. All the kids will miss school a lot. We missed school four days and only had one day of school. It's a snow storm!!!!!!!!
TaTa for now(See you next time I write to you.)

Hey this is Grace speaking!!! It's really weird to be snowed in a whole week. The roads are really slick, and loads of snow. I just sleep, play outside, read, listen to music, and watch TV. CU l8er BE HAPPY!


SNOW everywhere! (This is Lisa now.) It's so beautiful, all the frosted trees and piled drifts. Our little fluffball dingbat cat is having a ball in the snow. Her more sensible big brother is just waiting it out in the garage. It's actually nice to have a good excuse to stay home, feed the fire, make music, play games, talk to each other, prepare our Christmas service gifts for the family. We had church in the living room this morning, complete with talks/testimonies by the five of us, songs, the Sacrament, and even a musical number -- Gloria playing "Stars Were Gleaming" on her violin. Amy Grant is belting out "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" on the i-Pod. The only bummer is that Garrett and Bayra, with my young grandsons Zach and Nate, are stuck down in Tualatin, where they went last Thursday to visit friends. They flew in from Chicago on Wednesday and we haven't seen them much since. We're planning to bless 2-month-old Nathan here at our house on the 23rd. That's my baptismal date, so it's a special day. We blessed two other grandsons--Zach and Gavin--on the same date two years ago, right here in the same place. I hope it happens -- we have a big party planned.

UPDATE on our BIG TRIP: We won't leave home until 7 April, since Gabby doesn't leave for her mission until 1 April. The plan is to fly to Chicago to visit Garrett and Bayra, then from there to Guatemala. We have some credit on Mexicana airlines, because we had planned to be in Guatemala all this year and had already bought tickets. But now they don't fly to Portland, so we have to get to Chicago. Luckily for us, we've incentive anyway!

I'm having great fun arranging home exchanges for our trip. So far, I've arranged exchanges with families in Copenhagen, London, and Antwerp during July and August. Home exchanges are the best thing going on in the travel world! We get to stay FREE in comfortable homes, all set up for families, and in most cases, use their car. This makes places like London and Copenhagen in high season actually doable. Accommodations is a large chunk of most travel budgets, and this will cut our costs considerably. I'm also working on plans to exchange our timeshares for places at Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe), Ibiza (Spanish island in the Mediterranean), Goa (Indian coastal resort), and Roturua (New Zealand). Other "free" weeks include the one we'll spend in Atlanta with my mom, brother, and sister (I hope--it depends on the flights); the week in Tokyo mooching off our son, Gordon; the two weeks in Mongolia with Bayra's family (though we plan to be out on tour with them most of the time); and the week we'll spend at the school in India where we sponsor a couple of students. We're planning to use caravans and campgrounds in Australia and NZ, so we'll have our wheels, kitchen, and beds all right there with us. And for the few remaining weeks, there are plenty of little apartments to rent here and there all over the world.

I'm excited about my progress in arranging accommodations for us. When I travel alone, or even with one other, I don't always arrange all the accommodations ahead of time. But it feels different with kids. Like this week of snow, I expect traveling long-term with kids will require a slower pace, a different mindset. One of the dangers of a trip like this, particularly with children, is trying to do too much, see too much, move around too much. So I think in terms of weeks, not days. We can decide what to do with our days within the context of our week+ stays. For instance, we have the London house for 3 weeks. That will be our base for exploring Great Britain.

We are open to all suggestions, ideas, and offers.

Have a wonderful Christmas!!

Gabrielle's Mission Call!

Well, I (Gabrielle) have been in the process of filling out the paperwork to be an LDS missionary for a few months now, and last week everything was finally turned in! So yesterday here I was waiting for the mail to come (it comes SO late-- like 4:00! Exasperating!). Anyway, I'm thinking my mission call could possibly come, but more likely not this week. So at 4:15 I venture out to get the mail with moderate hopes of seeing a big white envelope addressed to Sister Gabrielle Garfield. Sure enough, there was! I was very surprised, actually. So I'm all giddy and skipping back to the house. Dad was the only one home, though. So I call Mom who naturally has her cellphone off. I call my sister Genevieve who answers neither her home phone nor her cellphone. I call Garrett and Bayra who don't pick up either. And I think, "forget you guys, I'm opening it without you!" (Not really, but it was very frustrating) So I continued to make dinner as the most important piece of mail in my life was taunting me on the counter. Garret and Bayra did call back, I should add, a couple times ("Is Lisa home yet??"). And finally Mom and the girls sauntered in. Genevieve, however, was ever-elusive. I decided to try calling one last time before I would give in and open it without her. Miraculously, she answered and was on her way to our house for an unrelated reason! She didn't know what was going on when she walked in until she saw what I was holding. I got everyone I wanted on the phone and quickly proceeded to yell at everyone for several minutes to pipe the heck down. (My nephews were being very loud goofballs). Finally I opened it! I was trying to avert my eyes so I wouldn't see anything before I actually read it, so I moved the first paper to the back. Naturally, the next paper was an application for a passport, so I knew right away I was going on a foreign mission. To be more specific, and to end the suspense, I have been called to serve in the Chile Santiago East Mission! I am to report to the Provo MTC on April 1st. It's an unusually long wait, but oh well! I'm very excited to learn Spanish and go spread the good word to those Chileans! Until then, thus concludes my very detailed report of getting the mail yesterday.
Abrazos,
Sister Gabrielle Garfield