Christmas in Canada

Here is the long awaited recap of Christmas in Canada!

Last time we visited my parents in Canada (they have lived there for 5 years now) was July of 2009. We enjoyed the warmest part of the year and did lots of sight seeing around their town and Jasper National Park. This time we were visiting during the coldest time of the year and enjoyed staying inside by the fire. 

This was Blake's first plane ride and Rebecca's second, although she wasn't old enough to remember it last time. Blake was easy going as usual. He was charming to the flight attendants and those sitting around us. Rebecca was well behaved, but needed to be constantly entertained and if she wasn't, would announce very loudly that she was bored. The drinks and snacks on our flights kept her occupied most of the time and it's a credit to all that no drinks were spilled! 

Chilling on the plane sipping apple juice.

 We arrived safe and sound in Edmonton right on time. Unfortunately, my sister Rachel's flight was delayed and she did not arrive until midnight. Dan and mom went back to Edmonton the next day to pick her up. Once we were all settled in at mom and dad's, we enjoyed wonderful meals together, craft projects for all (the women were sewing and the men were building), watching movies, playing with tech devices, and just sitting around visiting. 

Enjoying a wonderful Christmas dinner of ham and all the fixings!

On Christmas Eve the kids got a bath and new pajamas to wear to bed. We read them a few Christmas books and put their wooden shoes by the tree. It's the Dutch tradition to use wooden shoes rather than stockings. So when in Neerlandia...

On Christmas morning we went to church and took traditional Christmas family photos.

After Christmas day we had a few outings to keep us busy. We went swimming at a local pool where mom and dad swam laps and us "kids" played in the kiddy pool. We also went bowling, Canadian style. None of us knew that Canadians like 5 pin bowling with bowling balls the size of large grapefruit. But that is how Canadians roll, so we did too. And had a lot of fun doing it! 

The "kids" in the kiddy pool.

Aunt Rachel "coaching" Rebecca.

Cute as a puppy!

We really had a great Christmas in Neerlandia. We would love to do it again, but for our next trip to Canada I would like to enjoy some warmer weather again before going back for winter. We are all smiling in this next picture because our faces are frozen that way! It was only about -10 F for the high the whole week we were there!