Our final Christmas dinner.

We got together for one last Christmas dinner last weekend and Anna was in fine form. Here are a few pictures from the evening. Thanks for the yummy ham, Kristi, you made Anna's week!

"Cheese"

"Raising the roof" (as taught by Auntie Melanie)

Playing with Auntie Armande (and Auntie Melanie's boots)

Owww... ;)

Ice on Whyte Festival

Sunday afternoon we walked to the Ice on Whyte Festival with Victoria, Mia and Eric. It wasn't too chilly outside, but for the walk home in the dark I was definitely walking faster to keep the cold away (that, and I had to have Anna in the sling, since her and Mia couldn't get along in the double chariot together - I think it was a combination of tiredness and hunger). Anna + winter gear = heavy.

Waiting in line for the small slide.

Eric opted for the small slide, to our relief. The big slide was fast and scary, in my opinion!

Victoria and Mia heading down the small slide.

Anushka looking through the ice castle.

New hat

Thanks Nana and Grandpa for the cool new hat!

Bundled

It wasn't cold enough to try out the bunting bag in the chariot this week, but here is a picture of Anushka in all of her winter gear (minus one mitten to eat a banana).

I killed our Yucca???

I don't know how I managed to do it, but I killed one of the yucca plants we've had for many years. The one stem is doing fine, but the one in the background doesn't have any more leaves on it. I think it must have been over watered, or didn't like being near the window in the cold. I think I will have to do some surgery to remove the dead one and maybe get a replacement.

Buddha

Cold weather, here we come!

Last night we made a trip to United Cycle with Doug and we got some cold weather gear for the chariot: a sleeping bag for Anna and the cross country ski attachment. They are great Christmas presents for Anna and I from grandpa. We had been undecided about the ski attachment all last winter, but decided with the better ski conditions this year that we should just go for it. I am looking forward to packing up the chariot and getting some skiing in. The sleeping bag will also make walking and running more feasible with Anna, since we were out for a couple of hours this week and she was chilly. Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather!

The final pictures are up

I finally added the rest of the pictures onto the album of our trip (with a little poking from Jeff). There are over 700 photos, so I may delete duplicates so that there aren't so many. I may also add some from Lori that I got from her camera, depending on time. I still need to add captions to the last photos, so hopefully I will have time to do that soon, as well. Jet lag recovery has been brutal so far. Anna is all mixed up, so we are up at around 1am every day for at least 5 hours. I'm sure she will adjust eventually...

Caleb says it best...

I love this post on Kevin and Lori's blog:

http://www.jeffmarvin.com/kevinmeyer/2010/01/chocolate-ice-cream.html

It was fun hanging out with Caleb, we all miss him so much already!

Mom, you rock!

I came home today to a fridge filled with basic food, thanks to my mom. Thanks for picking stuff up and dropping it off, it has made the transition easier. Anna is now awake at 10:30pm, so having easy food for her has been great. She is so happy to be home, in her own bed and most of all, having her own toys. I think she will start to miss Caleb soon, though. Alright, back to tiring Anna out so that we can go back to bed.

Home, sweet home

After 24 hours in transit we arrived on time and without any problems in Edmonton. I was happy to be greeted by Chris, Gabby, Travis, and Kailey, and a bit later by Melanie. The cold wasn't as shocking as I had anticipated, but I am still questioning coming back to snow and cold when I had hot and humid. Anna did very well on the trip and she is now happily sleeping in her own bed after being away from home for a month and a half. I only got a couple of hours of sleep on the plane, so I need to head to bed. I will get more pictures up soon and will do some updates describing our adventures.

Homeward Bound

Good morning! It is 3:20am and Jeff and I are all packed and waiting for a taxi to take us to the airport. We will be arriving home in exactly 24 hours. See you all soon!

Hardware Store for Doug

We haven't seen any "Home Depot" warehouse stores here, but here's a hardware store at a local market. Jeff just had to take this picture for his dad, the carpenter. The closest thing he can remember to a hardware store like this is the old W Arcade they used to go to on Jasper Ave.

Thinking of you Doug/dad! :)

Back in HCMC

Jeff, Anna and I are back at our Asian home in HCMC, but 5 hours later than expected. We got to intimately know the airport in Siem Reap while the tire got changed on the plane (or so that is what we were told). Anyways, we will be relaxing here and hopefully catching up on adding picturescand stories to the blog before our flight home on Thursday.

Photos will have to wait until tomorrow...

Hello. After our first full day in Siem Reap, we have tons of photos, but the wireless at the hotel we are at is slow (I have been trying to upload 20 pictures to picasa for half an hour). We return to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow evening, so hopefully I will have the energy to get them uploading before I crash into bed. We had a wonderful day checking out Angkor Thom and all of the temples in the area, as well as watching most of a sunset from the top of another temple. Tomorrow we are going to see a few more ruins and hopefully get to the museum to see some of the pieces that have been removed for safety from the temples before we catch our flight. The highlight of today was checking out Ta Phrom, which is a temple that they have tried to keep looking how it was when it was discovered in the 19th century. They have had to do lots of clearing and cleaning to make it safe for visiting, but all of the trees growing out of the temples and the huge piles of rocks made me appreciate all of the restoration efforts at the other temples. Only 4 more days in Asia until we return!

Safe in Siem Reap

We arrived in Siem Reap yesterday. We relaxed at the hotel pool and had a leisurely lunch. From there we hired a driver to take us to Angkor Wat. It was amazing as expected. We took lots of photos that I will try to put up tonight. We walked around town in the evening and had a tummy dinner at a backpacker place called Blue Pumpkin. Today we are headed to see more temples. That's it for now.