It's Great to Be Eight!

Our Graham-bo was baptized back in October.  What a beautiful morning it was!  

As his birthday approached, we kept thinking how cool it would be for him to be baptized in the ocean, the Mediterranean Sea.  He was all for it until the weeks leading up to it.  "Too cold"  is what he'd always say.  Soooo, we starting selling it.  Telling him how cool it would be, years from now,  to tell everyone.  He'd have amazing pictures and a super unique experience.  We sold it.  Sweet! 

Here's some of the amazing pictures we promised.  

He was baptized in Taormina, one of our favorite spots here in Sicily.  Another big selling point was that he'd get to share the day with one of his best buddies, Jettyn Jones. Jett's family is in our branch here.  He's also in Graham's class at school.  

After talking with the Jones family, we decided on a beach a few weeks before.  When we showed up, there were still Lidos all set up.  Lidos are beach chairs and umbrellas that are set up and sold to beach goers here in Italy.  There are rows and rows of them.  You come and pay anywhere from 10-20 euro for a lounge chair or two with an umbrella.  We thought for sure they would be all cleared out by the beginning of October.  Most Italians think of summer as only be the last couple weeks of July and the whole month of August.  We were very surprised to see it still up.  

After some talking with the Lido manager (he wanted us to pay 150 euro to use the whole area), we decided to set up our little event at the far end of the beach in the "free" area.  Boats were already starting to come in and out so we had to get going.  We decided to shorten the program.  No musical numbers, just Lisa Jones and I would give brief talks about baptism and the Holy Ghost.  

It felt a little rushed, but it was still very memorable and very special.  

We were lucky enough to have Grandpa in town for the big day.  It was so nice to share it with him.  

Notice the next few pictures.  Graham....smiling.  

And now Graham.......pretending to be sleeping.    

Many members of our branch came to the baptism, but I was particularly grateful for our neighbors, the Fahey family.  They aren't members of our church, but as soon as I gave them an invite, they put it on their schedules and made it.  We loved having them there.  

After the baptisms, we took the gondola up to Taormina and walked around.  Grandpa got to see it for the first time and the rest of us got to enjoy.  We went to our favorite restaurant, Da Cristina, for some amazing arancini and pizza.  

Here's the view of the beach from up in Taormina.  If you look to the little cove on the far left, you can see the beach where Graham was baptized.  Cool, right?