Family Travels

On Boxing Day, Bart and I met up with my parents and Jonathan so that we could drive together to Wetaskiwin to visit my grandma.  When we arrived, Lynelle was already there helping to get dinner ready. Her parents came a bit later, along with my Uncle Murray, Aunt Debbie and Debbie's son.  It was a relaxed evening that included a nice dinner and a good game of cards.

The morning of the 27th, we got up early and had breakfast with my grandma before heading to Calgary.  We stopped in to have lunch with all of my dad's side of the family.  Lunch was excellent and we spent a few hours playing rock band with my two cousins.

After lunch, we hit the road again and headed to Banff.

We checked in to the Banff Centre where we were staying before making our way over to my Aunt's place for dinner.  She had made two amazing lasagnas!  My two cousins were back from their respective universities for the holidays and my Uncle Brian had flown down that day too.  After dinner, we relaxed by the fireplace and played a few rounds of Things which ended up getting a little ridiculous by the end.  Regardless, we all had A LOT of laughs!

The next day, the 28th, we met for breakfast at Melissa's, one of my favorite breakfast places.

We then took some time to wander around and do some shopping.  I picked up a few things to bring back to the Dominican as well as a bit of "childhood memory candy" from the local candy shop.  We also had a chance to stop by my Uncle Victor's place for a visit and some tea.

We then headed back to my aunt's place to have a quick snack.  Murray and Debbie arrived with Grandma while we were eating.  Mom and dad, Brian, Jonathan, Bart and I headed back to our hotel to get ready for the birthday dinner for my Aunt that night.  We went to a Greek restaurant called Balkan.  It was "Greek Night" so my Aunt's birthday was announced to the entire restaurant and she had to take a shot of Ouzo and dance with a belly dancer!  The food was very good and the portions were huge!

It had started snowing quite a lot before dinner, but it made downtown Banff look especially beautiful.

We decided to go to the Banff Springs to take some pictures there.  The snow made it extremely breathtaking and the inside of the historic hotel was decorated beautifully for Christmas.

The next day, we had a big brunch at my Aunt's.  We also took the occasion to celebrate my Uncle Murray's birthday a few days early.

After brunch, we all got bundled up and headed to the Springs to go skating.  It was a perfect winter day and made me so happy to have been able to come back home for Christmas.  There are a lot of things about winter that I now appreciate and miss a lot.  Although I still dislike being cold!

Following our skating outing, we took a trip to the new recreation centre and then drove out to Vermilion Lakes to take a couple pictures.

We went back to my Aunt's house to have some hot soup before saying goodbye and heading back to Edmonton.

A Different Christmas

This year, I knew that my Christmas was going to be very different from previous years.  Because I only had 10 days in the country, and didn't want to put insurance on my car, I asked my family if they could have Christmas at our place in Edmonton, instead of back home in Lloydminster.  They agreed, which also meant that I got to spend Christmas Eve with Bart's family as well.

Bart and I had some last minute shopping to do.  Let me clarify, Bart had some last minute Christmas shopping to do and I had forgotten an ingredient or two for my brunch.   So we started off by getting a breakfast sub at Subway, followed by some Caramel Brulée lattes at Starbucks.  We had to stop by my place to grab a casserole dish that I had forgotten to grab the day before, which was followed by trips to a few big box stores and then Safeway.  Once we had everything, we headed back home so that I could do as much pre-cooking as possible for the next day.  We wanted to be over at Bart's parents place a bit early so that we could help with the final preparations, so we got ready quickly and headed over.

The dinner was amazing, as always, and the table was decorated beautifully.  We started off with some borscht which was very tasty, especially with a mushroom filled pierogi inside!  The dinner was all vegetarian plus some fish, so I was happy!

After dinner, we exchanged gifts.  I was a bit upset the day before since I realized that I forgot a couple of my gifts back in the Dominican.  But everyone else really enjoyed their Dominican gifts and those that didn't get theirs were super understanding!  I was completely spoiled and one of my favorite gifts was the pair of shoes that Bart bought me!

After gifts came dessert!  There were so many options to choose from but I stuck to just a few sweets followed by a coffee.

After dinner, we played the Family Guy version of Clue.  My team wasn't very successful the first round, but in the second round, all three teams were quite close, but we still didn't win.  By the time we finished the game it was really late so Bart and I had to get home so that we wouldn't be too tired for Christmas #2 which began at 9 am the next day.

On Christmas, we headed over to my place to spend the day with my family.  We made our traditional mimosas and settled down in the living room to open gifts.  While I had opened my main present from Bart the night before, he got to open the one from me that morning, the new iPod nano!

After gifts were opened, I finished making the brunch.  I made four dishes which turned out to be a little bit much, but everyone did enjoy the food!

fruit salad with cranberry dressing

sweet potato hash with spicy hollandaise

almond and cream cheese french toast

baked brie strata

For the remainder of the day, we all just sat around enjoying ourselves and some of our new gifts.  Jonathan got a PS3 so the guys played some FIFA for a while.  He also got a sweet table top ping pong game which we set up and attempted to play, although the balls that were included were not very bouncy which made it a bit difficult.  Prior to ping pong we had a delicious turkey dinner prepared by my parents.

We finished off the night by playing "Things" for a few hours before it was time to head home.