Xing Nian Kwai Le! Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year from the Blommesteins! It's funny because in the past when this time of year rolls around, at school we are beginning to gear up for Valentine's day and I'm busy with decorating the house with hearts. Lucy (our daycare provider who is Chinese) would ask us what we were doing to celebrate Chinese New Year. I'd sheepishly have to admit my failure as a Chinese mother when it came to teaching my kids some traditions of their Chinese heritage. :) (Picture me hanging my head in shame) 

This year we are learning about China in social studies so it was an obvious choice to learn more about Chinese New Year too. We've had a great time reading, watching videos on YouTube and then trying our own hand at some of the activities. Maddy and Ethan were getting right in the spirit of things: getting their hair cut, cleaning the house and following certain superstitions. Maddy was especially worried about how Josh were fare on the day of the new year because he wouldn't be able to use a knife to cut up his food. Both kids were super excited at the idea of not having to take a bath on new years day too. 

Here are some pictures of things we were up to in preparation for the holiday. We ended up going to my parent's house for dinner on the eve of the new year and then slept over in order to spend more time with the cousins. It was a lot of fun and definitely in the spirit of the family coming back together again under one roof for the holidays.

                                                                        We made our own Jiaozi. Can you tell which ones are Ethans' and Maddy's?
So it seems I'm having some problems with adding captions properly to the photos. In school we made our own Lion Dance costume. Ethan was super excited to get a Chinese outfit of his own this year (Thanks Auntie Jo for picking one up!). And those white lumps are our dumplings we made. They look a little suspicious, but were delicious!



I was feeling pretty good about having taught the kids some things about celebrating Chinese New Year. They happily told Gong Gong and Po Po the story of Nian the Monster and the origin of some of the traditions like red being a lucky colour and the use of firecrackers. I was feeling like I could hold my 'Chinese mother' head up high again. :) Then at dinner, we sat down to the delicious feast Gong Gong and Po Po prepared and just started to eat when both my kids looked to me. They were holding the chopsticks Po Po had set the table with (Not western 'cheater chopsticks', but real chopsticks). They said in unison, "Mama, can I have a fork?"... Back to failure as a Chinese mother! :P (Head hanging in shame). Haha.

Skiing: Day by Day

What an experience it was to teach the kids to ski. It was filled with ups and downs and so it probably deserves it's own post. Last year we took the kids skiing for one day. It was a beautiful day on the mountain. Sunshine and very little people on the bunny hill. I had such grand memories of the fun we had last year. By the end of that day last year, Maddy was going down the hill with Josh holding on to the back of her jacket and Ethan as happy whizzing down the hill as I held him between my legs.

This year we did a bit more research and found certain items that would aid us in the whole 'learning to ski' process. One was our ski harness. Hanging on to the back of Maddy's jacket didn't allow her to ski down the hill freely, so we thought this would help give her the freedom, but at the same time give us some comfort knowing she wouldn't fly down the hill out of control. While in Revelstoke Josh did a bit of Googling on how to teach kids to ski and it was recommended to use this device. It helps the learner to keep their skis in the proper snowplow. We were able to pick them up in town.

Josh and Ed getting last minute ski instruction tips.

Day 1
Armed with our gear and excited to get back on the hill we set out for our first day. Well, what a difference a year makes. And don't mean that in a positive, 'all was hunky-dory' way. Quite the opposite. Ethan is MUCH heavier this year and just skiing down with him once this year completely wiped me out. When I tried holding him between my legs he'd just flop into my arms. Not good, I asked Josh to trade with me so that he could take Ethan. At the same time, I wasn't a good enough skier to help Maddy either. We watched on YouTube how to ski backwards as they come to you until they can hold the snowplow on their own. I'm not a strong skier and thankful just to be able to ski forwards let alone backwards. I tried a couple times to ski backwards with Maddy but in the end we had to settle for using the harness even though it didn't do so much as to teaching her how to ski. There was a lot of whining and complaining that I wasn't 'doing it right' and that it was my fault when things went wrong. It. Was. So. Much. Fun. By the end of the first day, Ethan was happily skiing with Josh. He loved it went Josh bumped into the large blocks on the hill because he was skiing backwards. The boys had a great time. The girls, not so much.

