Christmas Eve In Tsawwassen

It's Christmas Eve and we have been in Tsawwassen (just outside Vancouver) since very early Sunday. On Monday the women drove to Abbotsford to get the turkey and spent some time shopping so I got to spend the day with Jordan and Griffin.



This is basically what Drew and Rhiannon have been up to for the past few days:



With the unusual weather, we have been spending a lot of time indoors passing the time with games.





But the real news here is the weather. Apparently this is the most snow Vancouver has seen in such a short period of time in many many years. Lucky us! So much for coming from freezing cold Ontario to warm Vancouver! Here's a picture of Jordan and Tracy's back yard yesterday (before the latest 15cm snowfall!):



At least we're not in Saskatchewan where the temperature has not rose above -20 (Celsius) in the past 12 days or so! I'm also thankful we got here with only a minor delay. The Vancouver airport has basically been shut down for a couple days and many people won't be making it home for Christmas. Some people have been camped out in the airport for over a day with no flights in sight! While the snowfall here isn't all that much (we get stuff like this all the time in Waterloo), Vancouver is just not prepared to deal with it. There are virtually no snow plows to speak of here (we've pushed at least four cars out of the cul-de-sac here - it hasn't been plowed yet), and most people don't even own a decent snow shovel! Wow.

Tomorrow I'll be getting up early and making waffles for everyone, and then the kids can finally open presents. Drew has been counting the sleeps since we got here. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have more to talk about and some more pictures (I've barely taken any so far!).

Merry Christmas to everyone!

The Melvin Family Christmas

On the weekend of the 13th we had our Melvin family Christmas (yes, this is out of order, but I have been so busy lately - working, and now being lazy and doing nothing - I haven't been keeping up with things). Anyway, we made our way down to Wallaceburg and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend. Sunday we all gathered in the local hall (our family is so big we need to rent a hall...) and had a really good time. My mom organized the whole thing (I think she enjoys that sort of thing); she got a few big roasts of beef and we all contributed desserts and various other items to the meal. We did a kids gift exchange, as well as an adult one. Drew has already watched Kung Fu Panda a few times, and we are all waiting until we can watch Wall-E together as only the kids have seen it. We forgot our camera in the rush to get out, so the pictures we did get are pretty crappy (taken with the cellphone).





Anyway, I think it all went well. Everyone had a good time, and there were no major fights in the process. That spells success in my books!

Merry Christmas!

I found this commentary on the holiday shopping season quite entertaining.

Then I noticed a link to this classic Eric Idle song (warning - explicit lyrics!):



Mwahahahaha! I hope my Dad reads this post. Bah-freaking-humbug!