God Jul fra Sola, Norway, 2008!

Merry Christmas! Despite all our moving around and trip-taking, Santa still found Joe, Tim and Lily Messina and their Christmas tree. Joe is 14 this year and ended up with a lot of basketball goodies...Eastbay is doing well by us. Then there is Tim, who also is very much into basketball...but is also into Guitar Hero, etc. Amazon.com is the place to shop for him! Lily...she got a lot of dolly stuff this year...thanks to American Girl. She got some Bitty Twins (an Asian boy and girl...named Nicholas and Noel for the season...) and a trundle bed for them to sleep in and lots of clothes for them to model. She also got a monkey she had seen on "Momma's computer." It is made by Precious Moments (I know, shocking that I was on the precious moments website!) and is called Precious Paws. They have cute little bears, dogs, cats, and she wanted the monkey. She wanted a monkey and she wanted it to have a basketball uniform on. Her wish was Santa's command. I thought perhaps Hoosier would be a great name for said monkey...however, she didn't like that name and decided she thought London would be a good name. So London the monkey it is! (Did I mention that Lily loved London? She loved riding on the tube...the underground train system...she loved looking at the maps and counting the stops on the different lines we rode on.)
Aunt Amy saved the day with a package with beautiful blankets (they are all snuggled up in them right now and watching Kung Fu Panda) and American Christmas candy. God bless her...Santa was having a stocking issue last night and Amy saved the day!
We spent the day lounging around and enjoying our gifts from one another and calling the States to wish our families Merry Christmas. Sounds like a lot of the U.S. had a white Christmas this year.
We take off tomorrow afternoon for Sirdal, about 90 minutes' drive from here inland and up in the mountains. The Messina men want to snow board. Lily and I will keep the home fires burning in the hytte (cabin) we have rented and will practice making snowmen and snow angels. :o) We'll be there for 2 1/2 days.
Rich got some goodies for his bike...(as in bicycle) and some things for his marathon dream run in September. I got a few pieces of Polish pottery and a gorgeous poster-sized frame with a collage of pictures the boys have taken over the last year or so. There are hundreds of pictures of all different times since we arrived here in Norway. It is really very special and I hear that Rich and Tim were up until 2 a.m. working on it. I love it! My big gift was a trip to Zurich, Switzerland with Rich in early February. Lily and I will accompany him on a business trip he'll be taking. We'll have someone staying with the boys during those 5 days. Sounds like another fun adventure!