It was Family Day long weekend (Feb.6-9th) and Jeff took an extra day off work so that we could have a decent family ski trip together. There was a satisfying amount of snow for the kids and for Jeff and I, and our hotel was roomy enough for the boys to have some decent wrestling space.
We didn't bother signing Callum up for lessons, Max only did 1 lesson and we tried Simon in 2 days of lessons with childminding. He quite liked the childminding and the first lesson apparently went pretty well. Good enough that I took him up the chairlift the same afternoon and we slowly made our way down the green run (with a good break in the middle to build a snowman).
The 2nd lesson, however, not so great. The whole mountain watched as I wrenched his fingers off my leg and the teacher told me to just walk away as he screamed and screamed. In the end, I saved the note that was left behind by his teacher:
Otherwise, lots of fun to be had, including the bungy-trampoline.
I have a lot of blogging catching-up to do! I should be out planting more seeds in my garden, but I'm forced to stay on hold on the phone with Lufthansa right now while they re-schedule my sisters flights for our trip to Italy (which is only in 1 month!!)...So, let's sit at the computer and be productive while on hold!
These are my 3 boys, photographed at my parents last December in their most natural state of fooling around and being cute:
Christmas Eve was low-key, with Scott's family and my parents coming over for some take-out food, Twister and reading the Nativity. Then the extended family gift-exchange at Mom and Dad's.
It was decided that we would present Kami's Birthday gift to her at Christmas too... Finally, I get to talk about it! I had been secretly planning a trip for Kami and her sisters (it will be Kami, Kim, Krista, Stacey and myself) to celebrate her 40th birthday - we're going to Italy! Since September, I had been researching and booking flights and hotels, so we thought we wouldn't wait until her birthday to tell her but rather give her a few months to look forward to it (and to save some spending money). I made a little slide show and printed out pretend boarding passes... It was fun to finally tell her, so she's pretty excited, and so am I!
Of course, right after Christmas is Callum's birthday! We chose a few friends to take out and do a few fun things. We started at the bowling alley, where Callum, Teddy, Beckham and Gus played against Jeff, Simon, Max and I, and they really beat us. Then we had lunch at Boston Pizza, then we took them to Menchie's for frozen yogurt. Oh, and when we got home, Cindy took them all go-carting then Callum went to Gus's house for dinner - I think he had an awesome birthday.
Not to mention, Callum was pretty satisfied with the cake I made him for his family party: Minecraft! (It's a computer game, if you didn't know!)
Of course, turning 8 years old has some serious responsibilities attached to it - Callum was baptized at our church on January 18th. He invited his friend, Teddy, to come and a lot of church friends and of course family came to support him. His Aunt Kami spoke on Baptism and Aunt Kim spoke on the Holy Ghost.
Otherwise, it was a January NOT full of skiing and snow-play! What a sad, sad ski season! We had registered Max and Callum at Mt.Seymour ski school for 5 Saturdays, but they were all cancelled except for 1 class. Jeff is optimistic that this is not an indication of what we can expect every year on the North Shore mountains, but I'm not so sure.
I actually got 1 day on the mountain with my 2 brothers, Todd and Scott, since Todd was in town from Calgary and wanted to give the snow at Blackcomb a try. We managed to find a few decent spots, but had to hike a bit to find them (hence my groaning face!), but it was nonetheless a beautiful day up there.
Jeff's new job with Aspac has turned out to be, well, hmm, how should I say it... He loves his job, yes, but I think that line in his contract about "9-5 hours" turned out to be sarcastic. Anyway, Aspac sponsored a charity event that Jeff and I attended - I am a little proud to say that I actually wore my high-school graduation dress!
To prove it, here's a pic from circa June 1995:
And the same dress 20 years later, in January 2015:
And again, here are my 3 boys, being super cute.
I am no longer on hold with Lufthansa (after 58 minutes!) and the problem seems to be solved, so I better get something done in the garden before I have to pick up Simon from his friend's.
