The Christmas Train!

I have a million zillion things to post about with all the festivities going on around here, but i'll just do it all a bit at a time. Things are busy with work, but thankfully slowing down finally. Ah, the joys of the retail toy industry during Xmas! I must have been overheard a hundred times in these last few weeks saying "I feel like one of Santa's elves", since my job is to manage the website and do the orders and shipping.

Just before Christmas, the train came into town. It was quite an exciting and HUGE event; I couldn't believe how many people were there at Lakeside Park just to see the xmas train. It had to be in the thousands. There was live music. roasted chestnuts, hot cocoa. popcorn... and best of all, it's a fundraiser for the food banks. They travel all across Canada earning money and food donations for the needy.

And of course, Aloka also got some fun playtime at the park in the pitch black amongst about 30 other children, all sliding down icy slides in their snowsuits, shooting out and off at 100mph!



Goodbye Christmas Train!

Cookies

A more exciting post is on it's way in a couple days about the Christmas Train that came through town, but for now, here are some cookies I made tonight! They are a brown sugar cookie with toasted pecans and a caramel glaze, aka Praline Cookies! Wish I could eat one, but I'm off sugar and gluten. I'm making about 4 other kinds too, for tins for Xmas gifts. Aloka helped me so much with these. She loves baking!

Lots and lots and lots of snow!

Well, it finally came, at long last. Everyone was waiting for it; the day's were getting progressively colder and colder. The mornings would sometimes have a few flurry's. We all knew it was coming, but boy when it finally did, it REALLY did! In this below video, you can hear me say it's the 2nd time i shoveled the driveway that day! this was only a couple hours after i had just shoveled it. Richard got a foot in one day up at his house.
The snow here is the best champagne powder as far as skiing goes. It's light, and fluffy.

BUT, then only a couple days later it warmed up a bit and rained!! Ugh! Can you imagine what that did to the roads? The day it was raining I heard two people describe it as "gross". My boss, Judy, said "Rain in the winter is just disgusting!" and I agree. It was slushy, messy and icy. Now it's chilled up again and my driveway is clear but very icy!
Here is a video of the first big snowfall!

Gingerbread and fun

My dad and Jeanne were here a few weeks ago, and i'm lamenting that i didn't get more photos. Dad got a gingerbread house kit for Aloka, and the two of them built it together. Well, actually Richard did the construction of it (he's good at building houses, real or gingerbread apparently!), and then Dad and Aloka decorated it after it set.
The Martha Stewart in me screamed inwardly that I should be making it from scratch, but i quickly subdued her and enjoyed the absence of tasks needed to be done for this fun project!

I will be posting some pictures and a movie tomorrow or the next day of the massive huge amount of snow we got the other day. Winter came with a giant explosion of snow, starting on Josh's birthday, the 26th. Aloka has already tobogganed and I think we're going snowshoeing this weekend! fun fun fun!