Christmas Letter 2015

This has been an EPIC year for our little family.  It all started with snow, & more snow until Prince Edward Island broke the all time snow record & got 18 feet of snow!  The kids had fun in it, I had fun looking at it from inside the house with a cup of coffee, but I don't think PChad had fun snowblowing it!

We had a long winter full of snow which lasted us right up 'til April!  PChad has been doing an Executive Masters which means lots of travelling to Paris & London, & I got to join him for one of his weeks in London!  Now, when I say I joined him, what I really mean is that we flew together, then he went to Oxford for the week, & I gallivanted all around London visiting friends & shopping, then we met back up at the end of the week & flew back to PEI together!

April was also my Dad's 70th birthday, & my brothers & I few out to Seattle to surprise him!  It was awesome to get together for a few days.  We also had a breakfast together with a bunch of Aunts & Uncles & cousins we had not seen for a few years.

PChad received & accepted a call to a church in B.C., with a move at the end of the summer.  We knew we had to take full advantage of our last PEI summer, so we hit the beach as often as the weather allowed!

At the beginning of August we packed up, & headed across the country.  We decided to take our time & visit family along the way, which made of an EPIC 3 week road trip!

We stopped at both of my brothers' places, Mt Rushmore, Yellowstone, met my parents for a weekend at my Uncle's ranch, & Chad's parents house!

We arrived in BC just as they were having a huge windstorm that caused a 2 day power outage.  Thankfully we had a lovely couple from church to stay with & they took good care of us.  We housesat for the first almost 3 months living in BC, & looked for a house to buy.  We found one really close to the church, but it was being rented & we had to give a full 2 months notice to the renters.  Unfortunately, that means we couldn't get into our house until January, so we are now renting a duplex with furniture donations from church people.  So, for the last 4 months, we have been 'camping' as I like to call it.  ("Sorry kids, we can't bake Christmas cookies, we're camping!  Everyone knows you don't bake cookies when you're camping!")  The kids have learned to adapt to our transient lifestyle quite well, but I think we are all ready to be in our own place with our own things.  When we packed for this adventure it was July, & we never anticipated we'd be without all of our household belongings this long.  Thankfully we packed a few sweaters & long sleeved shirts as it has been a bit chilly, & we have even had a tiny sprinkling of snow!  Now that we live only 4 hours from my parents, we are taking full advantage & spending a few days with them over Christmas!  It's been 9 years since we celebrated Christmas together & we are really looking forward to it!

My address book is in the moving truck, so this is as close to a Christmas card as it's going to get this year...

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!