It's a smiley Christmas Tink! Last night Davey was way too excited to go to sleep. Actually, he didn't even seem tired. So I decided that since Rob and Dave were still here he could come and play upstairs with us. He had a great time giving Uncle Rob ALL the presents from under the tree. Then he listened to Peter and the Wolf while sitting on Uncle Dave...which finally got him in the mood for sleep. Thanks Uncle Dave!

Close up of Smiley Christmas Tink.

Mummy and Davey are VERY excited that Christmas is here ;)

Michelle bought Tinkie this gorgeous little Christmas outfit. You can't exactly tell from this picture but it has little holly leaves coming out of the top of her head that make her look just like a Christmas pudding!

Cody and Ashlie. I know I say this every time, but she's really growing up way fast. What a little lady she's becoming!

Cody and Jadey

The Lyths looked so nice I had to take a picture.

All the kids LOVE Uncle Rob cause he plays games with them too.

VERY happy mummy and daddy!! (and we haven't even opened our gifts yet!)

It LOOKS like she's trying to figure out the Christmas cracker joke...but I think she's really wondering what on earth the prize in her cracker was!

Dave with his Christmas crown.

Me and my baby brother.

Mum and dad have had WAY too much egg nog!

Is it a telescope? (davey would not let us break his cracker with him. He wanted to wear a 'hat' but he insisted on keeping his cracker intact for the longest time. You don't break toys on purpose mamma!)

Is that a phone davey?

The ghosts of Christmas Past

Dave with Father Christmas. You don't often see three year olds giving him a hug!


Top left corner, gorgeous little boy doing the actions (kinda looks like the Christmas Count) that's Dave in England in their equivalent of preschool.



That's me on the far right, a shepherd in the Unsworth Christmas play.

Here's Rob with Father Christmas - this is actually December '80...so he's 4 1/2 and doesn't he look like he loves Santa!

A very smurfy Christmas. Me and Kathi.

Me and Rob...in Moose Creek when we were 4 and 3.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Davey and Tink meet Seth Jericho

Yesterday we went to visit Darren and Tash's newest arrival. I know everyone always says that when you hold a baby up to a newborn they suddenly seem SO big, but hokey dinah. I can't believe that Elisabeth was smaller than Seth when she was born. He seemed so tiny...but he was over 9 pounds when he was born. Crazy stuff. Isn't he a cutie?









And Davey was already talking about his friend Mayah two days ago! If we can only manage to get them together a few more times they might actually develop a friendship. Since they're only a few weeks apart (six?) that's pretty cool.





The one thing I wanted to do and totally forgot about, was to take a picture of Tink and Seth next to each other. But since he was only three days old, maybe we'll wait on that till he's had a chance to get used to being out of the womb!



Darren and Tash live on a hobby farm. Davey loved the BIG house (barn) and all the rabbits and pigs and cows (goats). Here they are looking at chickens. When we tried to leave he made a run for it back to the barn.

You can't go back to Constantinople...

Our second stop in Chilliwack was to feed Tink. We decided to drive past a tim hortons and then go to Sardis Park. On the way I wanted to drive past my old elementary school. This little three class room building is where I did Kindergarten (second time, dratted BC school system!) and grades 1-3.

THIS is the new building they've put in for Unsworth, which now houses K-G6. I think it's bigger than Sardis Senior was when I went there (which at that point housed grades 8 - 12).


I see they got rid of the awful little wooden playground I was pushed off of in Kindergarten. Our teacher spent a phys ed class teaching us to jump off the thing safely. I was terrified but she forced me to do it. Pretty much the next day I was pushed off. The psychopath teaching my Kindergarten class refused to believe me that I had hurt my shoulder and to punish me for whining made me pretend to be an elephant and swing my hurt arm like an elephant trunk. When the bus driver drove me home later, he got off the bus with me he was so worried about the strange colour I had turned. Turns out I'd broken my collar bone along with some other more minor injuries. Needless to say, I'm not a big fan of my k teacher. Grades 1-3 I had some of my favorite teachers though, so I do have happier memories of Unsworth.

And this used to be what mum, I can't remember. I'm not sure if it was the trailer park or farmland. Anyway, it's totally built up with houses now. Crazy. There's even a market on the corner of Keith Wilson and Unsworth Roads. How things change.


We saw this license plate holder:


While we were in the line up for much needed coffee. Made me laugh.


We did make it to Sardis Park. That's changed a lot too. Except for the parking lot. That's the same. But if it hadn't been for the parking lot, I probably would have thought I'd ended up at a different park by accident.

Then we stopped at Michelle and Chris' house and dragged them off to the Minter Gardens Christmas Train (yes, we're addicted to trains). It was SO much fun, but I forgot to bring my camera out of the car. Stanley Park is still our favorite, but this was probably the second best of the three we've tried this year. Plus the company made it so much more fun!