Day 2
For day two I decided to just go in my boots. I thought perhaps I could help Maddy more because 1. my skis are the older style long ones and made me all clumsy and 2. because my boots gave me a blister the first day and I wasn't so keen on jumping back into them. Thinking that I could walk backwards down the hill with  Maddy, we set out to try again. Another big fail. Turns out running backwards down a hill is not so easy either. Then we tried the harness, but I was too slow running behind her too. By now Maddy was completely done with me and I have to admit, so was I. Nothing makes you feel like the 'loser mom who can't ski' when both your kids refuse to take a turn with you. I couldn't convince either of them to take a turn with me while the other had a turn with Josh because well, it sucked to be with mom. In the end I stood at the bottom of the hill as Josh took turns with both kids. Luckily Maddy, by the end of the day, was able to ski on her own without the harness so she skied with Oma following closely beside her. Ethan was still with Josh as Josh skied backwards. At the end of that day, Maddy was much happier than the first because she could go down by herself, Ethan was happy because he just loves skiing and he had Josh all to himself.

Day 3
Knowing that Maddy could ski on her own, I was looking forward to this day. I even decided to rent shorter skis so that I could help her more. What a difference! Maddy and I had a great day skiing. She learned to control her turns better and we developed a good system for getting her back on the magic carpet. (In the days before, a lot of the frustration/whining came from her not being able to climb up the slight incline onto the platform. I was all clumsy with my long skis and getting in her way, or so she told me.) By the end of this day, Ethan was doing so well that Josh was able to use the harness, but only as a safety precaution. Josh always stayed close enough to Ethan so that he didn't have to pull the slack tight. Ethan was skiing down all on his own, but Josh just wanted to be sure that Ethan had complete control. Yay, things were looking up and EVERYONE was happy as we came off the hill this time!

Day 4
This day was awesome. Maddy and I skied together again. After a while, she was ready for a new challenge so we decided to try her without the Wedgie. She did great and was super excited to be skiing all 'big girl style'. What a difference! Ethan was also able to ski without the harness on this day. Actually Ethan's skiing 'style' cracks me up. He is fearless, which in other activities or other day to day endeavors, he is not. He had no problems just heading STRAIGHT down the hill with barely a snow plow and no turns. I have to say that my heart skipped a couple of beats watching him and we had to tell him that he must add a few turns here and there. His other style was either completely relaxed, hand in mouth, LA LA LA merrily skiing along OR in perfect snowplow, arms ramrod straight out to the sides just like Josh taught him. Day 4 was a really fun day and we looked forward to our last day of the trip.

Day 5
When I got the tickets for the day, the lady told me that we could actually go up the first gondola to the mid station. She mentioned that there was another bunny hill and magic carpet up there. I excitedly told Josh because we were beginning to out grow the bunny hill and just needed a change in scenery. We decided to go up the gondola, but once we got up there we saw that the hill up there was way less of a challenge. It was super wide and quite flat. The magic carpet was more just a way to get the people from the ski lodge to the gondolas. The kids were so not impressed. We decided to try them on easiest Green run called The Last Spike. This would bring us back to the base of the mountain and back to our usual bunny hill. This run had some challenging parts because it wasn't as wide for the kids to do their turns and there were many more people whizzing by. Maddy was afraid of skiing off the cliff and so she was reluctant about trying to do her turns. At one point early on I actually contemplated climbing back up rather than continuing forward. Ethan did quite well for his first run and by some parts he was his fearless self again.  Slowly and with lots of encouragement, Maddy also made it down. I was happy to be back on our bunny hill and thought we'd just spend the rest of the day there. I was happy enough with our accomplishment of our first real run. The kids however were no longer happy on the bunny hill. So up we went for the second run. It really was better the 2nd time around. This time I went with Ethan so that Josh could give Maddy better pointers. It was crazy to see my little guy so fearless. He loved every minute of it! It was priceless to see this side of Ethan.

