Our first Christmas at our new home was nice. We had originally planned to go to Montana for Christmas, but with my brother not making his flight, and other issues we decided to stay in Calgary.
I love getting a Christmas tree set up, and our kids do too.
We had a nice Ham/Turkey dinner with the Stanford side which was very good, and we opened presents after. We do a white elephant type of gift exchange which is fun to do.
Kids having a playdate with their close friends painting ornaments
We had a great ward Christmas party. The dinner was really nice, and then they had a magician show for the kids so the adults could have some quiet time for a bit. Santa also made an appearance.
Christmas Eve ready for Santa with cookies & egg nog
This has always been a family tradition in my family. Kids all wake up and have to sit on the top of the stairs while we get lights on, fireplace turned on and early morning pictures.
They should just be happy they don't need to wait till a wood-burning fireplace is all ready, and an ancient camcorder with batteries and tapes all put in place beforehand.
(I might be speaking from past experience)
Christmas morning gifts from Santa
More presents - these kids are spoiled (mostly from Grandparents!)
My brother's family ended up getting a flight to the cabin, so we decided to go just after Christmas and spend a week there before school started back up. It is sad that the cousins don't get to see each other much, but when they do they love spending time together.
We were able to spend a few days in Montana skiing which was really fun.
We had a huge disaster of a morning the first skiing day though. We decided to try out a ski hill that we had never been before called BlackTail, it's a ski hill that you actually drive to the top of the mountain and ski down that way. When we got there all the lessons were full till the afternoon, and we could not see any bunny hill around. We decided to attempt going down the hill on our own without lessons... Keep in mind I just switched back to skiing from snowboarding and I hadn't ski'd since I was about 12 years old. Our older two kids have never been skiing before this and were unable to even stand up sideways on the ski hill. It took a PAINFUL hour and a half to get down a green hill, with us lifting up Zoe and Dreyton while trying to ski down with them.
At the top of the chairlift getting off we noticed the bunny hill just up above that hill, around the corner from where we started from... Luckily by that time it was lunch time and kids were able to go through a ski lesson which helped HUGE!
To top off this crazy day we had a bit of a scare driving down the mountain at the end of the day. There was a section that was all pure ice and our van just sped up and we had no control of the brakes, the scary part was it was just before a big turn and we were going straight for the edge of a cliff. Luckily Lee saved us by turning the van before the edge and hitting the snowbank on the edge which helping us slow down enough and we were turned to be able to make the big turn.
Kids loved taking the toboggan for a ride behind the quad.
The next time we went skiing, we went to the mountain that I have gone many times as a kid (Big Mountain) and put the kids in full day ski lessons!
Our New Years Eve tradition, fondue dinner! yum.
No comments:
Post a Comment