Merry Christmas!

This Christmas was our first away from family. We decided that it would be too expensive to travel and that we should stay at home and start some of our own traditions. Well, we didn't start many traditions but we spent a lot of time celebrating with friends.
On Christmas eve we went to Bishop Alletto's house where they were having their family's tradition of an italian dinner. It was really good and we had a lot of fun playing games and visiting with the Allettos and their other guests. When we came home we read the Christmas story from the scriptures before going to bed.
On Christmas morning we slept in and then opened presents together. We were sent a bunch of nice gifts from our families and then we gave a few to each other. It was really a nice Christmas. We had bread pudding for breakfast/lunch and then we talked to our families. Probably the best part of Christmas was talking to John's family over the webcam while they were on the phone with John's brother Alan who's on a mission in England right now. Alan couldn't hear us talking to him very well but we could hear him and it was very fun. He has the craziest English accent now. He's been out for about a year and a half and he'll be coming home at the end of July this summer. He's a great and very enthusiastic missionary and we're really proud of him!


We spent Christmas day dinner with our friend Gina, her mom Dana, and the missionaries. Dinner was wonderful! We had a prime rib roast, twice baked potatoes, stuffing, deviled eggs, and probably a million other things. Gina and her mom really out-did themselves. After dinner we played Monopoly, which Johnwas really excited about because its a tradition in his family to play Monopoly on Christmas. We had a great time and we were so grateful to spend Christmas with our friends.