Snowy Port

Last night I caught Gary truffling.

This morning Moo and Smallest were busy 'doing' under the bunting.  Moo was emailing and Smallest was cutting - his most favourite things do at the moment.

This is one of Smallest's new tops for Christmas "collector of bugs" and he chose to wear it today - quite apt considering the combing session we had to do last night!!

 

Saw these wrapped up trees on the way in the car.  Liked them architecturally.

We decided to go for a jaunt to Port Perry today.  It was raining just a little bit but the longer we were there, the more and more it snowed.

Bbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Port Perry is a small town on the edge of a large lake.  Some unique shops, restaurants.  It was really cold and starting to snow so after browsing through a few shops we found an Italian Restaurant for dinner.  It was lovely.

Soldier and Smallest

The Grinch cake

A snowman made from drums and a trumpet

A jam jar glass - regular thing here!

I think they give you a straw so you don't dribble over the lid part!

The boys enjoying their dinner

Huffle had a lovely homemade Beef Lasagne.  Moo and I shared a Garlic soup (which was much better than it sounds and a Spinach and Ricotta Manacotti.  The boys had pizza and chicken strips.  It was yummy.

Main street of Port Perry with the lake in the background

Huffle and the boys walking towards the lake

The lake was frozen

We stumbled across a Gingerbread competition - glad I didn't enter.  Mine would have looked awful in comparison - you could smell the ginger and the cinnamon as soon as you entered the room.  They were fabulous.

This one won.

look at all that gingerbread

A toilet!

"CAMPER VAN!"

Then the snow started to get a bit heavier and we decided to head for home.

This was the view from the car driving - I'm not driving by the way (not this time!)

The snow was almost horizontal.

This was our road as we got home.

Our drive (4pm)

We all went into the loft and set up the wooden train track - wow nice to have the room to just keep going.

The view from the loft looking at the barn.  Not a great picture but you can see the snow coming down.

Huffle set up the 'gym' in the basement so we could get some exercise.

Smallest 'rocky' boxing

Huffle boxing

Small cycling

My footprints in the snow.  He he  just mine, no-one else has been out in it yet. 

 I sneaked out.  Crunch crunch crunch

The trees and snow

We decided to open more boxes and started to organise things a bit more.  Books on shelves, computer stuff, craft things away.  It is starting to feel more like home.  Little bits here and there.  Pictures up.  Magnets on fridge, photos out.

Office (under loft stairs) - We are wondering if a chair or bean bag here might make it more comfortable 

Office - computer set up.  Printer set up.  Photo albums on shelves.

Smallest's room with his car lights up.

And this was the snow at 8:30pm. ......and it's still coming down...........

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the DotDot family on their new arrival.  My dear friend LizzieDotDot had a gorgeous baby boy this morning (a little earlier than expected).  Well done LizzieDotDot.  Can't wait to see more pictures and find out his name - we've always called him Bernard, maybe it will stick!  

I can't show pictures of him yet until I have the family's permission but believe me he is adorable - now I just have to find the bonnet I knitted for him and sew the blue Pom Pom on - which box is that in!!!!!???????

A day of repairs

MONDAY 26 DEC

More boxes were opened.  Toys were played with.  Chocolates eaten.  Another Skype to Grandma, Grandad, Aunt & Unc Pear, HB & Pest, Aunty Plant & Uncle Dermott.  A catch up on yesterday's happenings and last nights cheating at cards (there not here!).

We had a little problem with the toilet today.  It got blocked!  We also had a problem with the handrail going up to the loft!  It fell off!  We also had a problem with the toilet roll holder - it fell apart.  There are our three pieces of bad luck.  I won't mention that Moo was responsible for two of the three things!!  She would like me to inform you that she was NOT responsible for the toilet, but I am saying no more!

We had a meal out at lunchtime.  Pasta, pizza, soup - all very nice.

A quick trip to the supermarket to get essentials.