 Our first gondola ride up. Ready to ski!

 A group shot at the Mid Station

 With all the frustrations in the beginning, they all seemed worthwhile in the end when they felt such pride in learning something new or accomplished a new challenge. I could not believe how quickly they progressed thanks to Josh. I have to say that it was all him and I was just there to 'watch the other one' when Josh was not skiing with them. Josh is so excited that the kids love skiing and we both look forward to many more ski trips. We are so lucky to have a world class ski hill just minutes away from Oma and Opa's house. I don't think we'll ski any where else!

Christmas and Revelstoke Trip

This year my parents and family were away from Vancouver over the holidays so we decided to spend the full two weeks in Revelstoke. After a whirlwind December, filled with parties, fun holiday outings and general baking and crafts, I was so ready to go home to Revelstoke.

Before we left though, we had our usual 'just the four of us' Christmas at home. It was very low key and we let the kids open the presents from us early since we didn't want to cart them all the way to Revelstoke. The kids happily played with the present while Josh and I packed and took down all the Christmas decorations! (Yes, we were packing Christmas away before others were even celebrating)

The drive up to Revelstoke was awesome. We decided to get a pizza from Costco the day before. That way we could have both breakfast and lunch in the car. The weather forecast called for snow on the day we were driving so we were a bit worried. Turns out the roads were pretty clear except for the the summit and we made it in just 5hrs! We only stopped for gas once in Merritt and the kids and I didn't even get out of the car. We've come a long way since the road trips in the early days.

The days have been filled with snow play, sliding down the giant hill at the back of the property, swimming, skiing, tubing and even building an igloo (an 'ice house' to be PC). Christmas day with the Blommesteins was fun except that it was cut short because of a stomach flu. Luckily we were able to open our presents and share our 'surprisas' before it all went downhill. The surprisas are always fun to open and takes the fun to a whole new level.

 Josh inside his castle and the ice house in the background

 I have to admit that the ice house is quite cozy inside.

 Three generations of Blommesteins knitting. 

Checking to see if Santa found us at Oma and Opa's house.
 

 Cousins bonding over a gingerbread train.

 Mady was SO excited to give Kaes the present she made him.

 Uncle Aaron's surprisa

 Oma's surprisa

Our friends Ed, Liezel and Sophia even joined us for a couple of days and we had a great time with them on the bunny hill. I'll have a separate post on our skiing endeavors up soon.

 Dance party with Tita and Sophia

New Years Eve was a lot of fun this year too. Now that the kids are older, we can stretch bedtime a little later and not have to pay too much for it the next day. We toasted the new year at home with some chippies, chocolates and sparkling apple juice. It was the kids' first time with carbonated drink and their reactions to the fizz was quite funny. Maddy commented that she did not like the feeling of all the burps afterwards. The ski hill had some family friendly events so we went up there to check it out. Unfortunately we returned our rental skis that afternoon, so the kids couldn't participate in the glo-stick ski parade on the bunny hill. We did make it in time to get one tubing ride in before the hill closed. We played in the snow for a bit while we waited for the fireworks show. They had a family friendly show at 8:30pm so that the kids could be up to watch. We were quite impressed with the show.  We came home and the kids went to bed quite easily, leaving the adults to watch a movie and wait to toast at midnight.

 Maddy made these New Years hats for the two of them.

 It was too funny watching Ethan drink the sparkling juice and then grimace at the bubbles.

 A quick tubing run before the fireworks.

 Fireworks with Oma

It felt like there was a lot of snow in Revy this year. Actually on the second to last evening, the roads to and from town were closed due to avalanche warnings. The towns people were asked to open up their homes to travellers who were stranded because all the bed and breakfasts and hotel were booked. That same night, there was a power outage. We heard that in some houses the temparatures dropped quite a bit. We were warm and toasty (still had the sliding door to the backyard a sliver open) due to dad's ingenious house design!

We are now home and the kids are busy playing with all their new toys again. It's good to be back home, but also sad to leave the family time.