Christmas Tales
We decided to beat the rush on our way to BC for Christmas this year and leave a day early, taking the girls out of school a day before holidays started. We were travelling on full fare tickets, thinking we'd be stress-free after all that happened the week we were leaving.
We arrived at the Montreal airport in the early morning without hassle, checked in and got on the plane to Calgary as planned. We decided to eat lunch in Calgary instead of Vancouver, as our next leg had been delayed by an hour. We enjoyed a nice lunch and when we tried to go back through security to our gate, we found the doors were locked! So we had to (quickly) drag the kids to another gate to get through security. By this time, the line through security was quite long and we were worried about getting to our gate on time. We eventually made it through only to find out our airplane hadn't even arrived yet. So we were delayed another hour. By the time we arrived in Vancouver we had no time to even look out the windows before collecting our bags and racing to the South Terminal.
So it was, when we were waiting to collect our bags, that Calli got sick and threw up and we ended up having one less bag than we left with that morning. We put in our lost notice with the baggage people and raced out the door to try and catch the shuttle bus to the South Terminal only to find that the bus was running late and the driver wouldn't be leaving until 5 pm, which is the exact time our flight was supposed to be taking off!! We made a command decision to take a taxi instead, but because we had so many bags, plus 2 car seats, it would be impossible to take one taxi and we'd have to take a mini-van. So we waited....for what seemed like the 1/2 hour that we had before the flight left without us. I think it was only 5 minutes before we said, "Let's take 2 taxis." As I was preparing to get into the 1st of the 2 taxis, the driver started yelling at me because accusing us of not being able to make up our minds about whether to take the mini van, the shuttle bus or the taxi!!!! And so, I refused to travel with him. You don't yell at customers!!! I walked back to take the taxi behind him as I was yelling back at him for being so rude! Calli and I hopped into one taxi with 1/2 the bags and Adam and Marin hopped into the one behind us with the other 1/2. (On the drive, Adam found out that the yelling driver would be sent to the office and would be banned from working at the airport for 2 days!!) Our drivers were very kind, polite and quick and got us to the airport with literally seconds to spare. My driver even stayed behind to help Adam carry all our bags in!!! We lucked out by knowing the girl at the counter, who managed to keep the airplane door open for us while we ran through security, out the doors and onto the plane!!! As we were taxiing out, I had tears in my eyes...for so many reasons.
When we arrived in WL, my Mum and my brother were there waiting for us, along with Uncle Bill and Auntie Marie who came up to drive us all to town. My brother had arrived only an hour earlier. Needless to say, we enjoyed a nice, stiff drink at my Mum's after we had unloaded all the suitcases!!
We were invited up to Robin and Kirby's house for dinner one evening and Adam got some snuggle time with Ben, their son. We hadn't seen Ben since the summer when he was just getting steady on his feet, so it was fun to see him run around their beautiful new house!!
The following day, we headed up to Jay and Chantelle's beautiful new house for a visit with their girls. All four girls had a great time together playing in the play room and getting all dressed up. Did anyone ever read any of the Fancy Nancy books? My friend gave Calli one of these books for her birthday and in the inscription it said, "to Calli and Marin, two of the fanciest Nancies I know!!" This picture could honestly be an illustration from the book!!
Calli, Marin, Hannah and Paige all fancied up!!
My Mum managed to find a butcher near WL that knew exactly what Schweines Hax'n were (pork knuckle - not pork hocks) and she bought some for Adam to make his favourite German meal! After getting a recipe from my lovely Auntie Jenny's husband, Werner, in Switzerland and a few spices from Sylvia, lunch was prepared and served. Absolutely delicious!!
Granny chose to put up and decorate the tree once we had arrived. The girls LOVED going through all of the decorations and placing them carefully on the tree. I helped out by ensuring the tree was not weighed down on the lower third, if you know what I mean.
Marin was very careful in her ornament placement. She made sure she checked carefully to see which branches were unadorned before hanging each one.
Granny has some really beautiful ornaments that she's collected over the years and even some that Colin and I made as kids!! I'm going to spare Colin the torture and keep the pictures to myself. I took a few to "document" his work....
The finished product!!
My Mum had the duty of coming up with 4 advent calendar gifts for the girls. The most special one was the day the two of them were instructed to go to the place where Granny gets her hair cut and see if there might be a surprise waiting for them. When they arrived, they were thrilled to find out that they were going to have their nails painted!! Such an exciting thing for them. They sat very still and patiently while the lady did their nails. I'd show you their choice of colours, but I took all the photos on my Mum's camera. So she'll have to blog it herself!
