It was a very good Christmas

We thought we'd be spending Christmas in our missionary apartment, skyping with grandkids. Much to our surprise, we ended spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day with family. Carl's brother Billy and his wife Carol (who live in Pennsylvania) invited us to spend Christmas with them and Carol's sister's family in Bainbridge, N Y.
Carol's sister and her husband (Elaine and Phillip Sherman) live in 200 year old farmhouse on an 80 acre farm in Bainbridge, a 3 hour drive from us.  We were warmly welcomed and felt right at home with these wonderful folks.

Christmas eve was very cozy, visiting and catching up by the fire.

Christmas was everywhere, in every nook and cranny of the cozy farm house.

   

Yummy meals came out of this wonderful  kitchen.

 

 

Elaine and Philip are volunteer caretakers of the church sites in Bainbridge.  So Christmas morning found us in some places that are special in church history. Here we are at the Josiah Stowell home, built in 1810. While working for Josiah Stowell, Joseph Smith met Emma Hale, proposed to her in this house, and spent his honeymoon there.

 From left to right: Billy & Carol Ellis, life size statue of Joseph Smith (by B.J. Bawden), me, Elaine & Phillip Sherman

Upper right:   parlor where Joseph Smith proposed to Lucy.  Lower middle:  stairway that was revealed when a wall was knocked down during the restoration.All the floor boards also are the original. Lower right:  death masks of Hyrum and Joseph Smith. The sculptor Bee Jay Bawden used the death mask along with Joseph Smith's skeletal measurements to create an accurate likeness for the statue shown in previous photo.

We also visited the site of the first branch of the church, in nearby Colesville. The early saints met in a barn across the street from the Joseph Knight home, pictured below.

 
 

On the left are some artifacts that were found, while the Shermans worked in the basement of the Knight home, digging out piles of dirt and stabilizing the foundation with an inner brick wall. On the top left is a mallet, and remnants of a child's shoe.

The Sherman's have done so much in helping with the restoration of these sights. As a token of appreciation, they were presented with these replicas of the sculptures created by  Dee Jay Bawden, who has created many bronze sculptures  for the Church.



It was hard saying "good-bye" to  our brother and sister-in-law and their family, which now have become part of our extended family. We truly had a wonderful time, and hope to see them again before we head back to Texas next December.

So, the next morning after Christmas, hoping to make it back to Brockport in advance of a big snow storm, we said our farewells.

And good-bye to Nora, a very smart and sweet Australian cattle dog, whose deceased father is depicted by our sister-in-law, Carol, who is a very talented artist.

P.S.: we got to Skype with grandkids after Christmas.