Well it seems that alot has happened since my last post. As usual the internet is a bit of a mystery here, thus my lack of blogging. But for the moment it's here, and I have enough patience to try to upload a few things. So let's see a brief run down of the last month or so.

I've been doing alot of skiing and although I think it's safe to say I'm the worst skiier in the village I certainly have a good time. There will be ski videos to come, but for the moment they are on some one else's camera. Aside from ski adventures, I celebrated my 23rd birthday. I know that I usually have a birthday celebration with friends at Denison and then a birthday weekend at home and to some that might seem a bit excessive. But this year has certainly outdown all the rest in the amount of celebrating. The celebrations began the night before in the village with a friend who shares the same birthday, it seemed only right that we celebrate together. There was a round of genepy for all and alot of time hanging out with friends who I hadn't seen in quite some time. The night of my birthday was celebrated with a big Moroccan dinner courtesy of one of the other residence, a wonderful torta, and then a gift of brand new ski goggles. I promptly put the goggles to use to next day for a ski adventure with Francesca, Marcolino, and Valentina. The evening of the 16th was the beginning of Waldensian festivals in the valley and so the celebrations continued. The evening began with a bunch of skiiers coming down the mountain with torches to light all of the bonfires in our village and the surrounding villages.

We stopped by a couple bonfires on our way to dinner, had a couple glasses of VinBroule and then headed off to have dinner with all of the young people from the village. The grand finale was a 4 hour lunch at the church the following afternoon. After all of which we all need a big nap and not to eat for a few days. It was a great birthday and thank you all for the birthday wishes.

A brief note

A little note to all of those young cousins (Reggie, Cadence, Nate and whoever else is reading) to God-siblings (Idge and E pay attention) to children of friends (Bear and Babytoo) and whoever else this might be useful for...Pay close attention to those science lessons you think you'll never need. Especially the ones about simple machines because you never know when you might find yourself on the roof of your house shoveling 6 feet of snow and needing to know how to make the most effective lever.
Needless to say we've found ourselves with more snow and it's becoming too heavy for the roof so...today we spent the day on top of the center, rather than the normal inside the center. We shovel snow for the entired of the day and are now thoroughly destroyed. But all is good in the village and at least we are weathering the storm together. I hope whatever part of the world you all are in you are finding some sun...

finally finished digging out

For all of you who were a little worried about my existance, no need to be any more. As you may or may not know we have had the storm of my life in the mountains the past 2 weeks. About 7 feet of snow in three days, we spent several day without power and heat, and when we were finally able to get out of our house we spent the rest of the week trying to help others dig out from avalanches and things of the sort. I'm happy to report that there is now sun and the snow is melting at a slow steady pace. Here are a few pictures of the craziest snow I've ever seen. More to come...

This is the tunnel we had to dig to get out of our front door.

The view from my bedroom window

Us trying to clear a path to the center...

The snow was so high we were able to jump off of the bell tower and land safely in the snow below...

Although we all worked like never before in our lives we managedto have alot of fun too!

I wish you all a happy and wonderful holiday spent with family and friends

I miss you all.

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas

Most of the time we think of the Christmas season starting right after Thanksgiving and although we celebrated Thanksgiving here in the mountians the rest of the country didn't so it seemed a little difficult to determine the actual beginning of the season. But I'm happy to report it is officially the beginning of Christmas at our house as we have finished decorating our Christmas tree and it is proudly on display in our front hall. A few of us were in favor of taking a trip into the surrounding forest and digging up our own tree but unfortunately that got vetoed due to the highs of -3 we'd been having. In the end we settled for a fresh tree dug up by someone crazier than us. It's a little Charlie Brown Christmas but we love it all the same, it is one of those with the sharp pointy needles that the Djupe family loves so well. We hoped that this would help keep the cat away from all our hard work but in the end it didn't seem to do much good. Fortunately for a majority of the time we were decorating Jack looked alot like this:

It was only after all of the ornaments and tinsle were on that he decided the tree would be a wonderful new playground, unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of this, Jack doesn't like to share his new playground with pesky photographers it seems.

After all our lovely decorating we moved the tree into our front hall, turned off all the lights, and admired our work. It's a pretty good tree if I do say so myself. And all our hard work was promptly rewarded with a warm dinner of cabbage stew. It was a good day here in our house. I hope all of your tree and house decorating adventures bring you all the same laughter and happiness we've had at our house this year.

Giorno di graziemente!

