For the two weeks that the girls were out of school Glen was off work. Susan worked a few days in the first week, and then had the second week fully off. We held a Christmas brunch on the weekend before Christmas and had friends and family over for some food and games. In the early days of the week leading up to Christmas, Kayla, Melissa and dad all went to Mount Seymour for a hike and for Kayla and dad to get their seasons passes printed. It was one of only two days we would get up there all winter, as although there was *some* snow on the day that we were there, it wasn't enough to have the hill open on that day, so besides getting our pictures taken we just went for a nice hike and had our lunch with the Ravens while sitting on Dinky Peak.

For Christmas day itself we spent the day near home. Susan's parents and Susan's sister all joined us for Christmas dinner. On Boxing Day, we headed to the interior. We passed through Kelowna, and then stopped in to visit our friends Robin and Sheila and their kids in Vernon. We had a great afternoon and evening of visiting, and the kids had a wonderful time making cookies and making a gingerbread house. Late on Boxing Day after visiting in Vernon, we said farewell and continued on and late that night got to Glen's parents house at Shuswap Lake, where not only Glen's parents were but also Glen's brother's Jim's family all were. It had not been snowing for weeks, and no snow visible, but as we arrived, it started to snow.

Even though Jim and Ellen and their family had been to the falls just days before with not a speck of snow to be seen, our first morning had the ground covered with it! We spent a glorious few days of tobogganing. We too went for a hike to the waterfalls but this time there was considerable snow. We stayed at Glen's parent's place until just a day into the New Year. We didn't go home, but instead we headed to Sun Peaks where we checked in at the Sun Peaks Grand. We met up with Eddy and Pauline and their kids, and had a great few days of skiing. Both Kayla and Melissa spent some time in lessons. On the third day, Glen joined up with Nancy Greene, an ex Olympian downhill skier and Canadian athlete of the year and went on a tour of the mountain for some of the best skiing and best skiing tips ever to be had.

In the New Year we went back to regular lessons. Continuing what they had started in the fall, both Kayla and Melissa continued taking Mandarin lessons one day a week. They also were both in swimming a couple of nights a week, both girls were in gymnastics, Melissa was in piano lessons on the weekend, and Kayla was in art lessons. Both girls were registered for snow skiing lessons on one weekend day, but as mentioned above the snow never really did arrive, so we went for one day of lessons up to Mount Seymour, and spent the day in not a lot of snow but at least we made it up that one day. Every other day of lessons were cancelled. Jumping ahead to the end of the season, I'll let you know that the one day of skiing on a local mountain was the only one we had all day year. A more average day this January was to go for a hike or a walk on the weekend. One weekend day in late January we went down to Burnaby Lake for a hike and did some bird watching. One of the reasons we were so happy to be hiking is that both mom and dad got themselves fitbits, and so had great fun running some competition between the two of them as to who could walk the most steps in any one day or for the whole week.

In February one of the highlights was a weekend when we went downtown and enjoyed the Chinese New Year parade.

In March as spring break started Susan went on a holiday on her own to the heavenly Dominican Republic. She went with her mom and lots of extended family for her cousin's wedding, the marriage of Amy and Brent. While Susan was in the Dominican Republic Glen and the kids were back home. Glen spent the week working, while Glen's parents came to town to help take care of the kids (since Susan's mom, the standard day care worker for the kids was with her in the Dominican Republic). While there, they did various fun things such as to the Aquarium. When Susan came back, she had a few days to recover before she had to go to work, and we welcomed her back to Canada by taking her out to Queen Elizabeth Park. Later the same weekend we celebrated a birthday party for Shirley at a local restaurant where we not only celebrated her birthday but also wished her a good trip as she was about to head off on a marvelous trip through all of South America, where she will be spending her time until late this year.

While in Burnaby looking after the grandkids (Kayla and Melissa) during spring break, Glen's parents had actually sold their place at the Shuswap and bought a condo in Kamloops into which they would be moving at the end of April. In order to help them pack a little bit, and also to downsize in preparation for them moving into a smaller place we went to their place in early April for the Easter long weekend. Back in February, there had been great rains at the Shuswap (also a place with a lot less than usual snow). Due to one particularly bad day of rain our own cabin had the driveway just above it wash away causing a slide down into where we usually park. So besides helping Glen's parents downsize their place, we also spent a few days going up to shovel mud out of our parking area into the driveway where it had caused a slide in the hill. Glen's brother's family also was there for the weekend and on Easter Sunday morning there was of course great excitement for one last Easter Egg Hunt at their grandparent's Shuswap home. We will be sorry to have them move away from being close to us but do plan to have lots of fun at our cabin all the same. Unlike Jim's family who all had Easter Monday off and so was staying through to Easter Monday, Glen had to work on Monday so they headed back Sunday afternoon.

That covers the year right up until Easter, we look forward to telling you more as the year wears on.