More about our time in Whistler (read the other post first)

That night after supper we went over to see Shane and Dayna (another cousin and his wife) over at Dayna's parents' house. We stayed there that night as there was a bit more room, and then we were able to see their kids, Midori and Toby, in the morning. Midori had her second birthday in October, and Toby's even younger than Billie. There's a picture here of Midori with her Christmas bells, and Toby on Dayna's lap. Jeremi tried to get some studying done in the morning while I was outside building snowmen with Midori and Dayna. When we came back inside we found Jeremi just waking up from a studying-induced nap, so I decided that he needed some fresh air. The two of us took a walk following trails into the "village" of Whistler, about a half hour walk from the Nakagawas' house, walking by a big golf course lined with giant homes. We went to a pub for some lunch and we were going to go shopping or walk some more, but we ended up having a bit of an afternoon pub crawl instead. There's a picture here of me having a beer outside at one of the bars with the bottom of the ski hill in the background. We did make it back to the house before it was completely dark, but not before Dayna's parents were wondering if they ought to send out a search party.
We went back to the Hollands' for supper that evening, and stayed there for our last night in Whistler. We made it back into Victoria tonight around 6:30, and we were met by a lonely cat who was very happy to see us. That's all for now. Jeremi's studying now, and we'll be heading to bed soon.

Back from Whistler

We arrived home this evening after being in Whistler since Tuesday. It took us a bit longer to get there than planned as the ferries are incredibly busy this time of year. There are some definite drawbacks to living on an island.
Tuesday night we stayed at Connie and Ray's (my aunt and uncle), where we got to visit with Scott and Erika (my cousin and his wife) and their daughters, Billie and Claudia. Claudia's a bit over two and a half now, and Billie's eight months old. They're both a great deal of fun. The first picture shows Billie sitting on Erika's lap, smiling delightedly for the camera. The second picture shows Claudia showing me her bedtime book, while taking the pyjamas off the attached teddy bear.
On Wednesday Erika's sister Jennifer and her husband Jim also came up to visit from Vancouver with their daughter Elena. We went tobogganing with the little ones and their parents that afternoon up on the mountain. The gondola was free up to the first stop on Blackcomb, so we went up there to where there was a small area set aside for toboggans. It was quite exciting for the girls as it was their first time on a gondola lift. (The first time for Jeremi too, actually.)

And finally, you can see the cat posing with Dad's Christmas present, a beautiful sweater made from New Zealand wool, which has yet to be fully assembled. So as you've probably gathered by now, I spent most of my month off knitting. I'm sorry that this one didn't make it into the package in time, but I was running into problems with my hands and wrists after all that knitting, and I had to take a bit of a break.
And now we're going to sit down to the same breakfast that you guys (Julia's family) had this morning, and we're going to start opening our stockings. We just wanted to get all the pictures up beforehand so you could see what we'd been up to.
So Merry Christmas everyone! We'll be talking to you very soon!

Speaking of Erico, you can see him wreak his destruction upon an unsuspecting parliament in the following photograph. The cookie was still really fresh and delicious as it had been freshly baked, but also nice and soft due to the high humidity here. (This also makes it hard to keep caramel corn crunchy, but that's another matter.)

Christmas Eve Supper

This picture shows us all at supper last night, around a feast of not one but TWO crown roasts of pork. That's right, we actually had two full pork roasts (largely due to poor communication on my part). Beginning in the foreground at the left and continuing around the table are Gerd, Shannon, Paul, me, Eunice, Erico, and Alvaro. Paul works with Jeremi on his ship, Gerd is a post-doc at CCCma in the same office as me, Shannon is a PhD student at UVic in the same building, and Alvaro is a post-doc in the same department. Eunice is Alvaro's wife and Erico is their son.

And here is the fabulously decorated parliament, front and arial views. Note the gargoyles made from licorice all-sorts and jellybeans, and the lovely eternal flame in front of the building.

The house that gingerbread built

In honour of our holiday elections, we've constructed a gingerbread parliament center block and peace tower. The 57-piece wonder was cooked and built the night of the 23rd and decorated on Chistmas Eve. The first picture shows the naked gingerbread with the naked Jeremi.

Supper with Robyn

Tuesday we had Robyn (who works on the ship with me) over for a beautiful Italian meal. We had antipasti, spaghetti with white clam sauce, steamed artichokes, and Mushroom Timbalo (lower left). Pay special attention to the timbalo which is made of fried mushroom caps, fontina and parmasean cheeses, and tomato/mushroom/garlic sauce (and the real reason we posted this picture). Finaly, we had some delicious zuppa inglese. Julia made this meal with her friend Jenny for her book club while I was away at sea, and she wanted to make it again now that I'm home so that I could taste it too. All the recipes come from an Italian cookbook that Jenny gave her for her birthday.

The tree is decorated!

Here is our tree! We decorated it with popcorn/cranberry garlands, dried orange slices, stars made from ribbon, new LED lights, and origami (not shown here). What's that ring over the star, you say? The star is actually suspended from the ceiling and can hover magically over the tree. Wow! Julia wanted to dress the cat up as an angel but she would have none of it. Now it's gingerbread time. Watch for the next post.

Our first posting

In an effort to keep in better touch with our far-away families, we've decided to try our hands at blogging. This way everyone can see pictures of us at Christmas even if we can't actually be there too. So yes, we finally went out and found ourselves a used digital camera, and we're trying to take pictures of things that we're doing. We're just starting to get our seasonal act together here - I'm putting in a picture of Jeremi carrying the tree in yesterday afternoon.