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was a wonderful time spent with friends, family, and those you love. Here in the mountains we made our own Thanksgiving, and since Paul recently told me "Thanksgiving is where ever the pilgrims land and make nice with the natives" it seemed more than appropriate to have a giant dinner with those who are special to me here. Francesca and I cooked up a storm for the entirety of the day and around 7:30 friends came by for an apartivo, not a normal part of the American Thanksgiving dinner, but I am living in Italy so it seemed to fit the part. We had a great time, eating, chatting, building a giant fire, and making up Thanksgiving day songs since no one could believe that I didn't know any. Here are a few pictures from out dinner:

My prize winning turkey...it was pretty delicious if I do say so myself.

Vale and Jacob trying to break the wishbone...this year we made a new rule, the person who loses has to help make the winners wish come true.

A couple visits

This week I was lucky enough to have been visited by a group of American Waldensians who have been traveling around Italy. It was fantastic to finally meet Brian Paulson who was a great help to me in getting to Italy in the first place. Along with Brain came about 14 Americans who were interested in the workings of the center. It was great to meet with all of them, I think I spoke more English in that afternoon than I have since I arrived. It was nice to finally speak without being conscious of the words I was using or having to try to think of the Italian equivilant. They were a lovely group of people and were kind enough to invite me to lunch with them in the village, which I happily accepted. At lunch I had the pleasure of speaking in depth with several members of the group, including some others who helped me get in contact with Agape and the Waldensian society both in the US and Italy. It was a wonderful visit and a nice little dose of America in my village, always helpful in getting adjusted to life in a foreign country.

After the American Waldensians left we were paid another visit here at the center...a really beautiful snow fall on the tops of the mountains. The snow should reach us here in the valley sometime this weekend but for now I'll leave you with the photo of the snow capped mountains and the news that all is well in Italy. I miss you all but am having the time of my life getting to meet and know everyone here and really settling into my home for the next year.

No foggy days in London town

Although I was anxious to get back to Italy I had quite an amazing time in London (Thank you Abbott family your generiosity, it's amazing. While I was there Nic and I decided to go have tea with the queen one afternoon.

Well I suppose in reality it was a bit more like us eating cream cakes outside of the palace while most likely the queen was taking tea inside, but it still proved to be a really good time. Lots of tourist watching and laughing at groups of school children on field trips, all the while trying to not make a mess of our incredibly smashed cream cakes. It was worth the trip.

After out cream cake adventure Nic and I followed up on a suggestion of her mom to make a visit to Hampton Court, one of the palaces of Henry VIII. Although not as popular attraction as one of the palaces currently inhabited by royalty and despite the cold weather that day it was a really beautiful trip. We walked through unbelievably furnished bed chambers and drawing rooms, though immaculate gardens, and learned quite a bit while we were at it as well. Not only a feast for our eyes but also one for our brains. A good dose of history for us while we were out having fun, a win win situation.


Learning about all this history of other family got me to thinking a bit about my own and ffter our successful outtings to Buckingham palace and Hampton Court I decided to make a trip to my own family castle. I would have happily flown all the way to England just to see the castle. As a kid my dad always used to tell me fantastic ghost stories of the family castle somewhere in England, of the curses placed on objects in the castle and the children who still haunt the towers. When I was about 14 decided that I would see the castle and it's been on my life to do list ever since. Well I can happily say that it is now crossed off and it was a wonderful experience. I took the train from London to Birmingham to meet my friend Don who taught English with me in Spain (thanks Don for going on this crazy trip with me, it wouldn't have been the same without you). After getting to Birmingham Don and I drove north a couple hours to the border with Wales to a little town called Whittington, in the province of Shropshire. And there in front of us as we drove into town was the caslte I had heard stories about for my entire childhood.

I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed when we finally pulled up in front of it. How often do your childhood fairy tales come true? Here I was standing in the middle of mine, looking at the tower that the ghosts of children haunt, walking over the moat that held out centries of invaders from Wales, and laying my hands on the physical history of my family.

Don and I walked the grounds for a bit and then decided to find an inn to stay in for the night. In the morning we walked across the street to the castle and had a great meeting with the castle director. She filled me in on the actual history of the castle and I relayed stories of my family to her. lt was absolutely fantastic to hear how the stories that I thought were merely fairy tales actually aligned with what had happened at the castle hundreds of years ago. After a lenghty chat we had tea in the manor house and then walked to grounds a bit more before heading back to London. Words just can't do justice to what I felt or saw there that day. It seems a bit silly to be overwhelmed by the site of an old crumbling building but I absolutely was. It was just fantastic. I was the first person in at least 3 generations of my family to see the castle and now I get to be the person to hold the family history. I get to the be crazy cousin who tells the ghost stories to the children and to tell them of the actual place, of the town, of the people I met along the way, and of the true history of what happened there. I feel incredibly privledged in that resposibilty. It was a great experience and a big thank you to everyone who helped me get there. If you want to read more about the castle or see more photos than my slow internet connection will allow me to post you can visit the castle website at http://www.whittingtoncastle.co.uk/