Texts and dinner!!

Ok dad!! As promised... Here's our dinner!  

We are bundling up for a walk now but as we were heading out we got a text from Lisa and told her where we were. I had to take a screen shot of one part of our text because we were laughing pretty good. 

Lisa isn't the first one to tell us that they wished they had better plans. Even Gussie this morning was saying "I am not going to this party at 7 or 8 tonight because them I'd have to spend like 5 hours with a big group of people until midnight!! And I don't want to do that!!" So, we are feeling pretty lucky to be in this gorgeous space for the start of this new year with our favorite people!!

2015 New Years at WorldMark! Thank you Susan!!

We've never had such a beautiful view!!

Ribs are on .... We are in for a good relaxing night!!

Happy New Year!!  Kids are out, now it's our time to jump in the hot tub!! We are hoping to see fireworks in the harbor tonight ....fingers crossed!!

New Stove for Faten!

We toured around Fatens new home yesturday. It's a sweet little 3 bedroom so her mom and her son can all have their own room. 

Marg told me that even after a good scrub, the oven was pretty gross. So, I had my task. I was able to narrow one down on a used site that was very nice. However, after I put out on Facebook what we were looking for, Sharyn (Susan's (and my) friend who lives in Washington) got wind of what was needed, she emailed me that she is part of a group called Skagit for Syrians! And they would like to help buy the oven!  The part that made me smile is that they have this group formed but there are no Syrians around her group to help!! So I told her we are happy to let them help our newest cowichan valley Syrians. ;-).

It's such a nice thing to see when people come together to help other people ... I sure hope Faten and her family settle in well and become happy here. 

I love this shot of Faten and her mom Aisha and her son Mohamed at the Burdge Christmas. Look at Aisha's face! And I know it's all blurry but I love everyone's face as Mohamed opens his lego present and everyone is smiling .... 

New Years Eve morning!!

Woke up to the ding of a sweet text asking to come over for a visit. This girl always knows we walk when we visit. She was standing in my doorway 20 minutes later all ready to roll. I love friends like this!!  We walked and talked and caught up but it was so cold that our walk got cut short and we headed home towards the fire and lattes (with baileys because it's the holidays after all!!)

So exciting to talk about her upcoming life as a wife. It's been so fun to watch her grow from a teenager into this woman who has dreams and a focus that is quite elusive to most 21 year olds. 

After Gussie left, Linda stopped by for our holiday visit.  It was good to cath up on what I have (or haven't missed) at work this past month.  I'm actually looking forward to heading back to work on Monday ... But until then, still in holiday mode!!  We've packed up food for breakfast, stopped for snacks and treats, stopped at m&m's and picked up a sweet dinner of ribs and a rice and veggie medley!!  Off to Worldmark!!! We've packed games and bathing suits because this unit comes with a hot tub!  We've also packed warm clothes because we will walk downtown later tonight. Gonna be fun!!

Isaacs first YouTube upload!!!

After being spoiled by his folks and getting a new tablet, a new custom table and crazy cool backgrounds that chris printed as well as being spoiled by grandma and grandpa with a new lighting kit for the stop motion - here is the first YouTube video that chris helped Isaac to complete!!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8NMp6jrS_58

Nightmare before Christmas

all company is gone .... that was quite the Christmas!! All good things to come home to from an incredible month away .... it is a bit of a climactic let down now that it is all over .... but I am happy for the calm, clean, cozy home filled with 3 people that I love so much.  Tonight Isaac and I watched Nightmare before Christmas ... he has a new appreciation due to the stop motion and I just have always loved it!

It is midnight now, a little after, and we just had a 4.9 earthquake ... it was a scary few seconds as Chris and I both ran to the boys room to stand by for next moves .... it stopped quickly but facebook sure flared up quicker than I had ever seen!  All seems ok now, and I am going to head to sleep.  But we really need to pack an earthquake with warm clothes and boots if this was to happen again? Because as I was racing through my mind what our next steps were if the shaking continued, I thought, if we grab our kids and run outside, we will freeze!  Anyways ... goodnight all!!  Another prayer of "thankyou" that the shaking stopped and all is ok!  never boring!

Werdals come to visit!!

One of our favorite and oldest friends arrived late last night to visit the Zalinkos and ourselves.  They stayed in our place and their girls woke up early and this is what I arrived to.  Sophie with a stick in her hand trying to peel the sticky tomato toy off our ceiling as Penny watched ..... aren't they adorable? Having girls in the house was weird ... Rachel made a good observation this afternoon that it was nice because they used the pink perler beads! ;-)

I made a potato chedder egg bake for breakfast .. with my VITAMIX!! ;-)  We had a nice breakfast and headed outside after we were all fed.  It was such a beautiful day ... here are the shots from the day from all of us.  Rach has a new Iphone 6, so I am pretty sure all the nice clear ones are from her! ;-)

Snow pictures!!

I asked for permission to take this picture of my beautiful sister on the morning of the 27th ....it was snowing outside, the fire was on and she was all cozy on the couch.  best picture ever that I want to remember .... I love that they made the long trek to our house ... I know its not easy (or cheap) to get here, but it made Christmas!!!!

This boy knows that I LOVE the Downton abbey theme song that he used to know and play so beautifully.  I have been begging him to re-learn it for me ... so he tried a bit this morning.

We took care of Tucker for a few hours and were happy to have the sweet guy here until he blew us away with one fart!  He was taken home after that one ....

Thought these guys should have a nice family picture in the snow ... my phone camera isn't awesome!


Check out Isaac patiently awaiting with his snowball to nail his cousins ....


The cutest snowball fight ensued ....

Boxing Day hike

I think we have agreed that this would be a fun and new Boxing Day tradition to hike with Lauras family .... the cousins just love hanging out together!  It was a beautiful day so we headed up the mountain!  Brad and Jack went to see Star Wars, and Carrie and Ellie stayed home.  Max ended up representing the Zalinkos, so we all headed up the mountain around 3 ...

In all our glory!!!!  It was cold at the top ... but it was a fun hike!!

 

Crazies ..... lets eat Oscar!!

Logging the time with my sis .....

Wren is totally 13 ... mouthy and super sweet, often all in one breath ... I get a kick out of her and enjoy watching her grow .....

Home for dinner and to eat the popcorn strings!!

I was able to take home extra turkey and fixings from Margs amazing Christmas dinner from the night before, but Laura wasn't able to (I think they ate it all?), so she brought a baked macaroni casserole that the kids all loved!  So we had a big medley of yummy food!

I wanted to show her my new waterpic, so we headed to my room.  I was so wiped from the whole day, that after I showed it to her, we both laid down on my bed and chatted.  It was nice .. Carrie came in soon after....and then Bosun !!!

And then the rest of the gang wondered where we all went and suddenly the room was packed ....

I kindof got a kick out of the familiarity of it all ... this is my family ... and here we are laughing in my bedroom.  Isaac showing off one of his first 'professional' stop motion videos to an attentive group of people who love him!!

That was a fun Boxing Day!!!