Thank You Family For My New Camera!!

It has taken me a long time, but finally...THANK  YOU  ALL  FOR  THE  WONDERFUL  GIFT,  FAMILY!!

I do hope I do it justice through some great pictures for all of you to enjoy!

My first pictures were of John's friend Christian and his visit here with us.  He came a couple days after Christmas and stayed until January 27th.  This was his first visit to the USA from his home in Chile, South America, and since it was his summer break (Southern Hemisphere), it was winter here!  And he surely got a good taste of winter while he was here, poor guy!  But that is what everyone in the world who knows the word "Minnesota" thinks, so he may as well have it as his first experience.

The night that Christian arrived.

He bought special shirts for himself and John
and brought a gift for each of the rest of us.
He gave Esther and me each a very special box of
Chilean  chocolate cookies.

A couple days later was New Year's Eve, so he got
to meet  some of our crazy friends!

His first day he thought the snow was
amazing!  I think he got pretty used to
it by the time he left...but he never really
got used to the cold.

When John was at work,  he bundled up and ventured
out alone to explore White Bear Lake.

He was intrigued by people out on top of the lake, even
cars driving on the lake!

Christian enjoyed and was often seen
doing this "Perplexus Ball" that we got for Christmas.

A night of bowling.

John got his new car (after his accident with his Saturn)
while Christian was here.

Christian absolutely loved singing songs
together, which we did a lot.

Heading out to a sledding party for his first time.
  Christian also got to ice skate for the first time
when he was here.

Joseph and Daniel were trying to copy David and John's
giant cookies of  some years ago.  But then they realized that
they couldn't do the J and D again!  So they chose Andrew
(Joseph's middle name) and  Daniel chose R for Rebecca
Then Dad ate a chunk out of the R before we took a picture, and
Daniel then had to change it to a P, for Paul, I guess!

Dropping Esther off to go back to school
after her Christmas break.  It was soooo wonderful to
have another girl here for a while!!

Christian's last night here.  He said he may come back
in July of 2014 and see what MN is like in the summer.

He called us his "other family".  What a blessing
it was to have him here!