Christmas Holiday at the Cabin

Family time at the cabin is often filled with games. Here I am playing a game of Upwords with Dad and Dale. Somewhere else someone is reading or sleeeping. You get to do whatever you want at the cabin.


And then there are always those crazy times at the cabin when someone comes up with a crazy idea and we all run with it. Here Carol is making sure she gets it on film.
Apparently, there is a new Coke product called C2. So Kyle, Marjorie and the girls arranged a scientific taste test to see if you could taste the difference between C2, Diet Coke and Coke Classic.

Kirsten turned out to be the best taster of the group and recognized them all.



Uncle Dale could tell which was Diet Coke only as that is his drink of choice.
Grampa is a Classic Coke man but couldn't really distinguish the suble differences too much. We had a good laugh and fun.

There was alos a few puzzles started and finished.

Vancouver Christmas

I went to Vancouver on the bus to meet with my family in Vancouver as Elaine and Mike couldn't come up to Vernon for Christmas. My neice, Maureen, hosted a lovely meal and we had a delightful time. On Sunday Mike and Elaine gave Mom & Dad some Christmas gifts. Here's dad opening it.
Here's Dad modeling his new shirt and sweater. He even has the pose right. We laughed!
Mom opened up a...

...new carry-on suitcase for traveling on the airplane .

While Mike spent the afternoon working...

...Elaine, Missie, Mom & Dad and myself went for a walk through Stanley Park and we shocked at the devastation the wind storm has done to the forest. Through the window we see an uprooted tree.Here's a tree across the path on the bridge. A lot of the park was closed to any traffic of any sort - for safety reasons.
This was a scene from along the seawall.

Pics of our new home all finished and moved in

Our Bedroom
Our TV room





Our living room


Our kitchen

Christmas Party

Here are some quick pics from our Christmas Party for 2006. We were thrilled to be able to have our friends to our new abode. And it was amazing but we all fit in (minus the dining room table). We visited...


...played games...
...laughed a lot...





...sang Christmas songs. And of course we always have to sing Good King Wenceslas for me. I love singing that one in parts.
And then we got to eat food. Here are my trusty helpers setting it all out.
There were 3 of us in the kitchen and we didn't bump into each other too much. Thanks girls for the help. You're awesome.
All in all it was a great Christmas party. "Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night"

Prince George Thanksgiving

David & I drove up to Prince George for Thanksgiving. Becky lives up in Prince George and is attending college (she's taking the care aide program) and Missie is up in Prince George helping Uncle Dale renovating some houses, and then Kerry & his family live in Prince George, Kyle is attending university there, plus I have cousins and aunts living up there so we all decided that we would have a Prince George Thanksgiving. It was a lovely drive up to Prince George. David and I stopped off in Vernon and picked up Mom and Dad. I hadn't been up to Prince George in over 20 years so it was neat to see the countryside again and to remember landmarks and towns from my childhood.

We arrived on Saturday morning and on Saturday afternoon we went for a walk with Becky, Missie, & Carol and the girls. One of the reasons we wanted to go for a walk was to meet Becky's boyfriend Nathan at a time when there weren't 20 people eating Thanksgiving dinner. So we went out to pick up Nathan. Here's Becky in the backseat....and here's Becky and Nathan in the backseat. We made sure that we grilled him with the 20 page parent interview (ha ha). Seriously, we enjoyed getting to know him.


Here's Missie - I love editing her photos to black and white. She has such a classic beauty about her.

We went for a walk through the forest and came to a little lake.





This is my niece, Annie and their dog.
This is Kirsten. Here I'm trying to play with editing the photos. I've actually signed up for a day course on how to take a better digital picture so maybe I'll do some more experimenting in the future.



The forest path was wonderful to walk on and the air had that great fall smell and sometimes you could even smell the wild cranberries - it kinda has a stinky sock smell...
I took this picture because of the interesting angles of the branches and the leaves floating on the water.


This is the northern university where Kerry is a professor.
On Sunday Carol and Kerry hosted Thanksgiving dinner - it was fantastic. They invited a lot relatives from the area and it was wonderful to have that opportunity to visit with them all at once.
This is my cousin Louise's husband, Butch.
Here's Dale and Louise.


I'm talking with my cousin Mark and his girlfriend. I hadn't seen Mark for over 20 years. He told me that at this rate we would see each other at retirement.
From left to right are: Missie, Kirsten, Louise, Butch and Annie


I am having a visit with my two aunts that I haven't seen for a number of years. It was delightful to visit with them. From left to right: Auntie Marg and then Autnie Vi and then Me

Trish (my cousin) and my Mom
Kyle, Kirstsen, Marjoire, Louise and Butch's back


Then on Thanksgiving Monday we all went for a walk along the river. It was a cool fall day. I had dropped David off at the airport because he wasn't able to get any time off work. So...he wasn't with us.
You can see the sun streaming through the trees. The northern sky is big and blue.






As you can see the river is very low at this time of the year.

I like this picture showing the mist in the background and the river in the foreground.













Here's Dad being the rodeo cowboy still.
She came, She saw, She conquered!


Annie's always ready to give a smile for the camera

Very photogenic, Kirsten


This is the beautiful northern sky at night. Amazing isn't it.
I enjoyed my northern trip seeing the landscape and beauty of the creation but most of all I enjoyed seeing family and spending time with my girls.