Andorra

The first weekend in January David surprised me with a little getaway to Andorra (look at the map below to see where it is). We went with a couple from our ward. It was just a two day trip, but we had a nice time. It was nice to be in the cold and see a bit of snow.
Of course these good little return missionaries found a half gallon bottle of beer on the sidewalk (almost completely full, it must not have been very good!!) and decided to take some funny pictures!

You may not believe this but Andorra is actually a little tiny country. And it may be stuck between France and Spain, but their official language is Catalan!!

12 dongs = 12 grapes

This is a Spanish tradition... Everybody gets 12 grapes and when the clock strikes 12 it "dongs" 12 times and in order to have a good year you have to eat a grape each time it dongs, without falling behind. I have to admit that I´m not a big fan of this tradition since the grapes here have seeds in them! But what I find HILARIOUS is that there are some people (like my mother and sister in laws) that have to actually PEEL the grapes before eating them!! I had NEVER heard of peeling grapes before I came here!

getting ready....

Everybody with grapes in hand....

HaPPy NeW YeAR!!!

We had some friends over for dinner to celebrate the New Year.

My wish for everyone is that 2010 is better than 2009!

The 26th is a holiday in Cataluña, so I thought I would give Julia a day off of cooking and cleaning and had everyone come over to our house. We ate lots, played games and as you can see everyone had an opinion on how to cut the ham!!

Christmas Day 2009

Christmas day we still had lots of food, but not so many people. So after eating it was nap time for these four while I "played with" Miriam´s hair.

This picture proves that Christmas is pretty boring when there aren´t any little kids around!!

Christmas Eve 2009

Lots of food and family on Christmas Eve at Julia´s house.

FHE fun!

At FHE we played "Cuantos Puntos" (how many points) and these were the players that ended up with points. If you look closely on their faces you´ll find the points!

Ready for Christmas

It´s been hard, but I waited until after Thanksgiving (in the US) to put up the Christmas decor. I love having the lights and tree etc. up, it makes it feel more like home.

This is our little Nativity set...it will do until I get moms!!

The tree mom bought me the second time they came over here.

Out the window you can see lights on the balcony...we were the first to put lights up!

NEW MOON

Not to be mean or anything, but to show you all that sometimes there is an advantage of living over here in Spain...take a look at the DATE on this poster (I know the day and month are backwards for you USAers) yup that´s right, it comes out here 2 days BEFORE it comes out in the USA!!

So, I´ll be thinking about all you sister-in-laws and cousins and friends while I´m in the theater in Barcelona watching it on Wednesday - in english!! And I´ll try not to post anything that would ruin it for you all!!!