We ended up having a white Christmas!!!!!

Yesterday we didn't expect to have a white Christmas. It started out a really nice and sun shiny day and by the end of the night it was cold and raining, so snow never crossed our mind. Last night after playing Guitar Hero and calling our families we went outside to let our dogs out and guess what we found?!?!?!? Our lawn was white, our cars were white, our trees were covered in snow. It was so cool!! Needless to say Jerry was excited to have a white Christmas (this is one of those things he misses from home being from Michigan and all) and I was totallly thrilled because it was my first white Christmas!!! I couldn't believe it actually snowed down here and on Christmas day of all days!! So of course I took pics!!



Our cars covered in Italian snow!!



Snow covered cherry trees!





We were trying to get a pic of the two of us with the snow behind us....you can't really see the snow but you can see us!







My crazy dogs playing in the snow! As you can see there are only two of them running around!



That's because Peanut is running around on the side walk!! She hates the snow!!


So of course when I woke up this morning I had to go outside and see if the snow was still there or if it had melted away and guess what it was all still there!!!



The mountains and church across the road.



Snow covered ground and trees....if you look closely you can see all the doggie prints!



Just pretty....I get obessed with snow and taking pics of it!

Our First Christmas in Italy

I just wanted to say MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone since we will be more out than in this year. I am not cooking this year but we have been invited to two of Jerry's coworkers homes for the holiday and we gratefully excepted their invites. Hopefully next year when I'm more settled in and know everyone a little better I will be able to host the holiday dinners which I love to do!

At one of his co-workers home we will be doing like a ten buck gift exchange (I think it was suppose to be a 5 dollar exchange so I may have gotten carried away again!) and I put together a couple of baskets to give away....yes I tend to get carried away with gifts but everything in the basket is equal to or under ten bucks! The gift wrapping doesn't count as part of the present.....but I put one together with the Christmas Apple Korn and a couple mugs (I figure you can spike your apple cider with it) and some brandy covered cherries and the second basket is gluwhien, with two mugs, and some spiced cookies.....I figured its that time of year to have the warm sipping alcohol! LOL!! I'll post a pic or two of my two baskets I put together.












Since we will be gone almost all day tomorrow we decided to exchange gifts early!! Who am I to complain right?!?! Well I got a big ol' grin out of my hubby when he opened his package!! He was too happy with what he got!! And I was totally thrilled with my gifts as well!!

Of course we got our doggies gifts as well!! They got 3 wet foods each, raw hide bones, pupperoni sticks, these steak treats, and beef basted dog bones! Trust me when I say they love their presents! They had a wet food for dinner tonight, they'll have one tomorrow night, and one for New Years day of course! (they only get wet food on holidays so its always a treat to them!)





I got him his PS3 finally!! He was so happy!!! If you couldn't tell from that big ole cheesy grin!!!!







Of course he got a gift from each of his doggies to go along with his PS3 and yes those are blu-ray discs! He is going to be getting a t.v. that goes with that as well!! (or should I say we are getting a t.v. because I'll be using it to of course!) It won't be until the end of the month but better late than never right?!?!?! So needless to say he is completely thrilled!



I got Vera Wang Princess which I absolutely love the way it smells!!! I got a book that goes along with my Harry Potter books....yes I read them all....I'm not obessed or anything but they were a really good read!







And of course the jewelry!! A girls best friend diamonds!!!! I got two necklaces and I absolutely love them both!! For being a guy he has good taste when it comes to my jewelry...I think he has picked out almost every piece that I own!! I have never had such beautiful things before him!!!

As you can see our Christmas has started out very well!! We have been very blessed!! Oh and we are trying out the Protestant Comtemporary service on base. Yes many of you know that I am Catholic but we want to go to church together so I promised to give it a try for two months and if I am still uncomfortable we'll go to Catholic church every other weekend until we both find a service we can agree on! But so far so good! Its just something I have to get use to!!

