Check out the Christmas slide show!

My skating beauty

Hayley had the opportunity to go to Buchart Gardens on December 17th, with her dad. I was quite upset as this was the second year in a row that I had to work and could not attend the outdoor fun. Unknown to me, my new "skating mom/friend" took all the photos that you see and emailed them to me so that I could see how her solo went. I absolutely love the one of the silouette of her face, with the blurry skaters in the background. Might have to talk to one of my photography buddies (aka Mel and Annamarie) and have them help me to enlarge it to a 5X7 to have framed......

Christmas Concert

Hayley's little friend Lily is in the pink shirt here,
Hayley's class - with Hayley somewhere in the middle row. She is the one wearing the hat!!! hahaha some blogger funny for you.
Right smack dab in the center is Hayley. They sang a Jewish song (everytime she sang it I could hear Adam Sandler's voice for hours.....) and a traditional Christmas one.

Yes, the Winter Concert was yesterday. Me, Quinn and one daycare girl went to the festivies during the day. I have to say, it was darn cute. The long boring parts (read:when Hayley was not on stage) was made up by Quinn dancing in the seats yelling "Santa ho ho ho" and "reeendeer neigh neigh" periodically. That and random songs, that I had no idea had to do with Christmas, but I guess Hawaii has it own version of it, and the words were all changed in the song "Walking in a Winter WOnderland" to fit the West Coast weather, now it is "Walking in a Wacky Weatherland". We had wind of over 90km/hour again yesterday.....


I had to say goodbye to Hayley today. She is off to Calgary for Christmas. It really has not hit me, probably some tears on Christmas. I am feeling off - I cannot understand how your mind and body can become accustomed to saying goodbye to your own daughter and have it become strangely normal? I know that she will have a great time, and she flies with her grandparents, and with her Poppies' health - it may be one of the last times that they go away at Christmas, and so I am comforted in that. Plus we all were together last Christmas in Quesnel, and it would be selfish of me to have her every holiday. So glad that my mom and dad and their Korean exchange student are comeing here (granted that the Island does not blow away) to help with Christmas. I think the saddest part is not that I want Hayley here for Christmas (I do), but more importantly, Quinn misses her so much. I wanted to see them together to open pressies. Just the pure, untouched joy on their faces.

Some photos of the holiday

This photos is PURE irony. This is the view from our plane about 20 minutes before we landed in Vancouver. The ironic part is that the weather was so bad, with low cloud cover, the plane could not land at the Quesnel airport. The girls and I were put on a bus to Prince George - a mere 90 minutes to the north. Then we borded a plane to fly to Vancouver. EEK. Made for an interesting turn to the holiday adventure. That and the fact that 5 minutes before we landed we dipped through the clouds and had a bit of turbulance - enough that Quinn promptly threw up all over herself, and me. Like I mentioned, made for an interesting turn.
This was our baby's attempt at skating in Quesnel. Sans skates though. There is a small patch of ice at the arena that you are allowed to go on with outside shoes. Quinn loved it. She raced around, pushing the metal "thing" and laughing. Up until the Zamboni cleaned the big ice surface, and then she forgot all about "skating" and decided that watching it go around and around was much more interesting/hypnotizing.
The morning that we left, she is watching Nana Margo shovel us out of the driveway and me load everything into garbage bags (to keep the snow off) and put in the back of the truck. Hayley was getting one last kick at the can and sledding across the street. Did I mention that it was 8am?
Our SUPER STAR skating!! She whipped around, like she owned the ice. Nana Margo sure saw a vast improvement since seeing her last year. She is so much more confident on the ice now. The Quesnel rink is about a 5 minute walk from my parent's house, and so we are there a lot when we visit.
Look at this motley crue! They are sitting on an inflatable duck, one in which the original use was for being pulled behind a boat on warm sunny days. Alas, we are using it to carreen down a sledding hill at 100 miles an hour. It is very fun, although very unpredictable. You just never know when it is going to turn around on you and suddenly you are going backwards. Look at Quinn's face! Priceless. She hated the start of going down the hill, and loved it half way. She was yelling "Whoa fast". We never let her go down on ducky, she went in a red crazy sled instead. With me holding tight in the back. Hayley, however, went down the hill on ducky all morning! Directly kitty-corner from this hill is my mom and dad's house, and if you find yourself going down the sledding hill and taking a very sharp right hand turn, you will run into the arena!

The girls and I had a great short visit with my mom and dad this past weekend. We went for a surprise visit for my dad's 60th birthday, and he thoroughly enjoyed being with the girls. We will see them on the 23rd as they are coming to spend Christmas with us here. I cannot wait.

HANGING MY HEAD IN SHAME...

ELIZABETH CADANCE LEE DELANY. SHE IS CALLED CADIE. SHE IS THE LOVE OF STEPH AND SHEA'S LIFE. LONG DISTANCE KISSES FROM HAYLEY AND QUINNERS.

I am a bad aunty. A very bad aunty. I got so damn excited about my sister having a baby that I spelled her name wrong, got her middle name wrong, and probably sent the gift to the wrong person. I really wonder where my head was at that day. So 10000 apologies to Stephie, and here, in tribute to my new neice, are some photos and her correct name. Enjoy.