Celebrations

the kids skiing

David skiing

Snow shoeing a bit like walking with tennis rackets on your feet!

The kids got those fleecy blankets with sleeves Isaac and Josh look like Yoda & Obi-wan Kenobi.

Christmas Eve market was a big success except a little mix up over an order! A family asked if I made Christmas Puddings but as they need refrigerating and 6 hours steaming I said no but they came back later and begged me to make one for them. I agreed as I had made my own which made 3 bowls full, a friend at church heard I had relented and also asked for one and that should have left 1 for us. A bloke came early to collect the first pudding, our friend from church collected the second then just before closing another lady came to collect hers!!!!! I don't know who the first person was but hey they got a pudding and I had to send David home to wrap ours to sell. Guess what I was doing in the afternoon?!!!

Our Christmas Eve service was lovely and a fitting reminder of the real reason for Christmas.

Harriet got a DSi with a game and has been taking lots of photos of us all and feeding her farm animals on it. Josh got a Xbox live and an Xbox game. Isaac's present was a total surprise for him, an incubator for him to hatch eggs (we meant hen's, turkey's or geese but he's looking into terrapins and snakes!!!!- no way) David got a blu-ray DVD player and I got a new food mixer as mine from England is making very strange noises and not actually doing much anymore.

Our Christmas dinner was very English with turkey, roasted parsnips & potatoes, mashed potatoes, carrots, Brussels sprouts, cranberry & bread sauce, pigs in blankets and cauliflower cheese, stuffing etc. It took some finding to get all the ingredients as they don't have pigs in blankets and their sausages are more like huge German ones, stuffing is a stove top packet mix so no paxo for us but real sausage stuffing and bread sauce has never been heard of! Gravy is very different too very white. Rich, Jen & the girls came for tea and stayed over till Boxing day afternoon playing games and generally having fun and eating too much. We skyped family over Christmas which was nice too.

There was another storm warning for Boxing day onwards, it hit late Boxing day and Monday we woke to a good 8" of snow and it was still snowing. We dug out the car and enjoyed playing out in it then went off to the sales and to spend they day at Kevin and Dianne's. We had a lovely hot buffet with lots of tempting desserts. After supper (teatime) it was time to play some of us tried our cross country skiing skills out (in the dark) and others had fun racing round the top field on skidoo's (snow mobile) later we played games. We set off for home which took some time as it had been snowing all day and night and the ploughs were struggling to keep up. David turned into our drive and we found ourselves in a snow drift!!!! oooops we had to dig ourselves out which some kind neighbours helped with and get a space cleared off road big enough for the car overnight. It was fun unloading everyone and everything from the car and walking through drifts some up to our waist home in the dark storm. This morning the kids and Steve made snow forts, we cut more wood and dug the car out again!

We went to Rich and Jen's to practise snowshoeing and cross country skiing in their garden and woods. It is harder than it looks but thankfully the snow is soft! Tomorrow the Phillip's come to Yoho and we are hoping to go to an ice hockey game on Thursday if we can get tickets.

Where's the snow?

Thought I'd better update you all before Christmas.
David travelled to Boston last Wednesday to pick up his brother Stephen. They stayed over 1 night and after a 7 hour drive arrived at Yoho. It's great to have him stay with us and hope he likes our English/Canadian Christmas.
I did my last outdoor market on Sat it wasn't too cold only about -4 so with footwarmers, thermal socks and the odd defrost inside we kept warm. It was the best Fredericton market we've had so far. This week the market is on Christmas Eve and I've got a huge indoor stall to fill then I get a week off.
We went to a wedding on Saturday. It was really lovely, so laid back and informal. The groom gave the address at the service. Lots of people contributed to the buffet and the bride's mum, sister and best friend and the groom's dad and brothers aswell as the bride and groom all gave speeches.
The kids had 2 storm days off school last week, Tuesday & Wednesday. A huge storm hit New Brunswick with approx 120mm of rain. This caused loads of problems with roads under water, washed away and bridges collapsing. Our roof leaked in a number of places, we lost power at 10pm which would have been ok except the water and toilet are on a pump! We decended on Rich & Jen for breakfast!
This is our last week at work & school we all finish tomorrow...yippeeee.
We have a Christmas Eve service at church to look forward to. Rich & Jen are coming for tea on Christmas day and staying over. We are meeting up with other friends between Christmas and New Year too.
David is very excited he gets a new truck next week. Unfortunately his car overheated and started making nasty noises last week, a check up at the garage confirmed the worst that the engine is terminal and will die at any moment.

Loving winter

Our tree is up.....whoooo...Christmas is coming!

Yoho lake froze again then snow fell on it, this morning it has zigzags melting across it!

Harriet has been making her own version of a gingerbread house!

An order for a 1 year olds birthday, she's called Ivory and her mum asked for very specific designs.

This week we've had small amounts of snow most days, the lake melted last week then refroze but it was windy so it isn't flat ice but sort of a scaly texture. We did get down to -14 one day this week which was a little chilly!

David & I went on my works Christmas meal on Friday night. It was held at the 'King's Head Inn' at King's Landing a local historical museum a bit like Beamish. It was started in the 1960's when the Mataquac Dam was built which flooded a whole valley. The houses and businesses of some of the first settlers were moved up the hill and made into this settlement to preserve them. It was a great atmosphere with open fires, candles for lights and live entertainment in the form of fiddlers and guitarists and singers touring the dining rooms. The meal was nice we had chicken soup with a sweet bread, goose with veggies and mincemeat pie with a sweet sauce for dessert. I think the mincemeat was a Canadian recipe which contains meat either caribou or moose it certainly wasn't as fruity as a British mince pie.

I was outdoors at the market again it was a bit chilly at -7 but did warm up abit by lunch when I could feel my toes again.

We went to a local upick Christmas tree farm to choose our tree yesterday. It came with free snow which had to melt before we could put the lights on it!

This week we are looking forward to the arrival of Steve, David's brother who's coming for Christmas. I am hoping the market will be very busy on Saturday. We have been invited to a friend's wedding on Saturday too, which should be nice to go to a Canadian wedding.

Typical!!!

We move to Canada and look forward to long hard winters with lots of snow and winter sports and Whitby gets the snow instead! We are following the news of all the bad weather in England and it brings back memories of David trying to get to work on the farms for 5.30am last winter and struggling to get out of Whitby. We have got snow here but it doesn't stop much from happening. Yesterday the kids got the day off school for a storm day as a big storm was forecast to hit the atlantic provinces overnight Sunday and most of Monday and Tuesday with lots of snow, wind and rain. We didn't get hit too bad at all but the roads were slippy with the slushy snow. I went to work to find Fredericton still green as the rain had washed all the snow away. Later I went into Harvey to the hairdressers where there was a good 8-10 inches of snow and it was still falling. Josh spent his day off Christmas shopping, Isaac helped Dad install broadband and Harriet came to play with the little kids at my work.

I was back outside at the market on Saturday, thankfully it wasn't too cold and the outside had a good atmosphere with all the Christmas tree vendors. Saturday nights market was at a local village hall. People bought tickets to tour round 3 local homes which were decorated for Christmas then ended up for food and to visit the stalls at the village hall. It was good to get to know more locals abit better and was a pleasant evening out.

With Christmas fast approaching I actually got some cards written and some prezzies bought. When I can get round to cleaning up we will get a tree then it might feel more festive.