Any who MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! I'll post pics of our dinners tomorrow if we don't get home too late!! Take care and God bless!

Our Christmas Eve Scavanger Hunt!

We had heard from a friend that one of the towns near by put up a ton of nativity scenes or in the Italain world presepi (meaning mangers), so of course we thought this would be such a fun thing to check out! We decided to go today since it is Christmas Eve and we stumbled across a different little town near our original destination, so we decided to check out both. We took well over a 150 pics today and could have taken a ton more. We were amazed at how many people actually took part in this and all the different ways and things people used to put them together! It was truly an amazing little adventure and we had so much fun trying to find to all the places that they may have been tucked away in. I am not going to post all the pics that we took but the most interesting ones from each town!
The first town we went to was Frisanco. It is a tiny but cute town! We met a really nice English family that talked to us and showed us their presepi (they put up two). I will post the pics below of the ones we found in this town.

This is one of the first ones we found. It is on an archway over a walkway...it is really cool and pretty!!

This one is near the center of town. Its one of the bigger ones that you are first greeted with when you enter this tiny town.

This one is in the fountain! I didn't even notice it when I was walking around at first. Jerry at to point it out to me! I guess its more of a pound because if you look closely you will see fish!!

This one is just so fun and colorful! It is made by one of the locals. We found this down one of the walkways that lead to the towns peoples homes.


These are the two that the English family put up every year!

This one is just intereseting since its made out of nuts!

This one was Jerry's favorite in this town.

Looking down on the town from the hillside! Isn't it beautiful?!?!?



Just sharing the view! The mountains are beautiful!
Okay so on our way to the second town we kinda got lost or misguided but we're not pointing any fingers! So we followed these signs on this horrible road that should be one way its so tiny and we think we're headed towards a town! Boy were we in for a surprise when it just dead ends at someones house! The guy was probably thinking what stupid Americans but its an adventure none the less!!

Here is a pic of the little road we were on! I should have taken pics of the worst parts...I couldn't believe we actually drove over some of this stuff

Here is a pic of us with the town sign that doesn't lead to a town just a house!

So needless to say we turn around and get the right directions and find our way to Poffabro where I believe the tradition of setting out all the different styles for of presepi for display began. This little town had so many to choose from and look at it was amazing! We took so many pictures that our camera almost ran out of batteries. We were truly amazed with how many there were and all the different types. We took pics of a lot of them but not all and I'm sure there were many more that we did not see! We plan on making this our Christmas Eve tradition while in Italy so we'll get more pics next year and hopefully find new interesting ones as well!



This one we thought was unique....I'm not really sure what the significance of the peach....I'll have to google that one and let everyone know.

This one is made out of eggs! I thought this was weird yet cute.

Just cute.

If you're a quilter you'll enjoy this one!

Someone did a whole town...in the very back is the presepe.

This one is for any of you who garden or just like your veggies LOL.

Another pretty one.


We found this one at the bottom of the tree.


another one that someone did of the whole town and I took a close up of the manger seen as well it was so pretty.

Just another unique one...its amazing that almost everyone in this town participated...

I thought this was so cool when I saw it....there was another one similiar to this one but Jerry and I liked this one best.

Carved ones

wood and sawdust...it was interesting! We found one out of clothes pins nearby but the pic came out too blurry it was cute in person though!


Eskimo seen....definitely different.



We both thought this life size one was pretty cool!!

This one was definitely one of the more stranger ones!

This one was too cute down in like a birds nest!

Of course being Italy you have to have the Murano glass seen.


As you can see they found a unique way to use their corn!

As you can see there were many unique presepi to be seen! I wish I could post them all but you would be on here for days looking at them! Plus some pics didn't come out as well as we had hoped. But this was definitely a fun thing to do on Christmas Eve! It sure was a change from going to look at Christmas lights (which not to many people around here decorate with anyhow so that would be a boring drive) and something I look forward to doing next year now that we know where to go and how to look for them!