On Friday, we enjoyed a WestJet direct flight up to Saskatoon (so nice to have a direct flight!) up to visit with Karis' family. Korey, Rachel and kids were able to stay a few more days in Orlando at our house -- we were blessed to be able to see all of the Z boys even though this wasn't the combined Z Christmas. The flight up and drive to the farm was uneventful thankfully - we've had enough of blizzards to last a lifetime!
We enjoyed fairly warm weather in the beginning of the week before it got significantly colder. We had a typical Christmas - filled with lots of games, food, projects (is there ever a Z gathering without a house project -- that is what makes Karis' heart sing!), an outing to the movie theater (Mufasa) and a new event - snowboarding at the nearby Wapiti ski hill. Kaylie, Kaleb and Addison took snowboarding lessons. Addison had quite a blast learning to snowboard (she can ride on a skateboard, ripstick and of course knows how to ski so this was a very similar skill for her to learn).
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| One of our many card games that we played |
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| And our delicious Christmas meal! |
Poor Zach got sick almost as soon as we got to the farm, so about half of his trip was a miserable experience - thus he did not go to Wapiti. He spent a lot of time laying around in pajamas.
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| Connor braving the germs and laying beside Zachary |
Papa Z's house project this year was putting up plywood in the garage on the ceiling and then drywall on the ceiling and walls. Addison has always been our most mechanically inclined child, and after not too long she was out there with the power drill working alongside Karis and Papa Z drilling the sheets in. You go girl, proud of you!
Addison also wanted to have a re-do of her pink hair (just on the underside of her hair) so we applied that again on the bottom part much to her delight. Thankfully it isn't permanent, although her hair did retain a little bit of a reddish tinge after the first go-round.
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| Saran wrap girl - making sure nothing else got dyed pink! |
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| Voila! |
Karis found his old shotgun, and Addison enjoyed going outside (with strict Daddy supervision right there) and trying to hit a milk carton.
No Christmas is ever complete without the "throw boiling water in the air and watch it turn to snow" trick. The weather got cold enough towards the end of the week thankfully.
We did lots of baking - we tried our hand at cinnamon rolls (gluten free of course) as well as so many loaves of banana bread. Yum!
There is always lots of sitting and talking as well - which leads to horseplay much of the time.
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| Zach is feeling better at this point and is up for wrestling with Kaleb on the floor |
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| With not feeling great, Zach had lots of time to bond with his grandparents 💕 |
