Christmas and New Year

It's been a busy time here for us Stophers over the last few weeks. First we had Neil's mum to stay, then it was Jazzie's birthday, then Christmas, then a trip north to visit my aunt and uncle in High Prairie for a few days. Finally, New Year's Eve is here and before we know it, it'll be Monday and back to work and school for us!
We've had a wonderful couple of weeks, with a lovely Christmas day at the Ross' house with good friends, and a terrific short break in the snowy lands of northern Alberta. So I've just decided to put some photos that sum up the last 14 days for us.
1. The Christmas Eve Santa parade that passes our house, complete with police and emergency vehicles sounding their sirens and flashing their lights.
2. Jazzie's birthday cake
3. Christmas lunch
4. Present opening
5. A couple of photos of our trip to High Prairie










For all our friends near and far, in Canada, the UK and beyond. Happy New Year to you all. May 2010 bring you all happiness, peace and prosperity. xxx

Happy Birthday Jaz!

Jasmine has just celebrated her 9th birthday today, and her second in Canada. She had a party on Monday, when we took her and her friends Ella, Maddie, Keelin, Laura and Holly to 'Build a Bear' in the Chinook Mall, followed by supper at A&W. Today we gave her a hamster - she's named him 'Cookie' - and he has the most space-age cage ever! Jake gave her a gigantic Minnie Mouse as it was something she has wanted for ages. It was lovely for her Grandma to be here for her special day too.

Christmas at Heritage Park

On Sunday we took Neil's mum to Heritage Park, to the 'Once upon a Christmas' event. Even though it was a freezing cold day, good fun was had by all.
We started off with hot chocolate as we watched Jake and Jaz ice skate on the outdoor rink, and then we travelled around the park seeing Christmas traditions of the past. Jake and Jaz had a chance to buy us Christmas presents at the 'kids only' Christmas shop. We even had a glimpse of traditional Hannukah games in the tiny synagogue. It was a lovely afternoon.

Gingerbread Houses

We're trying to enter into the Canadian spirit of Christmas a little more this year with our homemade edible creations. We discovered last year that in Canada, people bake like crazy for the holiday season, and so this year we have litres of cookie dough chilling in the fridge, and have made a gingerbread house. Here is Jasmine's afternoon creation (with a little help from mum). Looks good enough to eat! I wonder how long it'll last before it gets eaten up?

Zoolights

This year we took Neil's mum to see the Calgary Zoolights exhibition. Every winter, Calgary Zoo decorate their grounds with millions of colourful light displays and there is winter music, firepits, ice sculpting and even a live satellite linkup with the big guy in red!
We spent a wonderful couple of hours wandering among the displays and marvelling at the amount of lights. It was magical.

Tree cutting in Kananaskis

After last year when we paid a small fortune for a not particularly great tree from Staples car park, we decided to do the Albertan thing and cut our own tree this year. For a $5 permit, you can cut your own tree (less than 8ft tall) from anywhere on Crown Provincial land, so armed with a map, the permit and our good friends the Ross family, we set out in convoy on Sunday morning to find our tree.
Bearing in mind the harsh winter storms of the previous 2 days, we fully expected to have to turn back at some point as we heading for Kananaskis country, just west of Bragg Creek. However, the roads were pretty good and we arrived about an hour later. We had to pick our spot, and ended up at Station Flats, where after wading (yes it was that deep) around in snow for a while, found a likely specimen.
The next trick was to cut it, drag it back to the car and try to load it onto the roof. We realised pretty quickly that the tarp that we'd brought was a little inadequate to say the least! After some problem solving and lots of 'to me.....to you' we finally got our trees aboard our cars and after having our permits checked by the park ranger, we headed off for a firepit cook out at McLean Creek.
It was freezing cold (-25) but we managed to get a fire going and roasted some weiners for lunch. We gave up before our marshmallows though, as all our condiments and milk had frozen solid! Instead, we headed for the Cinnamon Spoon cafe in Bragg Creek for some much needed hot chocolate and a good thawing!
The tree is now stored in the garage 'acclimatizing' to warmer temps (it's a balmy -11 in there!) before we bring it in. It's looking a little out of shape after a trip back on the roof of the Honda, but hey ho, we did it!
Pics of our tree will follow after we've got it up.

Arctic storm!

Yesterday (and today) we have experienced quite the worst arctic weather since we've been in Canada. It has been brutal here in Alberta for the last 24 hours. We've had gusting winds of 50mph as well as huge amounts of snow, which has made driving conditions extremely hazardous and has closed many roads in and around Calgary due to the number of accidents. I drove home from Calgary yesterday lunchtime in a whiteout, and literally couldnt see 3 feet in front of the car. It was genuinely one of the most nerveracking drives of my life. It took some drivers over 3 hours to make a 20 minute journey, and many abandoned their vehicles due to being snowbound. Temperatures are around -10 but it feels a whole lot colder than that due to the icy winds that cut through you when you step outside.
We've given up on clearing the drive and sidewalk outside the house as the blowing snow just covers it again in minutes. We've got drifts of up to a metre in places and its wild! There's not much in the way of winter weather that brings this area to a standstill, but this has done it! Definitely a time to be safely tucked up indoors with a cup of coffee and a fire going.......brrrr!
Neil's mum arrives next weekend....I hope she's packed her longjohns and thermal vest!

Christmas time....

Well, today is December 1st, the first day of Advent and I've never got the children out of bed so easily....the promise of the Advent calendar chocolate for breakfast never fails!
Canadians start the whole countdown to Christmas a little earlier than us, and many of us have had our Christmas lights up on our houses for a couple of weeks now. The reason being that if you wait til December, you'll get frostbite trying to attach fiddly little lights to your guttering. We said that we wouldn't switch on ours until today, but actually we caved in about a week ago. People seem to call them 'winter lights' here and they stay on until well into the New Year.
Last week was 'Light Up Okotoks' again, but the kids and I didn't go this year as I was sick. Neil opened the office and spent his night serving hot chocolate and tying endless amounts of helium CIR REALTY balloons for happy Okotokians. He came home with numb fingers and blisters.....bless him!
With the arrival of the Christmas spirit, comes the arrival of the cold weather and snow. We've experienced one of the warmest Novembers on record, with no snow at all, and mild temperatures with plenty of warm Chinooks keeping the frost just to overnight time. However, this week has seen temperatures plunge downwards and we've had a couple of snowfalls to make us happy again. More snow is forecast for the beginning of next week, and the world is turning white again!
We're off this coming weekend to chop down our Christmas tree in the foothills. $5 buys you a permit, and with this you can select up to 3 trees, chop them down and transport them home. Bargain! We plan to make a day of it with our friends, the Ross's and have a fire pit with marshmallows out in the forest. Photos to come later.
In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of the house in it's Christmassy lights, and our latest addition - a hand carved reindeer from Millarville christmas market.