As hinted at in an earlier post, Christmas and concerts are something we need to journalize. The last day of school, and work for the year for Glen, was on Friday, December 21st (Susan had her last day of work on Thursday). The girls had a fun day at school with a pancake breakfast. Friday evening we went to a dinner party at Aunt Ruth’s. Deborah was home for the holidays with her new (to us) fiance Peter. A nice fellow. Welcome to the family Peter.
Saturday, we took our truck and headed to Glen’s parents in Kamloops where we would be spending Christmas. Although we weren’t going to be spending Christmas at our house, we did have a tree we enjoyed through early December and after coming back from Kamloops. We got away at about lunch time, and actually stopped at the McDonald’s by Cabela’s in Abbotsford for lunch. Honestly, this has got to be a McDonald’s on the bottom end of service in Canada. They were nice enough, but wow, mistakes and other misses galore. Three plus visits back to the counter to get our food order close to what we ordered (although never exactly). Thankfully we had fun looking around Cabela’s afterwards. We arrived in Kamloops in time for dinner.
Sunday morning we (including Glen’s parents) all got in our vehicle and drove out to St. David’s by the Lake, a church in Celista on the Shuswap, that we occasionally attend (although more often in the summer). After church and lunch (at the church), we continued on to our cabin and had a look around. We found out from the local churchgoers that snow had arrived on the night before, so the girls were lucky enough to be able to build a snowman. We drove back to Kamloops for dinner, and were lucky enough (for some of us) to have a Christmas eve tradition (on the eve of Christmas even), liver and onions. Yum!
For Christmas Eve day (Monday), we all went down to Petersen Creek and hiked the new Xget’tem Trail that is fully paved (wheelchair accessible) all the way from the bottom in Petersen Creek. Although it’s classified as “easy”, it is a serious uphill climb, so we all took the occasional break as we climbed up (to Sahali).
On Christmas itself we had a bit of snow arrive in town, and of course had a very nice visit from Santa Claus who delivered some nice gifts. We then went for an afternoon hike in Aberdeen on a trail called The Links. Oddly (no pun intended), early in the hike we saw a Lynx.
That night we saw some more snow arrive, but it didn’t stop us (primarily Susan) from getting out for some boxing day shopping. Late in the afternoon dad and the girls took a sled and went up to the dog park for some fun in the snow.
Thursday we all went downtown to visit Auntie Jen and Dale. The adults chatted while the girls kept themselves busy quietly amusing themselves at the dining room table. Jim and family (including Rebecca who had spent Christmas in the lower mainland) arrived at Glen’s parent’s just as we got back from our visiting. We then went out for a second annual dinner at the Moon Wok restaurant. Unlike last year where we all ate at the North Kamloops location, this year we ate at the one in Aberdeen.
Finally, on Friday the 28th we left Kamloops, gassed up the vehicle at Costco, and returned home. Immediately upon arriving at home the ladies went out to Debora’s bridal shower while dad unpacked and stayed at home (but did think about going skiing since it looked to be a good night for it — but instead stayed in for a quiet time).
On Saturday Glen and the girls went down to Metrotown and did the next best thing to getting a new phone, putting in a new battery. Since it took a while to get in to the Apple Store for service, we toured the mall quite thoroughly. In the afternoon as our Christmas present, Jen and Zac and family took us out to a play at the Surrey Arts Center, a presentation of Hansel and Gretel. Thanks guys! We enjoyed it!
Sunday saw our friends Pauline and Eddy and kids (some of who are now in University!) come over for the afternoon for a pleasant visit.
Monday, New Years Eve day, finally was free of schedule constraints, so dad and the girls went up for a day of skiing at Mount Seymour. It was a great day. We came home and after dinner played a very fun home version of an Escape Room. If you’ve never heard of an escape room, I’ll give you a quick overview. The last few years have saw them jump in popularity, and they traditionally are played in a business that sets up a set where you are (pretendingly) locked in some sort of a room, and you have to solve puzzle mysteries from findable clues in order to unlock the locks that will get you out of the room. Glen and Susan have played a few in the last few years, but for this evening’s fun we had a home version that saw us (pretending) try to decipher a treasure map, SCUBA dive down to find a sunken wreck (the Santa Maria), break into the wreck, find valuable sunken treasure (the name of the exact game we played), and break out of the wreck without drowning (pretend)! I’m not sure we were the best at being a TEAM, but we definitely were good problems solvers and after a few hours succeeded in solving all the mysteries (with the occasional help card where necessary). We all stayed up until midnight, spending the stroke itself watching the countdown and local fireworks on TV.
After having a slow start on New Years Day, we enjoyed the day by getting out for some running around (and drone flying) at the local school yard. On the Wednesday (the 2nd) dad and the girls again went up to Mount Seymour for some more skiing while Susan went back to work.
The next day we took the truck in for service. We had originally planned to go for a walk while it was being worked on, but it was a very rainy day and so instead we just toured the mall while it was in the shop. We had thought we would get up skiing again, but it was always rainy when we looked to go. The weekend saw us take all our Christmas decorations down, just in time for everyone to go back to school and work on Monday.
It was a very nice holiday, but like all such holidays, it went much too fast!