Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

So I was looking through my pockets today, and guess what I found - my flash drive!
So you will be getting those pictures - they are at the end of the post.

Today was a really nice day and I am finally getting into the mood of Christmas.

I had trouble sleeping - while I went to sleep at midnight after going to bed at half past eleven,  I woke for the first time at three and for the second - and last - time at half past five, so I checked my mails, checked facebook and did all my Christmas-mail, and then went to watch the Canada-USSR game of 1982.

When I finally ventured upstairs, Bobby and Jenna had already unpacked their first (and only) gift of Christmas Eve, both getting dresses.
I also opened my first present: lovely earrings from Lara. Thanks honey!
I'll upload pictures tomorrow, I promise!

The rest of the morning/noon I helped Tanya prepare the Salad for dinner (Broccoli salad, and I still can't understand why anybody would eat Broccoli raw, but apparently that's a quite common salad) and then doodled a bit around, until we dressed up for Turkey dinner at Andy's parents' house and Church.

The Turkey was delicious. There was Turkey and gravy (Sosse) and peas and Brussel sprouts (Rosenkohl) and sweet potato mash with pecan nuts and mashed potatoes and coleslaw (Kohlsalat) and Broccoli salad and it was just sooooo wonderful!
Andy's mom is a wonderful cook.

Afterwards we went to Church. It's a united Church and it was really laid back, and I almost started to cry when we sung "Ihr Kinderlein kommet" in English ("Come ye faithful") and "Silent Night". I mean, I haven't been to church in ages, but it was just so reminiscent of home and Christmas during my childhood, that I finally got into the right mood.
The biggest difference between this service and the one at home? One, there was no priest. At least I don't think the guy in the suit holding the mass was a priest. And two, when we got the body of Christ (Leib Christi) we got actual bread and dunked that into juice. It tasted kinda gross, because believe me, you don't want white bread soaked with berry juice, but it was also awesome - everybody tore off their own piece of bread.

And now we're back, and I'm really tired. The sooner I get to bed, the sooner we can relieve the Christmas tree of it's crowd of presents. And trust me, there are a lot.

Christmas tree

Presents

From Bobby (sign) & Jenna, for Santa & his reindeer

Decorations

Stockings!

More decorations

Advent calender

 

Gingerbread house (Jenna's side)

Fish! In the Vancouver Aquarium!

Something... I'm not quite sure what it is!

Frog!

Qualle

More Jelly fish - they're like seriously gross

Star fish

More fish

Me in a bubble... Kinda gross, too

There is something in this picture - can you find it?
[I can't]

Dolphin! Isn't she adorable?

More dolphin

And both of the lovely dolphins in mid-flight

That's me, of course. Like my mis-matched greens?

Grouse Mountain. Not Gross Mountain, as I said in my
E-mail to Pascaline.

And here are the reindeer when they're not in Santa's
employment. She's awesome, right?

That's me from behind, filming for my parents!

And... a water fall!

And that's me, too, in my favourite sweater.
I LOVE that thing!

The inside of the Omnimax!

The outside of the omnimax!

One of the traditional thingies - remember it
from the Olympics?

Capilano suspension bridge

Vancouver skyline

Our hotel room on the last day

And Frozen Yoghurt. That stuff seriously is awesome!

And of course a HUGE THANK YOU to Dorothea, who has kindly given me the photos!