Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year 2008!!

Rafa and Jasmyn wish blessings and character growth for you and your family this next year. May it be a year to remember. We hope that you enjoyed the Christmas festivities. We managed to call a few family members (parents and grandparents) and it was great to hear from them on Christmas day.

Our Christmas 2007

We had a typical Chilean style Christmas which is to do most of your celebrating on Christmas Eve night. We had a very fabulous dinner at Rafa´s parents home. Imagine...warm night, we ate out on the patio table by the pool! How great. We had a large smoked turkey, Jasmyn´s family recipe of scalloped corn and many many salads. Wine... cheesecake... fruitcake... orange cake... and of course “cola de mono” (a Christmas drink of white spirits, coffee, milk and spices). Rafa and Jasmyn were stuffed with yummy food when they got home at 2 or 3am. There are no little kids yet on Rafa´s side of the family, so it was a party of all adults and we didn´t do Santa or presents this year, but we had a really great time. It was us, Rafa´s parents, Fernanda, Rafa´s sister Yenny, her husband Fabián (both visiting from down south), and Fabián´s family from Santiago. After ringing in the Christmas Day, we even played a game of Farkel, a dice game that my Grandma from South Dakota loves, and now that we have it, all our friends and family here in Chile love the game too!

It is great to be able to sit down to write season´s greetings. There is more time now that we have finished the rush to sell special boxes of cookies for Christmas. Our little business is called Mrs. Chips Qkiss (sounds like “cookies” when you say it is Spanish). We did really well on the Dec. sales. So well that we invested in buying a freezer! Ha. We discovered that making the dough into cookie sized balls and storing them in the freezer makes for quick production when you get an order. We have yet to plug in the freezer, but we are excited for the business growth. Now we really have to work on better documentation of our sales, cost and profit..etc along with more professional marketing. We had one client order 80 dozen cookies from us!! We had Rafa´s parents helping a couple times with the orders . :) December passed so fast with all the work we did along with the Christmas parties and family time.

This last year

As we look back on 2007, we are thankful for so many things:

§ God´s gift of salvation through Jesus, His word, His discipline, and the strength, protection and guidance He gives us daily. He is so faithful and just!

§ God´s everlasting lovingkindness.

§ The job find at the U.S. Embassy for Jasmyn

§ Rafa finished this year of university with good grades, has only two years left to go

§ The chance to visit the states twice!

§ The blessing of seeing Jasmyn´s Dad and Angela get married

§ Visiting lots of family and friends in Florida and California.

§ The chance to participate in social work on the Chiloé island last January with Rafa´s classmates at the dental school

§ The cookies business growth

§ Rafa´s growth of business knowledge by working with his Dad, books, and also the stock market class he is now taking

§ A great small group of young married couples we are in at the church

§ To feel more active and part of our church family this year

§ Our home, our health, and our youth

We hope that you have even more to be thankful for.

Un abrazo desde Chile (a hug to you from Chile)

The Guaríns