After their nails were done, they were giddy to learn that we'd be heading to Boston Pizza for lunch. Little did they know that my Mum had invited all sorts of people to come!! When we were shown to our table for 18, the kids couldn't understand what was going on, until everyone started coming in. It was a really great day!
Grandma and Grandpa came to town and we spent a day with them. Granny had set up this lovely little table for the kids to eat at, complete with real flowers, Christmas crackers and a candle. Very Princessy!
We decided to have Brotzeit with Grandma and Grandpa for lunch. My Mum purchased all sorts of delicious cheeses and cold cuts from the German butcher and we had a wonderful lunch, complete with real German beer!!
At the end of the day, Marin was pooped out and fell fast asleep in Granny's arms.
Colin worked very hard on the Christmas puzzle. We all helped at different stages, but I think Colin completed the majority of the puzzle.
And it was a beautiful puzzle.
Granny had a great little art box to do with the girls. It had paints, play doh, stencils, stamps and play doh cutters in it. They had a great time creating some masterpieces for Granny. In fact, I think Granny might frame them.
Hard at work.
On Christmas Eve we went out to Oma and Opa's house for a delicious supper. Calli decided to wear her Swiss dirndl for the occasion and Marin wore a beautiful red velvet dress.
My sweet girls.
And then we tried a family photo. Calli suddenly discovered how to make faces in every picture and I had to edit out numerous photos of her with her eyes closed or wearing a frown. And to celebrate her new found silliness, I am posting this photo so that she can see in years to come, just how silly she is.
Oma and Opa had prepared Raclette for dinner. OH MY!! I first tried Raclette when I was living in Germany and was so glad to finally be able to share it with Adam!
Uncle Bill, Auntie Marie and Tyler were there for supper as well and we had such a great time.
Marin and I
Bill and Marie gave the girls some really cool tattoo markers, so we were all taking turns being embellished by the budding artistes. Adam (obviously) gave Calli some pretty wicked looking arms. Yes, it does say DAD, with a lightning bolt. She also had Calli on one set of knuckles and Marin on the other. And yes, she did say she wished she could get a real tattoo of the DAD drawing.
Marin gave Opa some new tattoos too. Marin was much more receptive to people this visit and we were so thrilled when she wanted to draw on Opa!
Uncle Colin an Oma look on as Marin concentrates really hard on Opas' arm. We all left with something.
Christmas morning was fun!! The girls were so very excited to wake up and tell everyone the big news! When we got home from Oma and Opa's house on the 24th, the girls each got to open a special present from Grandma. They got new hand sewn nighties and hand knit slippers to match, as well as a Barbie each with matching pj's!
"Uncle Colin!!!! Santa brought us PRESENTS!!!!!!!"
It was important to get coffee made and the little hangovers dealt with first, but Marin sat very patiently and waited until she was allowed to open her gifts from Santa. She had asked for clip-on earrings. Purple ones. Or diamond ones. Santa was all out of purple ones, and Marin's parents could sense her disappointment, even though Santa sent diamond ones and 3 other cool pairs.
Marin also got a new pair of sparkle shoes. She wore them ALL day long. I need to buy shares in the company to ensure she has sparkle shoes until she no longer wants them. If that day ever comes....
Calli and Marin each got a lovely new wig from Granny, along with accessories to "do" the hair. We think Calli looks a bit like Ariel with her new wig!
We invited Oma and Opa over for Christmas dinner on the 25th. My Mum and Adam cooked an amazing turkey that Opa deemed the best he'd ever had!! Here is my Mum dishing out the traditional English Christmas pudding served with English custard.
Adam had to leave on the 26th to go back to work and ended up travelling during the wicked snow storms in Vancouver. His plane was nearly 6 hours delayed and when he arrived in Montreal at 4am, he found that our truck had been towed. Apparently, during the snow storm and the -20 temps when we left, we had failed to see the No Parking signs along the fence line. It turned out to be a Snow Removal zone and Adam had to pay nearly $300 by the end of it all. (He is still fighting the ticket etc,. as there seem to be vehicles parked in the No Parking zone all the time. The authorities said they only remove cars when it snows....choosy, no?)
After all the excitement it was nice to sit and enjoy the gifts. Marin took advantage of a little time with Uncle Colin to flip through one of the new Junie B Jones books that Calli got as a gift.
