Christmas Eve

I work for a couple of days getting everything prepared for Christmas Eve.  This year I really mixed things up...just so everyone wouldn't be able to say, "Christmas Eve is always the same old, same old!".

Ever since we've been married it's always been our tradition to have a meatless meal on Christmas Eve and Good Friday, although in the past couple of years I've cooked a small ham to satisfy certain family members.  Neither my husband nor I will eat any meat until after midnight.  Usually I'll make fish, or a seafood dish of some sort, but this year I thought I'd go with a Chinese theme, so I made a huge pot of chow mien and added some shrimp to it, steamed some rice, did coconut shrimp and egg rolls along with a bunch of cheeses, pickles, dips etc.

Before dinner I usually read the passage from Luke about Jesus' birth but this year I read the passage from Matthew...just wanted to see who all were paying attention!  I'd hate for our life to get too predictable!

We had a great time and it was really nice to have the family all together.  Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Cookie Baking

Today my older daughter and her niece (my second granddaughter) came to bake cookies with me.  I've got double wall ovens so we were prepared to make LOTS of cookies.  Preheated the ovens and started by slicing up the refrigerator cookies my daughter had brought out.

While they were baking granddaughter and I mixed up a double batch of shortbread dough.  I put it through the cookie press, daughter placed them on the cookie sheets and granddaughter decorated them.

We finished baking the shortbread cookies and made up the Coconut Crisp recipe.  Only problem I'd forgotten how much they spread out so they baked together but we cut them apart as they came off the cookie sheets.



 Three cookies got left stuck together so granddaughter decided to decorate it like a snowman!

My older granddaughter had to work today so when she got off work she came.  By that time we'd almost finished baking all the cookies so she got the job of making pizzelles, a thin Italian wafer or if you're Swedish they're called Kromkker.

It was a long fun-filled day with lots and lots of laughter.  We divided up the goodies to take home. 

Four different kinds of cookies will be nice to serve to our guests over the holidays, and the best thing is we're planning to do it again next year, God willing!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 

Kiwi

At church this morning we were talking to some friends.  She was very excited because there was quite a frost last night and they have a kiwi vine, and after a good frost it's a good time to pick the kiwi.  They invited us over.  We'd never seen a kiwi vine or had any idea of how they grew.
The vine was humungous and looked more like a tree, and it was loaded with kiwi.  It was quite the experience and we got a bunch of kiwi but also got to spend some time with our friends.  Guess we'll be eating kiwi for the next little while!  Yum!  Yum!
 

Walking Track

A new swimming/ice rink/community center complex recently opened near where we live.  We've been going there to walk around the track that circles the upstairs of the ice rink.

When we were there today instead of hockey practice they were having a ringette tournament.  We did a couple of laps and people who had children playing in the tournament were starting to fill the bleachers.  A fellow came up the stairs, smiled at me and said, "I know you!"  It didn't take us long to figure out that he was a child I used to have when I ran a preschool in New Westminster!  I was so surprised that he could remember me after all these years.  His daughter is playing in the tournament today and his Mother was also sitting there watching her granddaughter.  I had a delightful visit with both of them!

Cabin Getaway

We've got our trailer all wrapped up and winterized but decided we felt like going away for a few days, so we booked a cabin in one of our parks for 3 nights.  The cabin was really nice and comfortable, it even had a dishwasher, which was a nice bonus.

We have friends that live in Everett Washington and arranged with them to come to the park and spend the day with us.  We had such a delightful visit and they even brought us a little gift...a trailer Christmas ornament.  When I looked at it I thought something wasn't right...actually the ornament has the door and the awning on the wrong side of the trailer.  This only made the ornament more precious to us because when we were in Australia we saw a trailer going along the freeway and it looked "backwards".  That's because they drive on the "wrong" side of the road there!

