november

november 18

well, we went from 30 degrees at the end of september to hovering around 0 degrees at the end of october. we have had a couple of snow falls and the most recent was enough to stick around for a few days. everyone had a great time - even me [aly said 'you look like you're still a kid' which i took as a compliment]. it happened to coincide with a last minute trip to visit us by the adams family [who braved the 'highway from hell' in the snow].

toby and his best friend, justin, reunited!

later, aly took to the big hill across the pond with the other kids in the neighbourhood and somehow ended up IN the pond. good thing it's not a deep pond and that she saw the funny side - oh - and that she had good friends to fish her out. after a warm bath and hot chocolate all around, the girls baked some gingerbread cookies.

i decided to change my christmas flights so i could spend a little more time with kellie and flynn [and mike of course]. as a result i've gone into christmas overdrive to get everything organized before we leave. i've done a lot of online shopping this year. i think i might be getting too old for dragging myself around malls!

finally, congratulations to my cousin nick and his new wife, sam. i wish i could have been there to see them get married yesterday.

november 1

phew - my parents made it back to the uk just in time. kellie just gave birth to baby flynn. she was diagnosed with preeclamsia earlier in the day and her was delivered by c-section just after 10pm. all very impressive considering she moved house this weekend! flynn is 3lb 6oz but doing well. he's less than half the weight of my smallest [aly]. i can't imagine [and SO wish i could be there to see him for myself].

we managed to pack in quite a lot before mom and dad went back. there was a great trip to davison orchards in vernon for some pumpkin fun. i was amazed how much [free] stuff there was for the children to do.

sascha and aly headed to vancouver for We Day. there was a team of volunteers going from disney and aly managed to wangle her way into the action. it sounds like they worked hard all day selling the fundraising merchandise. aly got a chance to meet up with her richmond friends and was apparently the best up-seller on the team!

team disney!

sascha and i managed to sneak away to sun peaks resort near kamloops for the night while my parents [the babysitters] were in town. we calculated that it had been over 4 years since we last managed to get away on our own! sun peaks was beautiful but very strange since we went right in between mountain biking and ski seasons. i've never seen a town so deserted! we had an amazing drive through autumnal valleys and then a torrential drive back through the mountains!

halloween was great 'the best halloween ever' in fact [according to zoe]. after a week of carving foam and cardboard, aly and sascha looked fantastic. i can't believe sascha dressed up for halloween. it's amazing what peer pressure will do. apparently the video conferences were quite entertaining!the children each had halloween events at school, aly gave out candy with pathfinders, we went trick or treating at disney and then aly and zoe went trick or treating in our neighbourhood. [zoe for candy, aly for food for the food bank - she did very well too].

trick or treating at the disney offices

grandad's jello brain!

thanks pinterest for the pumpkin ideas this year!

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