Mid-Winter Break

 The first full weekend of March is always Mid-Winter Break, which means it's a great time for Grandpa and Grandma to come up from California for a visit! They flew in on Wednesday night (after spending way too many hours in both the Fresno Airport and at SeaTac!)

After a leisurely Thursday morning, the sun came out and so while I headed to work, everyone else headed out to Point Whitehorn.

We were hoping for some nicer weather the rest of the weekend, but it ended up being mostly cold and dreary. We spent a lot of time playing games and ping pong in the garage! 

Friday evening we headed up to Abbotsford. We ate dinner at a tasty little Greek restaurant and then went to Rogers Forum to watch the Abbotsford Canucks take on the Colorado Eagles in hockey. The Canucks lost, but it was still a lot of fun!

Here are a few more pictures from the weekend:

Playing MarioKart

Happy Birthday Haleigh!

The time always goes by so quickly, but, as always, it was a good time and we are so grateful that Grandpa and Grandma come visit and spend time with us!!

A President's Day Hike

 Last week Kyle had to go to Spokane for some work events, but the girls had off school on Monday for President's Day. I didn't want to just sit at home and listen to them tell me how bored they were, so we joined up with Kim and the boys for a fun hike! We decided to try someplace new and headed north of Abbotsford to Sumas Mtn.

The plan was a 3 mile out-and-back hike to Chadsey Lake. It was a pretty trail, and thankfully was well-marked. However, it was steeper than we had anticipated...and not 3 miles. We also didn't anticipate the snow. But again, it was very pretty! 

And the kids all did amazing! No complaining and very few requests for snacks!

Elias and Malachi getting started!

This part was really steep...the pictures don't show it at all!

That's ice on the lake!

January

 Hard to believe that January has already come and gone. It was pretty unremarkable, as far as fun adventures. We talked about cross-country skiing, but it's been rather warm and rainy, which doesn't make for great skiing conditions. We talked about hiking, but never made that happen either. 

We have filled our weekends with lots of basketball...Haleigh is playing with LYS right now, which means one practice during the week and a game (or two) on Saturday. But since the weather has been so mild, we've also done a fair amount of basketball at home, helping her to learn more of the lingo and playing HORSE together. 

And that's about all the fun we've had. There are hardly any other photos from this month!

Smokey and Amarah watching a raccoon

I did find this gem on my phone!

The Northern Lights from my kitchen

A fun little crochet project I made!

Christmas Break

The whole month of December went by so quickly! Between all the school functions, Christmas concerts and dress-up days, it was nice to make it to Christmas Break!

There was also another big flood...this is my normal running path!

Usually a grassy field...now an extension of the Nooksack River

Haleigh got her top braces put on!

Lydia had her Christmas Concert! (she's in the second row from the top, third one to the right of the steps)

Baking fun with Addie

I really wanted to go see some Christmas lights, so one weekend we drove up to White Rock, BC. We'd heard good things about their light display, but we were a bit underwhelmed by it all. We did walk to the end of Canada's longest pier, and, overall still had a good time!

The next weekend we drove down to the Tulalip Casino. They do an incredible job with all of their lights. (I think we read that there are over 9 million lights!)

We also made it up to Canada for swimming (no pics!) and ice skating.

We ended our break with some gym time at school. Annaliese had a total of 6 sleepovers, we didn't do anything special for New Years Day, and most days, slept in until at least 9:00 (unless you were Kyle and still had to work.)