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!!