Skiing one day, swimming the next.

So Christmas has come and gone...WOW! I always feel a kind of sadness the next day, although we've been having a lovely time.

Christmas itself was celebrated with baking of cookies for Santa...
The making and scattering of reindeer food....

Retelling of the nativity; this year with "puppets".

And then all the kids took themselves off to bed EARLY. Matt and I stayed up for a while watching White Christmas and then chatting with his parents before we took ourselves off too.

And although it didn't snow, we did have a white Christmas with snow still on the ground- even if it was getting a bit melty.

Christmas pressies this year were all a hit- with scenes like this. I wish you could hear the noises they made when they opened this one.

And scenes like this. We had one enormous present under the tree which we wouldn't even tell the kids who it was to. They had no idea. It was a key board which Matt really bought for himself, but gave to the whole family. They've all enjoyed playing with it. I've enjoyed listening to Matt play again.
And yesterday we went skiing (minus Oscar who had to work filming an ice hockey game- something he does a bit of). We were up at 6 am and on the road by 6:45. It takes about 2 hrs to get there. Kit had a snowboard lesson at 9:30 and I had one at 10:30. Matt, Remi and Ella skied until about 11:45 then stopped for lunch- I joined them about 12 right when it started sleeting on the slopes. We picnicked on ham and cheese and other left over yummies from Christmas lunch. My lesson went well - I finished up not feeling terrified and looking forward to doing it all again soon. I drove most of the way home in the rain because Matt was too tired. We got home and I collapsed into bed! A good day, and we would have loved to have gone again except that it rained all yesterday and was forecast to be wet and slushy on the slopes. Not surprising as it was around 10 degrees and sunny most of the day.

After a breakfast of waffles, made with my new waffle iron, we went for a walk done at the cove. We walked a few laps of the circuit there- then the kids took turns going around on the scooter with Honey "pulling" them along. They love it and it's the best way to tire her out.

Then we wandered around with the kids climbing everything in sight.

This pole was a particular challenge to Rem who is actually part monkey and part circus performer.

( I love Oscar with his hands over his head in this one...)

And then he was up...and had to get down....

Then we wandered a bit more and Oscar and Kit decided it was time for their annual polar bear club dip. See the "pond" there behind them- there was ice over much of it last week.

Yeah, it was cold! They didn't last more than a few seconds. Ella kept saying "My brothers are such idiots!"....hmmm, I tend to agree. But it's good for some brotherly bonding. Tomorrow we're supposed to be back to proper winter temps with possible snow, so it was nice to get out and enjoy it while we could.