For Christmas, we visited the Shepherd family in Vancouver. For financial reasons, we opted for a driving trip. We left around 1pm on December 23rd, which happened to be perfect timing between northwest snowstorms which have been very common this winter. We had a uneventful trip on dry roads the whole way. We stopped for dinner in Yakima, which was kind of amusing as they were out of pretty much everything. I think it took us four tries to find something on the menu they actually had in stock. Nonetheless, we made it to Vancouver around 11:30pm. As we were arriving in town, the snow started falling.
When we woke up on Christmas Eve, there was over a foot of fresh snow on the ground (see pictures below). Needless to say, this complicated Christmas Eve plans since the roads around town were treacherous and pretty much required a high-clearance, preferably 4wd vehicle. We managed to get the Escape stuck in snow at one point! Despite the conditions, we had a nice lunch with Dave and managed to do a little last-minute shopping.
For Christmas Eve we went to the Shepherd family church, the Kerrisdale Presbyterian Church, for their Christmas Eve service. It is a very nice church and the service was very well done. Afterwards, we finished wrapping Christmas presents and quaffed a few tasty beverages.
On Christmas Day, the snow continued to fall. Despite this, we had a morning family brunch followed by present opening. Later in the evening we had a family Christmas Day dinner. On Boxing Day (aka December 26th), the snow resumed, dropping another foot or so. We had a pretty quiet day followed by another family dinner. Our ability to do much was pretty limited though due to the huge amount of snow around.
Due to questionable road conditions, we determined we needed to leave Saturday the 27th to ensure plenty of time to make it home for work on Monday. So we left Saturday afternoon after a nice lunch at Wing Nuts. Just parking at the restaurant was an ordeal due to the huge amount of snow around.. up to 3 feet in places. It was unreal!
Our drive home was fortunately uneventful as we again managed to sneak between storms. We spent the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Richland, roughly halfway between Vancouver and Boise.
We both had a fairly quiet New Year's Eve. We had a few drinks and watched a movie. Does that make us boring??
Christmas in Vancouver Pictures!
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
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4 comments:
Sounds like you had a good time. The snow is unreal.. almost as much as on the prairies minus, of course, the -25 C temps! Grandma says the snow was "Lovely and white." She can say that as she did not have to shovel the stuff. It must have been horribly heavy with all the water!
What were those hats for at the dinner table?
Everyone got Christmas crackers, which each include a hat amongst other things. I myself had not heard of these until spending Christmas with the Shepherds!
See the wikipedia article for more info.
it's how we indoctrinate people. We're basically one step away from being a cult.
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