We had a really wonderful time in BC, visiting with our friends and family and spending some time with my Mum and brother. Thank you to everyone who made our trip as great as it was and thank you to my Mum for everything, but especially for packing my 5 suitcases to come home. Thank you. That is one job I really abhor!! xoxo
We arrived at the Montreal airport in the early morning without hassle, checked in and got on the plane to Calgary as planned. We decided to eat lunch in Calgary instead of Vancouver, as our next leg had been delayed by an hour. We enjoyed a nice lunch and when we tried to go back through security to our gate, we found the doors were locked! So we had to (quickly) drag the kids to another gate to get through security. By this time, the line through security was quite long and we were worried about getting to our gate on time. We eventually made it through only to find out our airplane hadn't even arrived yet. So we were delayed another hour. By the time we arrived in Vancouver we had no time to even look out the windows before collecting our bags and racing to the South Terminal.
So it was, when we were waiting to collect our bags, that Calli got sick and threw up and we ended up having one less bag than we left with that morning. We put in our lost notice with the baggage people and raced out the door to try and catch the shuttle bus to the South Terminal only to find that the bus was running late and the driver wouldn't be leaving until 5 pm, which is the exact time our flight was supposed to be taking off!! We made a command decision to take a taxi instead, but because we had so many bags, plus 2 car seats, it would be impossible to take one taxi and we'd have to take a mini-van. So we waited....for what seemed like the 1/2 hour that we had before the flight left without us. I think it was only 5 minutes before we said, "Let's take 2 taxis." As I was preparing to get into the 1st of the 2 taxis, the driver started yelling at me because accusing us of not being able to make up our minds about whether to take the mini van, the shuttle bus or the taxi!!!! And so, I refused to travel with him. You don't yell at customers!!! I walked back to take the taxi behind him as I was yelling back at him for being so rude! Calli and I hopped into one taxi with 1/2 the bags and Adam and Marin hopped into the one behind us with the other 1/2. (On the drive, Adam found out that the yelling driver would be sent to the office and would be banned from working at the airport for 2 days!!) Our drivers were very kind, polite and quick and got us to the airport with literally seconds to spare. My driver even stayed behind to help Adam carry all our bags in!!! We lucked out by knowing the girl at the counter, who managed to keep the airplane door open for us while we ran through security, out the doors and onto the plane!!! As we were taxiing out, I had tears in my eyes...for so many reasons.
When we arrived in WL, my Mum and my brother were there waiting for us, along with Uncle Bill and Auntie Marie who came up to drive us all to town. My brother had arrived only an hour earlier. Needless to say, we enjoyed a nice, stiff drink at my Mum's after we had unloaded all the suitcases!!
We were invited up to Robin and Kirby's house for dinner one evening and Adam got some snuggle time with Ben, their son. We hadn't seen Ben since the summer when he was just getting steady on his feet, so it was fun to see him run around their beautiful new house!!
The following day, we headed up to Jay and Chantelle's beautiful new house for a visit with their girls. All four girls had a great time together playing in the play room and getting all dressed up. Did anyone ever read any of the Fancy Nancy books? My friend gave Calli one of these books for her birthday and in the inscription it said, "to Calli and Marin, two of the fanciest Nancies I know!!" This picture could honestly be an illustration from the book!!
Calli, Marin, Hannah and Paige all fancied up!!My Mum managed to find a butcher near WL that knew exactly what Schweines Hax'n were (pork knuckle - not pork hocks) and she bought some for Adam to make his favourite German meal! After getting a recipe from my lovely Auntie Jenny's husband, Werner, in Switzerland and a few spices from Sylvia, lunch was prepared and served. Absolutely delicious!!
Granny chose to put up and decorate the tree once we had arrived. The girls LOVED going through all of the decorations and placing them carefully on the tree. I helped out by ensuring the tree was not weighed down on the lower third, if you know what I mean.
Marin was very careful in her ornament placement. She made sure she checked carefully to see which branches were unadorned before hanging each one.
Granny has some really beautiful ornaments that she's collected over the years and even some that Colin and I made as kids!! I'm going to spare Colin the torture and keep the pictures to myself. I took a few to "document" his work....
The finished product!!
My Mum had the duty of coming up with 4 advent calendar gifts for the girls. The most special one was the day the two of them were instructed to go to the place where Granny gets her hair cut and see if there might be a surprise waiting for them. When they arrived, they were thrilled to find out that they were going to have their nails painted!! Such an exciting thing for them. They sat very still and patiently while the lady did their nails. I'd show you their choice of colours, but I took all the photos on my Mum's camera. So she'll have to blog it herself!After their nails were done, they were giddy to learn that we'd be heading to Boston Pizza for lunch. Little did they know that my Mum had invited all sorts of people to come!! When we were shown to our table for 18, the kids couldn't understand what was going on, until everyone started coming in. It was a really great day!
