Christmas at our house.

Happy Christmas to all of you. I hope everyone had as nice a timeas we did. We are so blessed in so many ways, but having such a huge and wonderful family is the blessing I am most thankful for.

My daughter preparing her gingerbreadmen.

We had a lovely Christmas here. It was our turn to have Keiths side of the family to dinner. We had 22 people for dinner and a couple more came later for dessert.

My son sits back looking contentedly full! Dec 25th was also his 23rd birthday.

My neice and her dad test the 'spoon sticks to the nose" theory.

For the past three years, we have swapped photo album pages instead of gifts. Here my sisters in law look at some of this years contributions.

My brother in Law plays with his children.

Many happy returns to all.

Iona Park

Yesterday we took my Mum to Vancouver Airport. She is going to be visiting family in England and Scotland for a few weeks.

After we dropped her at the airport, we went walking at Iona Park which is right by the airport. Vancouver airport and this park are right on the ocean, surrounded by water and mountains. Very pretty.

Heidi has twisted her ankle, so she sat on a log while Dad and I explored the beach.

Our beaches tend to get a lot of timber debris washing up on shore. The larger logs make great places to sit and enjoy the view.

Out at the end of the spit there is a little beachcomber company that piles up the lumber and then chips it up and ships it out for other uses. The barges are full of wood chips. Dad stands by the sign whose warning he ignored. Fortunately there was no machinery at work due to the holidays, I guess.

Heidi sits on a log with Coaco, my dads dog. The sign behind her says No Dogs. But like their owner, they dont read signs! Perhaps they dont want the waterfowl disturbing? The dogs were really good though, and stayed close by.

Looking out over the water towards Vancouver Airport. You can see an airport tower on the far left. It has been cold and clear for a few days. Notice that the ocean is starting to ice over, near the shore. This is a fairly sheltered area as it is in an inlet. So no big waves to break it up.

From here we stopped back at the airport along the runway and watched Mums plane take off. It shot off the end of the runway up over the ocean and then banked north towards the mountains. A lovely day for flying.

HAPPY NEW YEARS