Post from Catie - "ping pong table"

When we went downstairs Christmas morning, we looked at our presents and no one could figure out what one of the packages was. I asked my mom what it was but all she would say is to look at the shape of the gift. When I looked again I saw it was a ping pong paddle. I tore downstairs. I opened the ping pong table and got it set up. That gift was a very amazing one!!!!!!!!!!

Gingerbread Houses

Gingerbread Houses are also a tradition at the Jarvis Home. We made these houses with our friends Katie and Perry.

Since the best part of making gingerbread houses is the candy, we make the houses small but the bases large. Here are this year's creations.

I am awaiting a photo on the blog of the Brooks Family Gingerbread House.

Christmas in Montreal

The Highlights of Christmas in Montreal--

1. The anticipation of Christmas morning. There is nothing like children waking up early and not being able to get back to sleep.

2. Listening to the children as they waited at the top of the stairs to make their grand entrance on Christmas morning. This is a Jarvis Family tradition. No one is allowed to go down stairs until everyone is awake. So much fun to watch the kid's anticipation and excitement.

3. Spending the weekend with Eric's brother David and his family.

4. Watching the kids try to figure out what Santa had brought them. Santa left a ping-pong paddle in each of the kids stockings. The paddle was still inside its packaging and had no obvious label on it. Each one of the kids examined the paddle and couldn't quite figure out what it was. Finally Catie asked me, "What is this?" I asked her to look carefully at the shape of the item inside the packaging. She said, "it looks like a paddle, a ping-pong paddle" Suddenly her eyes lit up and she screamed, "I know what Santa brought!" The three kids tore down the basement stairs to find a new ping-pong table in the basement. They were delighted.

5. Christmas Dinner with family and friends, although I have to say it wasn't quite the same without Mary, Leo and the Ottawa gang. Hopefully we will see them before New Years.

Kelvin's Family Comes to Visit at Carewest

When I was convalesing from my fall, my brothers and sisters came to visit me. There were six of the eight siblings. On the back row, Bev, Grant, me and Nadine. On the front row, Molly and Sharon. We were in the main dining hall of the centre.

We had the room to ourselves, as the patients had returned to their rooms from their lunch. We told stories about our mother and father. Some of what we read was from a typed copy we had made long ago of my mother's story of her courtship and marriage to father.

That took up most of the afternoon.

In the other picture are the whole group who visited me that day: on the back row, Grant, Doral, Bev, Kelvin and Anita. On the front row, Boyce, Molly, Dalton Annica, Nadine and Sharon.

I am greatful to Doral and Trent for organizing the blog. Trent is the one who gave Doral the idea that blogging together would be fun and Trent was right.

Doral keeps reminding me that he hasn't seen my first blog yet. So, here it is.

Kelvin

Nathan and his Football Award

Received from Teague and Cheri
December 23, 2009

Are you sitting down? Don't say I didn't warn you.

Nathan won the award for top grade seven on his football team. Here's a picture. I know, unrecognizable.

I have been approved for Professional Development in Austin July 25-28. Hope you haven't changed your mind, Trent. In my application, I am flying. I am thinking of modifying that to driving so the whole family can come. We'd stop at Yellowstone and Boulder Colorado on the way, make a couple weeks of it. Can you set us up in your sweet guest suite, Trent?

Andrew is potty trained.

We have 3 paper routes. So we're spending CEve and Cday in Cardston, but that's it. Nathan is saving for a laptop. Alicia doesn't know what she's saving for. Chelsea is buying stuff. She doesn't get up very often, so it's not that much stuff. I did a unit on child labour in my social studies class. It truly is the future of our economy.

Mom and dad were ahead of their time.

We did a spy party for Chelsea's birthday. None of her friends screamed when they found plastic bugs on the treasure in the dark basement. They just tossed them into the hall.

We made a gingerbread castle.

Will post the pictures soon.

Glad to hear the plans for Alicia's London trip are proceeding.

Nathan is becoming interested, which is to be expected.

2 more days.

Teague and Cheri

A Citadel Christmas - #4

Hello,

Ceilidh did some amazing decorating this Christmas. She learned to make beautiful snowflakes, probably two feet across and her mom put them on the sides of the bannister that go upstairs.

