Celebrations

Christmas day came and went with little fanfare at our house.  We did have a nice dinner but no gifts.  Then came the 26th and 27th and Ron and I played so many games of pool and darts that finally Donna got enough interest in it to try a shot in pool.

That night I went to bed thinking one more night and then our son would be here and Christmas would begin.  At shortly after 6:00 a.m. I was awaken by Bentley jumping up on our bed.  Christmas came a day earlier than we expected.  Our son had worked and then driven straight to our house.  We had a couple of hours visit and then he crawled into bed.  We decided to take "the boys" for a walk while we waited for him to get up.

And then we waited some more.  Everyone was getting a little anxious to open up their gifts.

And one decided to have a sneak preview.

Finally, everyone was up and the gifts were opened.  As usual, we all felt quite spoiled and paper and boxes were everywhere.  Since, "our Christmas" was a day early than expected we had pizza instead of turkey.  The next day, which happened to be our son's 28th birthday, was also the turkey day.

Dinner was followed by games of pool and darts.  The next morning, we woke up to snow.  We packed up the dogs and our skis and headed to Waterton for a cross country ski adventure.  There was definitely enough snow and off we went on the road towards Red Rock Canyon. 

Our son skis fast with his two dogs pulling him.  We saw him heading back towards us with a story and a picture. 

There was a bear up the road from us.  We kept going.  Since Ron had worked there through the summer he was pretty sure who/what the bear was.

The cut out bear did really look like the real thing from a distance and it is never good to take chances with a bear.  It was good for a laugh.
I talked to a friend today who said that her son and grandson had come to visit and how much she loved it when her grandson crawled into bed with her.  We didn't have any grandkids to join us but we did have grandfur babies.

The next morning, we drove into Crowsnest and went skiing again.  The conditions were perfect.

It's pretty incredible that these trails are only 40 minutes away from our house.  (Bruce and Lynne, if you are reading....this is a fantastic place to ski!...book a room at the Chateau Clark and let's go!)

The boys had another good workout.  This time, no bears were to be found.

It was so great to have our son and his little fur family with us for these adventures.

This Christmas has been extra special.  First, we had Donna (Ron's mom) come all the way from Ontario to spend a month with us and then Stephen here and for Bentley to be our Christmas miracle.  Bentley is still looking healthy and acting very strong.  It was a lot of fun having everyone here.

Ron went back to work last night and our boy and his entourage left this morning.  I got busy taking down the decorations, doing laundry and getting the house clean.  Christmas is over for another year but it was a good one.  Now 2019 has started....what adventures will it hold?