January 4, 2022

 A NEW YEAR! We are hoping and praying that it will be a happy and healthy new year. Liza ‘s family has had a rough start as they have a bit of a covid epidemic at their house. Brendon’s two sisters Alissa and Courtney are visiting for the holidays from Grand Cayman and Australia. Courtney’s husband was the first to come down with the virus, then Liza and several of the visiting children. Courtney’s family have been staying with Ted and Alissa’s family with Brendon and Liza but Liza has also had Courtney’s two girls part of the time and everyone has been socializing together. Brendon is now in a hotel trying to stay healthy for work and Ted has gone to stay at his brother David’s. What a situation they have! It appears to be the omicron variant which spreads very quickly and easily. Hopefully this variant will start to build immunity in people as it does not seem to be so deadly though highly transmissible.

We have had more snow this week and the sister missionaries and our neighbors have kindly kept us shovelled. Jean brought us some Chinese dumplings and Tom completed his Christmas Doors 1,000 piece puzzle in three days. We celebrated the New Year quietly on our own with A+W hamburgers, crab dip and other appetizers and treats. We are just not into staying up until midnight but the new year came anyway. We were only at the Temple once last week and that was for a Temple session as we had no serving times scheduled due to holidays and Brother Barrett came to do his Wednesday evening shift. He and Tom divide the Wednesday evening shifts within each month between them. Our Bellingham members are still not generally coming across the border as they have to pay to be covid tested each time. I had not planned on taking all the Christmas decorations down on New Years Day but I got started and couldn’t stop. This has been my tradition for years and in the past I would put a ham in to slowly cook while I removed remnants of Christmas but no ham for Tom and we were just on our own anyway. Trish came yesterday to cut my hair and I cut Tom’s a few days earlier. People phone us, message us and continue to do kindnesses for us every week and often everyday. Our weeks and our lives are full. We are now back to doctors’ appointments, tests and the Temple being open again. The holiday is over.

We are looking to another trip to Germany the end of this month and hoping to keep ourselves healthy for that and also while we are there. We are excitedly looking forward to our first great grandchild this week and chatted with Justin and JayLynn on Sunday. They are preparing for the baby’s induction on January 6, which is this coming Thursday. We have Jack leaving on his mission in a couple of weeks and Max getting settled in Australia and continuing to honeymoon. He needs to get a job and then they will buy a place. Lots going on in our immediate future and we feel very blessed.