Merry Christmas to All our Friends and Family

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope we are finding you all happy and healthy. Every year just seems to be flying faster. Thanks to all of you who have been so timely is sending your cards and thoughts for the holidays. Ours was a little delayed this year but I hope you received them sooner rather than later.
    Our year has been the typical chaos of a family. Todd and I are both busy working in the same jobs and juggling the girls and all their activities.
    Heather is turning ten soon. She is growing into a lovely young lady who keeps busy with her schoolwork, horseback riding and highland dancing. She also started racing kayaks this year which kept the whole family busy with either volunteering or travelling to regattas.
    Vanessa is going to be seven at the beginning of the new year. I am so grateful she is growing up and maturing to the point that reasoning actually works sometimes. She has been busy taking musical theatre classes, swimming, piano lessons, horseback riding, kayaking/canoeing, and of course there is school slotted into there too.
   I thought I would share just a few highlights from 2012 in this letter but if you want to check out a bit more, you're in the right spot. Our year has been pretty consistently documented on this blog so enjoy and hopefully you get a few laughs too.
   We are slowly adjusting to country life. We have had a lot of interaction with wildlife. Jigs got to chase two deer and a coyote one weekend. Todd had to deal with a bat that decided to have a nap in our house as well as chase a bear away from the chicken coop. The girls enjoyed catching snakes, salamanders and frogs. And then of course there are the chickens! The Easter Bunny decided to deliver chickens for Easter. It has been a lot of fun raising them and we have had quite a few funny as well as sad experiences with them since the spring.
    As for travelling, Todd got to experience the trip of a lifetime. He went to Munich in September with our friend Brent to enjoy the festivities of Oktoberfest. He said that since coming back, beer is just not the same. I think he is just making an excuse to go back again. Ha Ha. While he was in Germany, Todd also visited the grave site of one of his great uncles that died fighting for Canada in WWI. He placed a couple flags and sprinkled a little Saskatchewan dirt to honour this uncle's sacrifices.
    I got to travel to Denver, Colorado for work. It is a beautiful city architecturally. I wish I could have stayed longer.
   Heather got to travel with her dance group to Disneyland for a week. It was hard to just drop her off at the airport and not go with her. She did well on her own and was well taken care of.
   We took the girls camping to Blue Lake near Boston Bar. They had a lot of fun swimming, kayaking, fishing, atving and learning to shoot a rifle.
   Heather and I also biked part of the Kettle Valley Railway near Kelowna this summer. It was amazing. 
   We also travelled to Van Island for my cousin's wedding and Heather raced her kayak at a regatta where we had extra fan support thanks to family.
  Most of our summer was spent at the local lake either on the beach or in the water. Definitely can't complain.
    We enjoyed visiting some of you that we got a chance to see and we're glad some of you could come and visit us. If we missed you this year, we hope to catch up with you in the near future.
  We wish you all the best for 2013.

Love,

Todd, Belinda, Heather, Vanessa, Jigs, Meeko and the Henwarts Clan






   

Christmas Recital

Vanessa started taking piano again in September at a local church. They had their Christmas Recital at the church. Vanessa played a Santa Medley and had a lots of cheering support. Thanks to those that came out.

Ukranian Egg Decorating Class

Heather and her friend Piper took an Ukranian Egg class to celebrate their belated and early birthdays. They had a lot of fun and made an ornament for the Christmas tree.

Tree Hunting

We didn't hack a tree down from the yard this year. A Christmas tree farm opened up down the road aways so we decided to look for one there. We needs tall but skinny and we succeeded. Its a Fraser Fir.

Charlie Brown Christmas Musical Theatre Class

Vanessa took another musical theatre class and this time they did a Charlie Brown Christmas. Vanessa was Snoopy. She had a lot of fun and we saw a great improvement in her performance.

A Visit with Ginny

We went to the farm where we sent Ginny, our rooster. He is looking lovely and has beautiful green feathers on his tail. He is one happy guy and well taken care of. While we were there, we saw two very large pigs named Ava and Arnold. Elaine also showed us the Coho salmon spawning in their creek. That was really interesting to watch. There was a lot of roe in the water and quite a few fish trying to make their way up.

Ginny and one of his ladies

Ava and Arnold

First Gift of Christmas

This year Hallmark did not have much of an interesting selection of ornaments for the first gift of Christmas so we changed it up. The girls got Christmas shirts for family photo day and then we let the girls go shopping for us. Vanessa picked out my ornament and Heather picked out Todd's car freshener and hand warmers.