Our 2008

Happy Holidays from all of us here in the prairies. This has been a great year for our family. We have all stayed healthy and continue to be blessed in every way. Our prayers and thoughts encompass so many people everyday and I am happy to write that the graces of God and all of you are with us always. I have re-capped 2008 for you and hope that it has been blessed for you too.

Let me start at the top..... my wonderful husband.
Cyril is working hard and keeps very busy with the volatile markets and ever changing dollar. He speaks highly of the team that he works along side.... they really have fun times at the office. I am grateful that Cyril loves his job and is able to continue to support our decision to have me stay home with the kids during these younger preschool years. We pray that this decision pays off in the long run.... granted it doesn't make me insane first!! Cyril does his cycle of broom ball in the winter and slow-pitch in the summer. This fall he joined a floor hockey league and has the bruised shins to show for it.

This year I have tried to educate myself a bit more on two major issues that are affecting huge populations around the world: poverty and climate change. We are making more and more greener choices in our home and around our community. I am the newest indoor coordinator in our area and joined Alex's school parent council as well so hopefully I can be a strong voice in these groups. Recently my application was accepted for volunteering with World Vision which is so exciting for me because I am so moved by the stories that I hear about communities becoming self sustainable and fighting poverty first hand. I look forward to sharing my personal experience of child sponsorship(refer to older post for details) with others and hopefully I can represent World Vision's mission with pride.

Alex has grown up so much this year. He will be 7 in May and is loving grade one. He is in a 1/2 split class in a French Immersion program and enjoys teaching all of us how to speak and write in French. His favorite subjects are Math and Phys. Ed but he also loves to draw and spend time with friends at recess. Alex says that he wants to be a writer when he grows up. He just finished a level in swimming and will continue in the new year. Alex chose to participate in a evening floor hockey class and also enrol in Scouts this fall instead of picking ice hockey alone. We explained to him that hockey is a huge commitment and that he may not have time to do other activities that he really wanted so he chose the easy alternative. We think that he made a great decision.

Manny,4, enjoyed a preschool multi-sport class this fall and is also doing well in his swimming lessons. He is in a French Immersion preschool class three mornings a week. He loves his teacher and has grown in leaps and bounds with colouring and drawing. Manny is our little 'live wire' but is an absolute angel at school.... I have had so many compliments on how well behaved and polite he is...... I sometimes question if they have the right Manny. We were so excited the other day to see that a drawing that he had sent to our local newspaper, illustrating how we are going to make our Christmas 'green' this year, was published!! He had to take the section of the newspaper for 'show and tell' today.... so cute!! Manny says he wants to be a surfer and a construction worker when he grows up.

Tao was such a wonderful addition to our family. Sometimes I still cannot believe that I was blessed with a girl! She'll be 2 soon and we see bits of that 'terribleness' coming out in her. She has to be in the middle of everything, whether she is invited or not. The boys have lots of patience with her and also know how to get her giggling. They really are best friends and show so much love for each other every day. Tao will start swimming lessons in January.

One of the most exciting parts of our summer was the upgrade from our tent trailer to a new expandable 23ft trailer. It was a decision that we knew was inevitable yet we kind of jumped in with both feet. It is glorious!!! We felt quite spoiled after spending a week in Cypress Hills with our dear friends, the Meiers. The heater really came in handy, as did the heated mattresses!!
Funny how Cyril remembers being a teenager, cramped in their family tent trailer with his brothers Rejean and Claude, travelling to the mountains. Our kids will have little, if any, memories of 'roughing it'. Tenting was so much fun when it was just Cyril and I. We spent our honeymoon tenting at Waterton National Park in Alberta nearly 8 years ago. After Alex came along.... well we took him tenting when he was 6 weeks old on Father's Day weekend. It wasn't soon after that that we bought a bigger tent to accommodate all of the 'stuff' that goes along with having a baby. We camped many times in that massive Costco special....we called it the Hilton.
Manny was a year old and not quite able to walk when we camped in the Hilton one last time at Green Water Provincial Park. After finishing up our dishes from a bacon and egg breakfast we hear news that a young black bear just wondered through the sites across the road from us. I'm not sure what put us over the top.....if it was the paranoid feeling of always wondering if the bear would return or if it was the downpour of rain that we got the entire morning of packing up a soggy tent, dining tent and tarps all the while listening to 2 screaming boys melt down in their car seats. Needless to say the tent trailer came shortly after getting back from that trip.
So camping is going to be so different next summer.... with heat, a freezer and a lou!!

I have to say that time just seems to go by whether you want it to or not. It is easy to lose track of time while you're in the hustle and bustle of life. I am thankful for the Christmas season because it is a time to reflect on the year passing and it makes me want to reconnect with so many people that are important to me. This was my purpose for blogging.... to share a bit of my world with you if you wish.
So from our family to yours, please remember to grip life by the horns and never let go, love like your honeymoon hasn't ended and take good care of yourselves cause when we see you next we want a big hug!! Merry Christmas to my dearest friends and family.... you know who you are.

Love from the heart,
Sherri, Cyril, Alex, Manny, and Tao
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo