The Best Christmas Present

after waiting almost two years I finally got to meet my granddaughter

This Christmas was touch and go. As many of you know our sweet Frances had to be put down last week. If that wasn’t bad enough our daughter in New Brunswick, Gaelan, cancelled her trip to Toronto because of the Omicron variant. All the things I had planned to do with Winnie went out the window. I don’t blame them for not coming. Things got complicated with having to put their dog in a kennel and then they had to be back by December 31st because the kennel was closing down for a two week vacation.

That same day we found out the our daughter-in-law had tested positive for COVID so that meant that two more people were not coming to the house for Christmas. Luckily Josie didn’t have to be hospitalized and our daughter Andrea continues to test herself and the results regularly show negative for COVID. In the meantime on the east coast, Gaelan has been testing herself and she kept getting a faint positive result. Fortunately the last couple of tests have come up negative. On Christmas Eve, Kevin and I spent the evening together sans family.

Fingers crossed that Brendan and his family were going to get here from the U.K. Not only was the spread of the variant rampant there but the airlines were starting to cancel flights because they didn’t have the staff to man the flights. On Christmas Day I finally breathed a sigh of relief when I heard that they were on the plane. When they arrived it was raining but seeing my granddaughter for the first time was like a ray of sunshine.

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Jet lag is tough for adults but particularly hard on toddlers. On Sevin’s first night she was up at 3:30 am. I normally sleep till 8:00 but I was in and out of sleep till about 7:00 and I finally decided to get up and actually get outside early and catch the sunrise. We all got warmly dressed. At the least the rain had stopped and we got a peak of the sun coming through the clouds. Seeing that we were up we walked over to the playground so that Sevin could explore.

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Today it started to snow. We spent the morning playing with Play Dough and Sevin and I filled the bird feeder and watched the birds and squirrels come for breakfast.

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We’re hoping to make some video calls to New Brunswick later today and hopefully we’ll be able to see Andrea and Josie in the next few days. Fingers crossed again.

Floral Wacky Birds on Thursday

completely missed all Wednesday posts (such a busy time of year)

Normally I post Kevin’s wacky birds here but I’m saving them for Thursday Trios. You’ll see why in my next post.

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Part of the Christmas display at the Centennial Park Conservatory

The Griswold’s Live in Niagara-on-the-Lake

and I don’t think they’re finished decorating

While visiting this quaint town on the Niagara River we discovered this home during the day on one of our walks. The decorations were pretty amazing and we saw a work table and power tools on the driveway indicating that the homeowner was still busy setting up lights and decorations.

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Later that afternoon, after the sun had gone down we were driving back to our hotel when we came up to the same house but now the lights were on. What a spectacular sight. I’m not sure that my photos do it justice.

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A Festive Opening for the Small Gems Show

….Saturday, November 20, 2021

What an exciting day! The Small Gems Show opened and the turnout was amazing. It was so nice to see the gallery full of people (all vaccinated and wearing masks) and the art work was spectacular. Here are a few images from the show.

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