Christmas in Italy

We have a tradition of having one fake tree and one real tree and we broke that tradition this year. Real trees were hard to find until about the last week before Christmas, and they were EXPENSIVE! So Dan found a lady selling her fake tree and we bought in on the two fake trees and a lot of pine candles. We had a good time decorating this year as Luana looked at all the ornaments and was excited to help put them up. This tree is smaller than what we usually have and so it worked out well that we have 2 kids less ornaments and while we missed the girls a ton, the tree didn't know the difference.

Christmas Market in Italy - Limetola Castle

Italy does Christmas markets too!

Seth and his friend Amy (just incase they get married some day- I thought I should keep the picture)

Switzerland

Thanksgiving in Bern turned into Christmas in Basel Switzerland very quickly and we enjoyed many things that Switzerland had to offer! 

Basel borders very closely with France, Italy and Germany so it is a blend both food wise and language wise of all of these countries and was really exciting to taste and try all of the goodies and bakeries! Ask us some time about getting lost on the train and ending up in a different country with no pass ports, and the wrong train tickets!

This waffle came from a place called choice-K-bob and they shaved the chocolate right on to the the fresh hot waffle!

Basel is home to Switzerland's largest Christmas market and we loved it! The "Kinder Punch" and the many cheese choices! It was just the kick off to the holiday that we were looking for!

Lucern

The old world charm was soaked in and appreciated by all!

Of course visiting large chocolate stores are in order when traveling in one of the worlds chocolate capitals! We sampled a few!

The stuff story books are made of!

It was fun seeing both the signs of Fall and Winter and for a family that spends a lot of time in Arizona where you do not get to experience season change we appreciated it a lot!

Seth loves his German food- must have been born there or something?

Lucern River cruise

A toy and doll house  museum was a great hit with Paige!

I might have enjoyed some of the miniatures as well!

We were only there for a few days, but we had a favorite bakery and went many times!

 Some traditional food is always in order and we enjoyed this fondue until we had cheese coming out our ears! Thats a lot of cheese ! It was so good!

Once a gain with a brat worst! Seth and his German food!

Christmas market in Basel

Who wouldn't want a lot of meat on a stick and topped with a hard roll? I have been to a lot of Christmas markets, and I will say this one in Basel defiantly hit the nail on the head in the food department!

Ready to bring on Christmas!

Lucern river 

Grateful for Temple Blessings

 It is a great thing to appreciate the wonderful things you have been blessed with on Thanksgiving, but it is even more wonderful to go an partake of them to show your appreciation.

 We are very grateful for all of the blessings we receive from being an eternal family and for our thanksgiving we flew to Switzerland ( our closest temple) and spend two days at the temple and the surrounding area appreciating all th Lord has given us!

The woods behind the temple made for a beautiful walk

Luana's first flight

Luana likes to take pictures of Dan and I kissing or hugging!

This was also Luana's first trip to the temple.

 A wonderful thing happened while we were at the temple. We had been told we would be able to do baptisms along with another group that was traveling to the temple. We assumed they would not speak english. When we arrived and met the group, we found that they not only spoke english, but were another American ward from Italy and make a tradition of this temple trip each Thanksgiving. They bring along with them all the things needed to make their Thanksgiving dinner right in the dorms near the temple.
They invited us to stay and eat with them. It was like family and it was lovely and it was a huge blessing. The kids had fun with their youth, there was by miracle one Italian girl who was Luana's age also staying in the dorms and so many people to chat with and to enjoy our Thanksgiving with and it made us feel even more blessed!

Bern Switzerland November 2016