Butchart Gardens at Christmas time

Right now we are at Shelby's parents in Courtenay to spend Christmas with them. On our way we spent Saturday night in Victoria visiting Mark and Sylvie. Getting to the ferry on Saturday morning was quite sketchy, as it was snowing and the roads were not cleared. Once we reached Vctoria there was no sign of snow and the sun was shining. Later in the evening we went with Mark and Sylvie and her sister and parents went to Butchart Gardens to check out their Christmas lights. On the way to the Gardens it rained quite hard, but as we got their it cleared up and we enjoyed a nice evening at the Gardens. Sylvie works at the Gardens, so saving the entrance is a nice perk. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Aaron's Christmas Play

I mentioned in an earlier post that Aaron was going to be in a play in pre-school. I said he was going to be the innkeeper, but it turned he was to be the angel Gabriel. We spent the couple of days going over his lines and eventually he memorized it.
Yesterday was the play and I completely forgot to bring my camera, so I pulled out the handy camera phone to get a few pictures. The play was cute and they all did a pretty good job.

Here is Gabriel telling Mary she is going to have a baby.


These are the actions, I think it was sigh language to a song they sung.




Gabriel watching over the manger scene

Christmas Party

Last Sunday we had everyone on my side of the family at my parents for a 'Christmas party'. This seemed to be the best day to get everyone over to celebrate Christmas. We call it a Christmas party, so as not confuse the children for the real Christmas Day. We had a nice dinner, then went for a drive to see the lights and when we came back the presents were there!

Here are a few pictures...

The obligatory family dinner shot...

Aaron got his Henry train!

Kyle got his Edward train!

and Doodle Pro

and Aaron got a baseball glove.

Mike made this Inukshuk for my m0m and she also requested 'time' from us boys. She wants us to help her on the computer and other things. I think Mike was trying to be symbolic of Mexican time?

Mike was Sylvie's sectret Santa and this is what she got, apparently this is pretty self-explanatory.

I received a nice camera bag from Shelby and a cool gorillapod from my secret Santa Viva and some other things as well, (we all got pretty spoiled).
It was nice to get together as a familyagain and then we get to do it all over again with the other side next week.

Crazy kid pics

Last week Shelby got a hold of the camera and took some pictures of the kids, this is how they turned out...

A Walk in Campbell Valley

Last Saturday was a sunny, yet cold day. In the morning I took the boys and dog to Campbell Valley park for a walk. Seems I wasn't the only dad with their kids that morning, where were the moms??
At first Aaron was complaining of the cold and how he wanted to go back home, until he tripped and landed on his face, luckily he had his hands to stop him. Ironically after the tears stopped, he seemed to be more into the walk. I think looking at the ducks and finding a practically dried river bed seems to help as well. Kyle switched between the stroller and walking, so there were no complaints from him.

Here are a few pictures

Some thoughts on Christmas...

A few things have happened in my life recently that inspired me to write this post. They are not major things, but perhaps little things that have added up. Let me try to explain some of my thoughts and see if you can make sense of it.

First, Aaron's pre-school class is making a play of the First Christmas. Aaron is the Innkeeper. I'm looking forward to seeing this play, actually it should be quite cute. An idea came in my head of what the Second Christmas might have looked like. Honestly I don't really know if there was an actual Second Christmas the year after Jesus was born or not. Regardless, I thought what if the Second Christmas looked like a 2007 Christmas, you know stores decorated the day after Halloween, people rushing around trying to find the perfect gift, office parties, Santa Claus and all the other things that go along with Christmas these days. Basically almost forgetting what the First Christmas was all about. Even the idea of gifts was not part of the First Christmas, as the wise men arrived 3 months or so after Jesus was born.

The second thing that happened was our sister in law Sara was watching Oprah yesterday(I didn't catch it), but it was about people who suddenly pass away and then the question is asked...if you had one more day to spend with someone, who would it be?? She was prompted to write her friends and family and tell them she loved them. I really appreciated her writing this, because we often don't tell our friends and family how much we love and appreciate them. In reading her email, I was wondering how many more days do I have or do you have on Earth, we don't know?

So, I was tying these two points together and thinking of how even in one of Christianity's biggest holidays the idea of Jesus, a Saviour to the world being born, is almost an afterthought. This is not a new idea, people saying things like keep 'Christ' in Christmas etc., but things don't seem to be changing, perhaps getting worse as everything has to be politically correct these days and the idea that 'you can believe what you want and I'll believe I want' and 'let's not step on anyone's toes.'

But what if you were to suddenly die? Where would you go? If you believe in Heaven, what will you say at the gates that should let you in?

It would be nice to say we were all good enough to get in, but unfortunately then what would be the point of us living on earth, when we'd all get to Heaven anyway? And how can you measure good versus bad, when we have good and bad thoughts and actions everyday? Hoping the good outweighs the bad, is still a gamble. I believe they will be asking you, where does your hope lie? Is it in yourself, your family or is it in Jesus Christ the one born in a lowly manger and ultimately died for you? And does your life reflect what you believe?

I know these are some tough questions, but I feel convicted to write this and it seems like these things are 'taboo' to talk about much these days, but if one of you were to suddenly die, I'd feel regret in not sharing this message.

I hope this is not to much of a 'downer', because there is a God out there that loves you, even if you don't feel it and we are open to talk about any questions, doubts and struggles you might have, you'd probably be surprised to find out we struggle with a lot of the same things.

And this Christmas, may you hear the small voice speaking about the First Christmas and why we celebrate Christmas.

If you made it this far, thanks for 'listening'.

Winter weekend

On Saturday we made our way out to the Fernridge Christmas tree farm for our 3rd straight year. The last 2 years we have gone on the first Saturday in December and now for the third straight year we had snow as we cut our Christmas tree down. This year Grandma and Grandpa joined us as they picked out a tree as well. This is the first year that Kyle has been able to walk in the snow and he really enjoyed it. Here is Kyle finding a tree his own size.

This is us with Grandpa posing with our 'kill'

In the afternoon we decorated the tree and Kyle was quite into that as well, although he needed some help to reach the top of the tree.

Good job decorating the trees boys.

If you live in the Lower Mainland you know we had quite the winter-like weekend. The boys played with their construction toys trying to help mom and dad clear the driveway with their bulldozers and back-hoes.

This is an attempt to make snow angels

Kyle was even working at night. As Aaron was getting whiney about the cold and whatever he could think of, Kyle seemed like he could play for hours in the snow.

So now we are ready for the Christmas season as now we have our lights on the house, the tree decorated and had a winter-like weekend.

On now this Monday evening, the snow is melted and we are left with memories and photos.