Garry made it there

After a long goodbye- in the photo Havilah is talking with Grandpa- Garry is off- our visas arrived in the last mail possible, before the New Year's holiday on Friday December 30th, so he booked his ticket that morning for the morning of January 2nd (the ticket for the first went up in price while he was on expedia.ca) Garry has made it back to Dnepropetroesk.

For the first time he flew right into Dnepro instead of Kiev, and he said he was feeling fine when I talked to him a couple hours after landing. He made it back for the missionary Christmas party today, he'll get to the farm later, so I can phone again for a complete report about what happened while we were gone on Wednesday.

His first plane from Winnipeg to Toronto was an hour late, but he had a longer layover- 5 hours there anyway, he says they left Toronto late but made up an hour so he was into Vienna early and had three hours before the flight to Dnepro. The only hitch was his luggage - he had some trouble with his vacuum pump parts (for the machine milking system) that was his checked luggage and customs. Victor came through to interpret for him and after 15 minutes and a few grivna (luckily he had some in his wallet) he was on his way.







We had a good time ringing in the new year here before he left, we had the family all together for the second annual pizza extravaganza on New Years eve. Garry even stayed up until midnight, playing Rummy-O with some of the kids- Luke, Seth (pictured) and Jonah were milking the cows, since all the regular employees were off that night.






This year I made dessert pizza to finish off the pizza eating- we did had some leftovers, with Jess, Luke (assisted by his younger brothers after the afternoon milking was done) making one, and Micah and Noah, and myself making two regular pizzas. Jessy also made an exciting mini-pizza for the girls, where Havi chose the toppings.













Keziah wants a drink! she's pretty good at climbing and finding as a younger sister
















Sunday morning the wind (and snow) was blowing like crazy so we went to Matt's church. We enjoyed hearing Xaris sing The B-I-B-L-E during the offering, then 3 year old Havilah, who stood next to her sister while she sang, also sang it with the microphone without practising beforehand with their mom Kari who played the piano for them, Havilah missed started one line, but Kari circled back on the melody and Havi restarted where she left off and finished it. Too bad I forgot the camera, they were adorable.