Blackie

Paul's brother, Tim, brought back a dog with him from China. His name is Blackie.

I picked him up at the airport and he's spending the night with us - tomorrow he goes to Sooke to surprise Paul's parents! He was a really good dog in the van on the way home, just looking out the window, as if to say, "This is a strange place!". Holly was excited to have a dog visiting us - wait 'til she gets home from school!

A Holly Story

Today we were talking about "clubs". Sometimes, the kids (usually the girls) make up clubs that only some of them can belong to. We (their parents) are trying to put a quick stop to this. The latest club was the "We Went to the Disney on Ice Show Club". I had a talk with Holly about this yesterday - and reminded her (because she's mentioned it recently) that she didn't like it in Junior Kindergarten when some of the kids were in the "We're 5 Years Old Club", but she and one of her classmates weren't because they hadn't had their birthday yet. She agreed that it wasn't nice to have clubs where everyone can't belong.

Tonight somehow it came up again when she was going to bed. I reiterated that we don't want clubs that exclude people - and told her that the moms and dads in her class don't make clubs without asking everyone to join. She said, "yes, if the girls have a club and they don't really want the boys to be in it, they (the boys that is) can still be in the club, even if they are playing a different game". That's logic from a child!

No cabinets

My old ugly kitchen cabinets are now history! Can't wait to see how this all gets transformed!

Visit with Seniors

Today, Holly's class went to visit some seniors at the Kiwanis Care Centre.

They (Karl, Sienna, Mehr, Holly, Hanna) had a lot of fun playing Horse Races . . .


. . . they took turns rolling the dice and if the number on their horse came up, they got to move up one space.


In the second round, even Mehr's mom, Ash, got involved!


Then, they switched with the other half of their class to play table-top shuffleboard.


Mehr was really good! Check out how into the game the spectators are!





Finally, they sang their Porcupine in a Pine Tree song (it's a book that re-writes the Twelve Days of Christmas song in a Canadian version complete with moose, and Stanley Cups!) for the seniors (and Steve, Katie's dad - in the background!).

Sliding!

What a busy day! After the Kids' Christmas Party, we headed to curling lessons. We didn't want to miss it because we had a party here, too! Holly is really enjoying curling - go figure! She actually a pretty accurate shot - with a great touch. . . and she's also starting to slide with the broom! I tried this once - definitely not as easy as it looks, and I had the huge bruises (on my knees and elbow) to prove it!

Kids' Christmas Party

Today we went the annual PMBA Kids' Christmas Party. Unfortunately, Daddy had to work and couldn't make it.

Holly enjoyed herself as she always does - after having breakfast, we went to the Cookie Decorating tables. . .


Then we went to check out some of the inflatables - this one was cool - a giant skier coming down a mountain!


There's Holly, sliding under the giant skier's legs.


Then she raced on a pony - she wasn't quite tall enough to bounce on it like the other kids were, so a very nice man grabbed the ears and made it bounce along for her to the finish line!


She didn't try this one, but I thought it was hilarious - trying to score a basket, while attached to a bungee cord that would whip you back JUST as you got close enough to score. Everyone was laughing uncontrollably at this one!


Don't know how easy it is to climb and inflatable wall - but at least it doesn't hurt when you fall!


Riding an octopus carousel - interesting viewpoint from between the small black holes in the mesh surrounding the ride. . .


This one was taken to show Daddy what he missed out on. Holly wasn't big enough (or likely brave enough) to try this yet, but it looked like fun. Hard to see, but the rider is strapped facedown onto a platform so it would give you the feeling of flying like Superman!

Christmas Concert

Tonight was our school's Christmas Concert - Holly's class performed a really cute song called "Love My Slippers" about the slippers they get each year from their Grandma. Adorable! They even got to wear their dressing gowns and slippers for a costume.




This was called "Just One Candle", and it was a beautiful song - the kids made "candles" out of flashlights and tissue paper . . .   it looked great when they turned the lights out!

Stripped!

What are you thinking?!

The walls in the old staircase have been stripped . . .




















And here is some of the old knob and tube wiring still inside the walls.

No more stairs

The stairs that used to lead both upstairs and downstairs have been removed! Here you can see a hole where they used to go down into the basement.















Here is a view of the newly poured concrete slab in the basement - it supports the wall all the way up the house.




















This used to be the stairway heading up to the bedrooms. . .

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Santa picture

We went to the mall to see Santa today - I wasn't expecting Holly to have her picture taken so soon, as I thought she might have to check him out first, but she surprised me! So, here she is in her uniform with my favourite Santa!


Over the years. . .   Christmas 2009 . . .


Christmas 2008 . . .


I'm missing 2007, so here is Christmas 2006.