The wheel is at the back of the trailer and the hitch is in the front under Happy Camper

Visiting the Past

We spent the day with friends and went to New Westminster to see the Lego display of the City of New Westminster.  Most of the display is of the current city but there was one section of the display that showed the soldiers marching and heading for the train that would take them to fight in World War II.

Here are a couple of pictures of the display of the City the way it is today.

We also visited the Slovak Hall, which is where my husband and I had our wedding reception.  That was over 50 years ago.  The hall is still there but sadly it is looking worse for wear.  There was a sign there that explained the future of the hall.

Abbotsford Air Show

This year we saw a lot of the planes performing for the Abbotsford Air Show.  The only problem was we could hear them before we could see them and by the time you got them in the viewfinder they were long gone...I did get lots and lots of pictures of the sky though, which I deleted!!  Did manage to get a couple though to share with everyone.

More Camping

When the weekend was over and the carvers left, we didn't feel like going home yet so we moved to another one of our parks.

When we went shopping I bought this "cantaloupe".  When I got it back to the trailer and cut it, to my surprise the flesh was white, the seeds looked like cantaloupe seeds, as did the skin...it even tasted like a cantaloupe.  A day or so later I went back to that store and took this picture.  Ends up it's a Sharlyn Melon...never heard of them before!

The other store I went into had these "mushrooms" cut from a tree branch, so of course I thought of  our carving friends!

Camping Time

In 2007 we were camped at one of our Thousand Trails parks.  I was in the clubhouse working on a jig saw puzzle (as I'm prone to do) and a couple came in, looked out the window and proceeded to marvel at the condition our trailer was in.  We bought the Prowler in 1976 and we'd always kept it in the garage, when we weren't using it, so even though it was 30 odd years old and well used,  it was in like-new condition.  I approached the couple and told them that was our trailer.  We became friends.  We still try to get together once a year or so.

Lately he retired and has taking up wood carving and joined a carving group called Spit and Whittle.  They had a campout this weekend so we joined them.  Had great fun!  Learned about carving, had pot luck dinner met their friends and enjoyed their company.

It was my husband's and my birthdays last month so she painted us this rock....soooo cute, even if it's not the colour of our trailer!  The Prowler, which we no longer have was yellow and the new one is red and white, but I treasure this little rock!

For those who didn't want to try carving they had a couple of crafts for us to do.  One was an embossing to put on the front of a journal or it could be used for making cards or whatever.

The next day a couple of us got together and painted rocks and some of the little carvings our friend had done.

That evening after dinner they had drawings for all sorts of things.  I won this whale!

Getting Back to Normal

I've been unpacking, going through mail, doing laundry and most importantly downloading and editing all the pictures I took.

I bought a couple DVD's about Haida Gwaii, 2 placemats that Marla our Haida Gwaii guide made and picked up some shells and rocks from the beach which hubby made a nice tray for me to display them in. The placemats are on our table and now every time we eat we're reminded of or trip!

Day 11...Homeward Bound

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and boarded the new bus.  The north of  Vancouver Island has been home to lots of logging and there still is quite a bit going on.  We saw railroad bridges crossing over the highway.  Apparently they used railcars to get their logs to the coast where they could dump them in the water and tow them to their destination.

We stopped at a park/rest area for awhile.

Next stop was Campbell River for lunch.  We stopped in an area where there were several restaurants.  We decided on Wendy's.

After we ate we went for a walk and took some pics of the harbour and the ferry landing to go over to Quadra Island.

Next stop was the ferry terminal in Nanaimo where we boarded the ferry for Horseshoe Bay.

Ahhh….there's Vancouver.  There was a cruise ship leaving port.

We took Hwy 1 to Coquitlam, dropped some passengers off.  Taxis were waiting to take them home.  Next stop, Walnut Grove in Langley.  Last stop was Cascades Casino in Langley.  The folks from Kamloops and the Okanagan got to stay at the casino overnight.  They will get on a bus tomorrow morning but we had a taxi waiting to take us to our home.  We got home about 7:30 pm.  It was a remarkable trip but it's good to be home!!