Journey Home Part 2: Family Christmas

'Twas a marvellous Christmas. We spent it at my mother's home in Red Deer, AB. Also technically our home while we are in Guatemala as all of our stuff is there too. Present with me on Christmas Day were my wife, my son, my mother, my sister, my other sister, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my half-sister-in-law, and my ex-step-father-in-law.



Blaise got the best haul of gifts. Of course. With all his aunties and a grandma around, it's not surprising. I got some sweet gifts too - expansion to Settlers of Catan, a bunch of DVDs, books, candy, winter clothing accessories, and stuff to make me smell not bad.

In a future post, I will discuss at length the joy of food. So, I'll skip Christmas dinner for now.



It had been 2 years since I was together with both my sisters. I love them - we have some pretty good laughs. On Boxing Day, the three of us with my super amazing brother-in-law, world renown DJ Dean Jones went skiing at Lake Louise for a day. The conditions were awesome: about -10°C, deep snow, low snowboarder population, no line-ups, sunshine for most of the day. Even met up with Chad, an old friend from college.

Dean and I timed our second to last run to make it up the lift just before it closed at 4 o'clock. We wanted to take it easy and just hit green runs and enjoy the scenery. We were both exhausted by the day and didn't have any energy left. We followed a blue square sign to a run we hadn't tried that day and found ourselves stuck on moguls which stretched more than half the length of the mountain - neither of us ski moguls. It took us 30 minutes to make it down - a process that involved going side to side, falling, trying to turn around, and resting. Worst run ever.

In the car during the 4-hour trip each way, we watched episodes of The Office on my iPod.



This was the first time Blaise has seen snow. He was intrigued for a little while and actually learned to say it: "no" (though it's suspiciously similar to "no" and "nose").