Christmas Family fun

Today we had the vanBolhuis family Christmas. We had a wonderful time together.  It was so nice to see everyone enjoy themselves and relax. We missed Kelli, Liz, Laura and Jay and the children but they were in our thoughts and our hearts.  I love this gathering of family.  As we grow, we don't see as much of each other, but our love is strong and we are here to support each other.  We are truly blessed as a family.

Merry Christmas to all.

Cheers everyone.  We hope you all arrived home safely.  Have a blessed Christmas.

A walk by the lake

This afternoon Marian and I took a nice walk by the lake.  The snow is so wet that it wouldn't have been nice to go trudging through it in an effort to get a nice photograph.  Instead we walked along the lakeshore and enjoyed watching the ducks and swans.  It was very refreshing to be outside.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It appears that we might be getting a white Christmas this year.  This will be the first time in a few years that we have had this much snow so early.  It was fun going outside and taking a few pictures after supper.  Everything looks so festive.  I look forward to getting out tomorrow and taking some pictures if the roads aren't too bad.

Our first Gingerbread House

I've been a little behind in my blogs lately.  I didn't want to forget this memorable afternoon spent with our grandchildren.

Last week, Laura and Jay were visiting with a friend downtown and asked if we could look after the kids.  We were so excited to have them over for the day.  We thought it might be fun to do something special all together so we decided to build a Gingerbread house.  Off I went to the Bulk Barn to pick up a variety of candy to add to our kit that we had bought. 

                                  

It would be too much to bake the house first so we opted for a preformed house.  We just had to glue it together. This was Ralph's job as the girls and Brody decorated the Gingerbread men.

The kids were so excited to have Papa help build the house.

The girls were very proud of the gingerbread men that they had made.  With a little help from Oma, the eyes were glued on and the decorations added.  Once the house was put together, it was time to figure out what to put on the roof.  Smarties were the shingles of choice and the seam on the top would be covered with sugar candies. 

Once the roof was done, it was time to start planning on how to do the windows, door and pathway.  The girls were very creative making beautiful window boxes with snow and icicles hanging off them.

At times things got very intense as we planned each part of the house.  The girls did a really great job while Brody made sure to "taste test" all the candies.  It was really fun doing this all together.

After about 3 hours, the house was finally done.  We packed it up very carefully for the drive home so that they could enjoy it during their Christmas festivities.

The Christmas Market at the Distillery District

The weather this morning was quite nice.  We decided to go downtown and walk through the St. Lawrence Market and then walked further east to the Distillery District. The Christmas Market is all set up so it was a nice place to go and take some pictures. The sun was quite warm which made walking around very nice.  Thankfully we didn't get the rain that was forecasted.  We had a really nice time together. 

This tree was huge.  In some ways it's sad that it was

cut down to be used for a short while as a

Christmas tree.

You need large ornaments on a tree this size.

There were many planters around that looked so pretty.

Lots of snowmen to enjoy!!

Really cute ornaments.

I guess Ralph is on the naughty list...

The pink Christmas forest.  It was hard on the eyes.

Niagara on the Lake - a beautiful day

Today Ralph and I got up early and went to NOTL for a round of golf.  We left in time to take some pictures of the sunrise and also hoped to see some of the colour in the tree's.  It's funny though as there really wasn't much there yet, but if you travel north on highway 401 it is full of beautiful colours.