More combing had to be done this evening as we found a few bugs again, which meant more washing, more bathing, more hair washing and more stuffing of hats into bags for 48 hours.  Oh the joys of motherhood, and Moohood and fatherhood.

No photos today.

No snow today but plenty forecast for the rest of the week.

A white (ish) Christmas

Last night I stitched all of our names onto a Big Santa sack because we haven't found the box yet that has our Christmas stockings in.  We sat there and played scrabble, drinking Baileys (and Malibu for those of you that know Huffle) and eating roasted chestnuts (normally we would put these in the ash pan of our open fire but this year they had to go in the oven - they actually tasted better, our fingers didn't get all black from the burnt ash and we didn't have a mess to clear up the next morning!).

It hadn't snowed overnight and the snow was melting from the day before but by mid- morning it started again.  Just small flurries but enough to watch from the warmth of our house.

Small woke up at just after 7am (bloomin' body clock - the same every day), very excited wanting to know if we could all get up.  We sent him downstairs to check the time and see if Santa had been.  He had - Small shouted "he's been and the sack is this full" making his arms go as wide as he could!  Then he woke up Smallest and Moo and pulled the covers off us until we got up.

Bless, his little face when he saw all the presents that Santa had left for him - I thought he might be too old and too cool for all that but he did his annual shout up the chimney "Thank you Santa".

Excited looks at Santas presents 

Small opens a snugly Christmas blanket.

Q:  how do you get a stuck man from out of the tree?

A:  Moo grabs his legs and pulls him out

Smallest wearing his Leicester City scarf (our home town) from Aunt & Uncle Pear

....and his lumberjack shirt from Grandma and Grandad - really warm and fleecy fur inside.

our box of goodies from my lovely friend Yahoo - thank you we are very happy with it all.

We stopped for a while and had breakfast of croissants and pain au chocolat 

Huffle skyped HB - she had a ticket to see us in February for her Christmas present - hurrah.

The boys like to climb into their Christmas bags every year, when will they be too big for this tradition?

Small is almost too big - bigger bags next year please Moo.

....and a very Canadian Christmas it was too.......

We were sent lots of British things.  Bunting, cake cases, flags, blow up guitars, tea bag holder, balloons, magnet, apron, tea towels, tins, and loads more....

Anyone would think we didn't want to integrate here!!!!!

Huffle's new hat - from Aunt & Unc Pear - very fetching - there are even little holes by his ears so he can hear, but fake ears to keep his real ones warm.  He he.

Huffle and I spent ages putting this table football together - spot the deliberate mistake!!!! - when the boys went to bed, we took it apart and put it back together correctly!!

What a lot of presents!

We had lots of chocolate.  English, Cadbury's, proper tasting chocolate.  It may last us the year, if not HB will be given a list of what to bring when she comes.

Smallest's penguin racer - very funny

We had a game of Small's Disney Monopoly which had to be played in several parts because of boredom, food breaks, toilet breaks, Skype breaks..........

Metal pieces - just like when I was a child.

Loadsa money Moo

Gary my pig from Huffle

My billabong slippers from Huffle 

My ceramic cake slice from Huffle 

My warm slippers from Moo.

There were so many presents today it is impossible to show you them all or even write them all down but we had a lovely day.  Thank you everyone for all our wonderful, thoughtful, funny, warm, yummy presents.  During the move, on the ship, on the plane, in the car etc etc, some of the presents lost their tags, some tags got stuck to other presents.  We opened the wrong ones a times and realised and passed them on.  We are sorry if we don't mention or thank you all for every present, it got rather confiusing at times.

I also had a bit of a mare when I was wrapping too.  I like to stick to a certain paper for each person and then I know who's is who's but this year I ran out of paper, got the papers mixed up and basically made a complete  mess of it all.  Huffle opened a couple of Moo's, Small got the wrong size socks, Smallest got the wrong colour things, Moo got some of Huffle's present before I quickly intercepted, but all in all it was a fun day.

The first Christmas in Canada.  The first in our new house.

A new adventure starts here.