Grandma and Grandpa came to town and we spent a day with them. Granny had set up this lovely little table for the kids to eat at, complete with real flowers, Christmas crackers and a candle. Very Princessy!
We decided to have Brotzeit with Grandma and Grandpa for lunch. My Mum purchased all sorts of delicious cheeses and cold cuts from the German butcher and we had a wonderful lunch, complete with real German beer!!
At the end of the day, Marin was pooped out and fell fast asleep in Granny's arms.
Colin worked very hard on the Christmas puzzle. We all helped at different stages, but I think Colin completed the majority of the puzzle.
And it was a beautiful puzzle.
Granny had a great little art box to do with the girls. It had paints, play doh, stencils, stamps and play doh cutters in it. They had a great time creating some masterpieces for Granny. In fact, I think Granny might frame them.
Hard at work.
On Christmas Eve we went out to Oma and Opa's house for a delicious supper. Calli decided to wear her Swiss dirndl for the occasion and Marin wore a beautiful red velvet dress.
My sweet girls.
Uncle Colin with his nieces in front of the fireplace.
And then we tried a family photo. Calli suddenly discovered how to make faces in every picture and I had to edit out numerous photos of her with her eyes closed or wearing a frown. And to celebrate her new found silliness, I am posting this photo so that she can see in years to come, just how silly she is.
Oma and Opa had prepared Raclette for dinner. OH MY!! I first tried Raclette when I was living in Germany and was so glad to finally be able to share it with Adam!
Uncle Bill, Auntie Marie and Tyler were there for supper as well and we had such a great time.
Marin and I
Bill and Marie gave the girls some really cool tattoo markers, so we were all taking turns being embellished by the budding artistes. Adam (obviously) gave Calli some pretty wicked looking arms. Yes, it does say DAD, with a lightning bolt. She also had Calli on one set of knuckles and Marin on the other. And yes, she did say she wished she could get a real tattoo of the DAD drawing.
Marin gave Opa some new tattoos too. Marin was much more receptive to people this visit and we were so thrilled when she wanted to draw on Opa!
Uncle Colin an Oma look on as Marin concentrates really hard on Opas' arm. We all left with something.
Christmas morning was fun!! The girls were so very excited to wake up and tell everyone the big news! When we got home from Oma and Opa's house on the 24th, the girls each got to open a special present from Grandma. They got new hand sewn nighties and hand knit slippers to match, as well as a Barbie each with matching pj's!
"Uncle Colin!!!! Santa brought us PRESENTS!!!!!!!"
It was important to get coffee made and the little hangovers dealt with first, but Marin sat very patiently and waited until she was allowed to open her gifts from Santa. She had asked for clip-on earrings. Purple ones. Or diamond ones. Santa was all out of purple ones, and Marin's parents could sense her disappointment, even though Santa sent diamond ones and 3 other cool pairs.
Marin also got a new pair of sparkle shoes. She wore them ALL day long. I need to buy shares in the company to ensure she has sparkle shoes until she no longer wants them. If that day ever comes....
Calli and Marin each got a lovely new wig from Granny, along with accessories to "do" the hair. We think Calli looks a bit like Ariel with her new wig!
We invited Oma and Opa over for Christmas dinner on the 25th. My Mum and Adam cooked an amazing turkey that Opa deemed the best he'd ever had!! Here is my Mum dishing out the traditional English Christmas pudding served with English custard.
Adam had to leave on the 26th to go back to work and ended up travelling during the wicked snow storms in Vancouver. His plane was nearly 6 hours delayed and when he arrived in Montreal at 4am, he found that our truck had been towed. Apparently, during the snow storm and the -20 temps when we left, we had failed to see the No Parking signs along the fence line. It turned out to be a Snow Removal zone and Adam had to pay nearly $300 by the end of it all. (He is still fighting the ticket etc,. as there seem to be vehicles parked in the No Parking zone all the time. The authorities said they only remove cars when it snows....choosy, no?)
After all the excitement it was nice to sit and enjoy the gifts. Marin took advantage of a little time with Uncle Colin to flip through one of the new Junie B Jones books that Calli got as a gift.
We had a really wonderful time in BC, visiting with our friends and family and spending some time with my Mum and brother. Thank you to everyone who made our trip as great as it was and thank you to my Mum for everything, but especially for packing my 5 suitcases to come home. Thank you. That is one job I really abhor!! xoxo
Comments
Well, anyhow, I hope your basement wasn't too difficult to deal with and that everything is back to normal. Love you bean!
xoSuzie
And yes, yummy stinky cheese...all melty and delicious....
love
d