Yes, You Can Choose Your Family

Let me just say that I LOVE my family. I love my brothers, I've been blessed with sisters-in-law that are like the sisters I never had and all my nephews and neices are my favorite kids in the world..( besides my own of course). But the only problem with my family is that they live about 8,000 miles away.

So this Christmas we spent the afternoon with our adopted family. These people are more than just friends and neighbors. They have opened up their homes and hearts to us and made us feel like we are part of their family.  They even agreed to a few Australian traditions including opening Christmas bonbons and wearing our funny paper hats for a family picture. 



So we talked,we shared,we laughed AND we feasted.

Is this the best turkey you have ever seen? And it tasted as good as it looked. Yum!



And we reflected on just how fortunate we are.

Boxing Day

I must say that I LOVE Christmas.  All the anticipation and preparation that goes into it. All the eating, drinking and being merry. All the making and wrapping and giving of gifts. All the priceless family moments.  But for me Boxing Day is the unsung hero. In general,it goes by mostly unnoticed. But I love the quietness of it. Its such a great day to just rest and reflect.

Speaking of Christmas...it was a flurry of excitement and activity here.  Matt bought me a new camera to replace the one I lost. I didn't realise how much I had missed taking photos until I had the camera back in my hands. So with my renewed photographic vigor you can expect a new year full of regular blogging updates.



The kids were over the moon with their bounty. Max hailed this the best Christmas ever thanks to the surprise appearance of a new road bike under the tree. Triathlon season here he comes. And yes, he was riding it on my trainer yesterday because there was snow and ice all over the road and riding it outside wasn't an option.  Ciara and Jack were busily trying out all their gifts. Both were a study in concentration and focus.



Matt was the lucky recipient of a new flip video camera,so you can also expect to see the occassional Melville movie make it into the blogosphere..{lucky you}.

Well, Christmas is over for another year...only 364 days to go until the next one.  I'm sure the kids are counting down already.

Wishing you....

My wish for you this Christmas.
To love extravagantly

 {Inspired by the sermon I heard last night.}

How to Make a REAL Snow Cone

Now its official...we are up to our ears in the white stuff after coming to the end of the snowiest November on record in Spokane.


So after playing in it, shovelling it, skiing on it, driving over it and running in it...it was time to try something new.....eating it.


I give you the authentic Snow Cone...