Sophisticated. Classy. Stunning design.

She offers free lessons to anyone who want to learn how to make them. As well she had learned how to make the two kinds of reindeer that grace other trees. The one made of clothes pins and the second of popsicycle sticks and then hung on the tree.

The third decoration is on her cheek.

How is that for a sparky festive tattoo.

The beautific look on her face is from ear plugs you can see for she is listening to music on the couch.

Rebecca was handing out clay necklaces from this summer's work at the pottery wheel. Some were designs done by others, as in the case of the ones Anita was receiving. Done by Anita and fired in the kiln when she was gone.

And some neckclaces were designs Rebecca was freely passing out to others.

The Carter-Johnson family from Victoria have been happy with the weather, though they did miss the first 10 minutes of Dickens' A Christmas Carol on December 2rd. Even though Rebecca and Steve were born and raised Albertans, it is easy to loose touch with exactly how much time it takes to get to the theatre on snowy roads.

Rebecca's hard drive crashed just before the holidays began. Either you know what that means and it sends terror to your heart, or you don't understand, in which case, you still hope it never happens to you.

She has a busy winter planned: two weeks in Spain, teaching; Steve has friends coming during the Olympics and she wants to be there also, to join in the 2010 Festivities.

Kelvin has been enjoying his high definition television programmes this holiday. He stay up to listen to all of his Christmas Eve taping -- on Christms eve. Right to the last note sung by the three tenors

Here he is enjoying Ceilidh's and my holiday punch recipe. You can't see the 3 fresh cranberries floating in the drink, but they are there.

Today Kelvin tightened the buckle on the web of my new tool belt so that it fits perfectly. Thirteen pockets for tools the advertising brochure reads. I heard Richard and Dave Wood discussing the merits of wearing a tool belt, the problem of having it get in the way or knock against ladders and walls. I am more worried that I will load up the pockets with so many tools that I won't be able to walk.

And now, me, Christmas day, a model for Alex as he uses my new camera.

If Alex and I had taken more pictures, there would have been more posts on this blog today.

Arta

A Citadel Christmas #3

The late evening brought 3 more guests to Citadel Heath, the Treleavens. Zach, within 10 minutes of arriving, had lost one of the important video pieces that was in his hand when he came in the door.

So a search began, upstairs, downstairs, through the garbages, under toys, over counters, parents wondering why there isn't a way to attach some kind of locator to toys that can be lost.

The lost toy was located where? Down in the cracks between the cushions of the couch, the first place anyone would look if they were searching for money.

Gabe wore a new red Santa fur-trimmed hat for much of the evening. A Santa hat he said, one that he had just got that day. Nobody could enjoy the social events of the season more than he. The Treleaven families got together for Chinese food at Shirley and Ron's on the 24th, a long standing tradition for them.

Art and Marcia cooked a turkey on Christmas day and Marcia's sisters joined them for festivities. When Gabe heard that Alex and Duncan would be at Doral's & Anita's, he wanted to join that party as well. Go, Gabe, go.

Audra was present at the party, quietly present, making her way through each room, her little cast showing just above her fingers. She is invisible -- going upstairs, and downstairs, barely at knee level for most of us. She sat on her mother's lap for a while, since she has now forgiven her for leaving for a week.

Marcia was wearing a beautiful red sweater which I tried to scam off of her, or at least have my name go on the top of the list of people she is going to give it to when she is tired of it.

"You can borrow it, but there is no chance that I will be giving it away. I have had it for 20 years. Wyona knit it. Yes, it is beautiful and it is not leaving my possession."

I wonder why Audra wouldn't go directly to Marcia when she returned home. An hour, it took her, Marcia said. I wonder if it wasn't because she was in shock after losing her beloved primary caregiver, and now having found her again -- paralyzed with happiness, I think.

Soon it was late. The evening had come again. The sky had darkened. Some were packing up to leave for home.

A a new family treasure had been pulled from behind the Christmas tree and placed by the hearth -- to go above it.

Something Doral has beening eyeing for a while now. A large screened TV. The Johnson's last TV was $800 and lasted 10 years -- about $70 per year or $7 a month.

They are hoping to get the same wear from the new model.

Arta