Merry Christmas!

Hi everyone! We're having a lovely time here for the holidays. Here are some pics:

our little tree. It's Sherrie's old one from Hong Kong, and has been our little tree ever since we met. It's smaller than the bounty of presents, but it's our little tree and I hate to think of replacing it.

We did a lot of gingerbread house making. There are scattered gingerbread house photos within today's posting; you'll see them as you scroll down. Due to the large number of photos and vids I'm putting up today, I'm not organizing them - you should see how long it takes just to upload them, nevermind editing! So forgive the mixed up order these are in.

Me at my favorite Peace River restaurant, Boston Pizza!

Sherrie baking up a storm

That's Sadie in her class performance at the Christmas Concert this year. She's seventh from the left, in the red dress.

Sadie's gingerbread house. The little marshmallows are snow.

Erin skating on Christmas Eve.

Our beautiful girls.

The girls went to a pirate-themed birthday party shortly before the holidays.

That's us in Shane and Jody's kitchen. You can see that the kids are all eating in the background. We went there for Christmas dinner this year - had a lovely time. Three families were in attendance: Us, the Kremsaters, and the Wedderburns. Six adults and nine children in all!

Voila!

I'm so proud - had to put in lots of views....

Lovely Erin helped Lovely Sadie by putting the icing on for her while Sadie stuck candies.

Amy doing her house.

Beautiful hiking.

I love this photo. I just had the camera at the right time - it's very spontaneous. I believe it's dinner time on this past Monday night. We were having the neighbors over for refreshments so I had the girls eat at the counter, as the dining room table was all set up with snacks and goodies. I just thought it looked so nice, the girls so happy together, eating together, sitting at the counter together with the tree in the background and Christmas music playing.

Erin's house - I stole my snowman idea from her.

Cookie overload!

My first attempt at a gingerbread house was a geodesic dome, to create a sphere. The main problem with it was that the shapes I baked changed slightly during baking, throwing the entire structure off. I'm going to try again next year, and will use sand paper to reshape each piece to the specifications of the plans before gluing. I'm sure it will work next year.

Sherrie's a dynamo! Bev, you'd be so proud! Those decorations were hand-cut out of maraschino cherries!

I provided some of the entertainment at the Christmas dinner. That's Steve Wedderburn falling asleep behind me.

Amy's gingerbread house.

December

Hi everybody! Here's the news:

Paul was here! He came for a week and we had a great time. As it was a school week, it was pretty mellow; He basically hung with Sadie and I in the daytime, and then saw the girls after school. Unfortunately Sherrie was away from Wednesday to Friday, but they did get to see each other for the first few days. Paul also got along with Z quite well and took him for many walks. We did some hiking, had a marshmallow roast with him, played games, and ate some nice meals with Uncle Buck. Oh - he totally got into playing video games while he was here too. I couldn't convince him to buy an xbox though.

We went to the Santa Claus Parade last week - it wasn't as cold as last year's and Amy and Erin were marching this year with the Girl Guides! After the parade, everyone went to the park for the lighting of the park ceremony and free hot dogs and hot chocolate. It was lovely - all of the kids were playing on the rink (in their boots, not skates) and then there were fireworks over the river. Sorry, no photos of the fireworks.

This is my friend Shane skinning a deer in his garage. That's his daughter, Rhylan, watching. I 'helped' a bit, but I think I was more there for some male company while he talked about hunting.

This is Sadie shooing the birds away. She apparently doesn't like them eating our berries! It was a blast watching her, and seeing how angry she got at them. She was like an old woman! She was successful for about ten minutes, then they came back. Paul and I were laughing pretty hard watching all of this go down.

Sadie and I are into baking shortbread Christmas Cookies now - This is a big deal for me, as I'm usually not much of a baker. It's fun! I love putting the candy sprinkles on them before they go into the oven, but our favourite part is definitely eating them. Yummmmm!

The girls are still enjoying gymnastics. They really enjoy the various activities and drills, and I really enjoy not having to put on their skates every week.

That's all for now - Lots to come though, Stay tuned!

Well, I guess hiking is the topic of this posting, for the most part. We do a lot of it here, as there are so many places to walk. Here are some shots of some past hikes we've been on lately:

(oh, by the way - turns out that some/many of the photos don't actually enlarge when you click on them. My apologies. Sometimes they do, though.)

Here are the girls playing nicely together in the kitchen. They're so sweet.

We went to a family pot luck dinner at the Parent Link (that's the name for the government - subsidized drop in center for kids and parents. Sadie and I go on Tuesdays sometimes.) This is Sherrie participating in one of the games.

Oh - this one should be in the hiking photos. Its the girls at our secret spot - a tiny pond they like to slide and skate around on.

This is Doug. He's a welder and a blacksmith, who's helping me make a new parang (look it up.) He's an amazing artist and creator who's being very generous with his time and facilities. I'll be sure and put up photos of the finished thing once it's done.

This is neat - it's one of our many weenie/marshmallow roasts by the river, but you'll notice that neither person is from our family! We were having one with Erin's friend the other day (that's her in the pink) and our next door neighbours walked by! So we invited them too - it was a nice party.

Not tons today, but the next week is sure to get some good shots - Amy and Erin will be marching in the Christmas parade, the festival of lights is this weekend, and I'm sure I'll find some other stuff to shoot.

Take care, talk to you soon.

Not much to say this time - I'll just show you some pictures.

By the way everyone, just so you know (as I know some of you out there arent the most computer savvy) you can click on any photo to make it bigger.

Enjoy:

Erin and Amy being sworn into Brownies and Sparks. (I think it's not called 'being sworn in' but I don't know the GG terminology)