Christmas Bliss

Well, the van is finally in the shop and getting fixed now that we are in Calgary. Yahoo! Hopefully no deer experience the new bumper and headlight in the way the last one did. I'm certain the insurance company is hoping the same thing. We're grateful our premiums have only gone up the general amount everyone else's has. I think this is making up for the years I had to pay insane amounts into it. Too bad I'll never see everything I've paid into EI or the Canada Pension Plan, but hey, at least we had some laughs, right?

In the meantime, we lent our trailer out to some passers-by in need of lodging. Unfortunately, our hot water tank froze up on them and I've had to hire a plumber from 600 or so km's away to repair it. Talk about crazy. God will take care of us. At least the water isn't spilling out throughout the trailer and creating a new indoor skating rink...

Along those lines, Judah and I tried being snowmen today. Faith couldn't stop laughing at us. As the story goes, I went out the door to warm up the car we are borrowing from Faith's parents while our van is at the autobody shop. I drove the warm car from the warm garage to the front door so the kids and Faith didn't have to walk as far in the cold. I opened the door of the house and was warmly greeted by Judah who hopped up in my arms. Aslynn and Micah burst past me out the open door to get into the warm car. Judah and I stepped out into the cold to let Faith out the door. As we stepped onto the steps, Faith gave the door a good slam.

As I turned to take another step toward the car and the waiting children, 6 inches of snow slid off of the roof of the entry way and crashed down onto Judah and myself. And then a second wave of snow slid down and pelted us. Judah and I just stood there, stunned. I cleared the snow from his face so I could see him, at which point he started crying. Judah and I were head-to-toe snow. I brushed him off, walked him down the sidewalk, and stuck him into his car seat. I shook and brushed myself off and gave another good shiver. Meanwhile, Faith hasn't stopped laughing at us. For the next half hour, every time she looked at either of us she laughed. Hours later, when she would think of it, she laughed.

Micah and Aslynn were playing downstairs this afternoon and discovered Grandma Nation's little Christmas tree. Grandma then discovered that her tree had been rearranged. When she asked the kids to explain why they had decorated it differently, Micah told her that the angels all had to be together to sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" to the shepherds.

Faith's newest acquisition was a homemade wooden set that is soooo cute. Lately Micah has been rearranging our Nativity scene at home as well. It has mostly been Jesus and the camel, but sometimes it's others too. In this set, Mary is holding baby Jesus in her arms. Micah keeps taking Jesus and putting Jesus in the manger, "where he belongs," and everyone is situated in a semi-circle around the manger - including the camel, otherwise, "He can't see baby Jesus!"

Aslynn's quote of the day: "When the snow goes away, Grandma, I'll show you how I can do somersaults!!"

(I'll let you mull on that for a little while. If you can't figure out what is so funny, you'll have to comment and ask so that other people can laugh at you as well when they find the answer they didn't get either. Maybe the first person to get it should win something... but you have to comment, of course, in order to redeem your token prize)


-Mark