The pandemic will end right?!

So, I need the pandemic to end.  Our cruise that was canceled was supposed to be rebooked by the end of December.  I of course, all considered, left this to the last minute.  I suspect there is likely a booking extension available all things considered.  But just in case...I spent some time through the night checking out options.  Then today I booked with the help of a very nice lady named Lisa at Carnival.  Hi Lisa!  

We're booked for Feb 19/2022 to the Mexican Riviera on the Carnival Panorama. Managed to book for girls reading break from VIU. So it's almost exciting.  Hard to work up actual thrill zone anticipation when we can't leave our house, community, island, province, country.  Yeesh.  Was able to use our whole credit and have a huge on board credit waiting for us.  

Fingers crossed for vaccine miracles.

VIU news.  Lili got her marks in B-, B-, C+ and a C.  Four passes.  We're counting it as a great win.  Term two starts Jan.4.  Fei has finally put in a university application.  She has applied for the 2 year practical nursing at VIU.  Yay.  I was good.  Let her do it.  All her choices and her work.  No fall back plan for our girl.  She just wants this one path.  

Normally we are getting ready to host a dinner party for 30 plus people tonight.  Seems bizarre to just be us. Not much planned. Eric is planning a nice dinner and I'm hoping to introduce some of the kids to Rumoli tonight.  

Jia's 11th Birthday

Jia is sound asleep.  Eric and I are getting ready for a noon party.  Hard to make a day special when she can't do ANY of the things she wants to do.  I'm making cinnamon buns since she won't eat cake.  Eric is cooking pizza pockets for her luncheon.  Fancy hey?!  Haha.

When we flooded four years ago stuff was haphazardly thrown in boxes and has been  shoved around for years.  We're still slowly going through treasures.  Since the arrival of Kai finding time has been a massive struggle.  Today Eric brought up the tea cups.  It took us 45 minutes to wash, dry, sort and rebox in a nice clean plastic with a lid box.  The plan is to move them into the kitchen hutch for future tea parties.  Then I went to the dinning room to get the table cloth and found/remembered that I bought a matched set of my good dishes and we now have more than enough matched tea cups...could have just let the assortment go.  If you're ever having a hard time finding tea cups just come borrow ours.  Crazy.

Cinnamon buns are always a hit.

She loves her new desk and chair.  Eric refinished it for her.  It's a nice solid piece.  We haven't moved it to her room yet.  We're not quite ready up there. 

All food she will eat ;)

Moving onto fun family games.

Cheating was required.

Team one.

Team two.

Kai managed to stack the most dice.

Both teams remembered all the items except the tape.  

The clear winners.

Close seconds.

Cookie face drop was the funniest.

Not all the games were pictured.  We played for a few hours. I'm exhausted.  

Kai took time out to play.

Gramma just took Jia to pick a duvet cover out for her new duvet. Eric has run into town to pick up Dairy Queen.  None of the day was as Jia would have preferred but all in all not bad.  We found some fun.  

Boxing Day

Eric and I took the morning to box up Christmas.  I think we're supposed to box up our left over goodies and deliver them to the villagers but we went with boxing up the whole shebang instead.  Haha. All the kids hauls were dealt with and put away! Most efficient clean up job to date.  Ready to move onto celebrating Jia's Birthday on Monday.

Jia used her Amazon dollars to buy a whole set of books.  Max and Jia exchanged gifts today.  Socially distanced outside.  So sad.  Just wanted to scoop him up and keep him for a while.  I miss having all the kids around.  I spent the whole day trying to get to my show and didn't even get through one episode.  

Found a couple of Jia's drawings on my desk when I was cleaning up.  

Christmas Day

It breaths fire, with steam! He got a cool watch that does everything but he didn't know what it was until I asked him. About it later.  

The hot wheel case kept him busy most of the day ;)  The rest of his moments were spent keeping Eric busy opening and assembling.  

They were loaded in goodies but when pushed for a fave gift she couldn't choose. Her Birthday is in 3 days.  So much stuff all at once.

An 80 year old rhinestone treasure.

Mama made her a blankie.

Awe, baby being adorbs.

Nice day. Girls slept in.  Kids were all calm and patient.  There was some down time in the afternoon.  I enjoyed an hour in my pink room with Coco.  Eric joined us and got a wee nap.  Gramma gave the kids each an Amazon gift card.  The idea was to shop on Christmas Day.  I had an idea for Luk.  Found it and the warehouse had one half price because of damaged packaging so we got his gift ordered.  An EzyRoller! The other four are hoping for better sales tomorrow. Mom has just left and we're about to settle in to watch the show I've been waiting to drop.  It's all good here.

Christmas Eve

This was the first shot.  Then a whole lot of flubs. Lots of closed eyes, blurry movements and Kai either crying or scrunching his nose pretty much non stop.  

Mary and Charles sent us a 2020 tp/elf tree ornament.  Funny thing, it arrived from Amazon and it was the third delivery of the day and I wasn't expecting another Amazon order, the gift card was on top and I thought that I'd shopped so much from Amazon that they sent us a gift.  Haha.  

Their bowl was empty this morning.  They were hovering. Oliver being the jerk he can be dove in first.  We all cater to Lewis because he isn't around as often so I gave him his own bowl.  Then Walter and Jenny looked sad so they got their own too.  Esmei has her own bowl upstairs.  She's special and tiny and I worry about her getting a turn.  

These Pokemon figures arrived and I didn't want to wrap anymore so I just gave them to Kai today.  He's calling them rare action figures and he loves them.  I'm guessing they'll be missing soon, they're much too small for him to keep track of.  It's fun watching him show them off to Luk and Jia, who aren't jealous in the least.  They don't play with toys anymore, sob.

Giving Eric a break and eating out.  Lili and I made lots of calls and found three restaurants open for dinner.  We went to the Sawmill in Chemainus. Food was fabulous.

Look at me blending in.

Kids are asking what our Christmas Eve traditions are.  We don't really have any.  Other than reading T'was the Night Before Christmas and giving the kids new jammies.  We skipped cookies and milk for Santa this year.  I told Kai Dr. Bonnie said not to leave them because of covid.  Also that I was sure Santa packed his own.  Lili thought that would mean we wouldn't get cookies later so Eric stopped at the 49th and got cookies for our drive ;)

Had to sit 5 and 2 re health orders.  Also had to give 2 separate phone numbers for contact tracing.  Beyond stupid.  I'm all for following rules and the greater good and protecting the vulnerable but some of these things are just too silly.

Eric drew the castle and Kai added another tower and dragons :)

The plan was to get hot chocolate from Tim's and drive around looking at lights.  But Tim's was closed.  And the other Tim's was closed. And the other, other Tim's was closed. And the other fave coffee shops were closed.  So slurpees from 7-11 it was.  Except for Kai who got gas station hot chocolate because he isn't great about switching gears.

We stopped to see this one because we thought Kai would love the big blow up things.  He couldn't see them.  His vision is that bad at night.  

It wasn't Capilano or Butchart or the Christmas train but it was a decent pandemic night.

More Snow

Oliver looking pretty serious.

Great job kids!  Thankyou Fei for the photos.