New Year's Eve

To celebrate New Years - we went with the Merpaws to Willard's Hotel in Upper Canada Village.

This old-time pioneer type village is open all summer, but only opens during December for their ALIGHT at NIGHT experience.  The old time hotel is now a restaurant and we enjoyed a great dinner.

 I made SURE we came appropriately attired to bring in the New Year....

Then we went out to walk around the village to see all the lights.

It was REALLY cold out there, just walking around.... so I made sure I was adequately clothed:

Hood, scarf, long coat, long skirt, boots, and gloves!  I looked kind of crazy, but I was warm! Happy New Year - 2013 !!!@

Canadian Winters

This winter has been a hard one,  but today a really HUGE storm hit!  Poor Roger tried to go out and
shovel during the blizzard, so it wouldn't be quite so hard when the storm was over.

Here he is showing how deep the snow was at that point - about 16- 18" deep by then.

By the next day when the skies cleared, we were walking out of our apt. through snow that was 4 feet deep. We had to wait for the snow plow to come and clear our parking lot to be able to get out!

And we are just getting STARTED with winter..... Yikes!

Boxing Day 2012

Boxing day in Canada is a huge holiday when all the stores put everything on sale. It is sort of like our Black Friday.  Since it is a holiday for everyone, we don't get much visiting in. So, the Merpaws invited us for dinner.  They wanted to share with us their tradition of having "crackers" at the table:

Crackers look like a gift wrapped toilet paper roll.  When you open them, they POP... thus the name.
Inside are little gifts, a tissue paper hat in different colors, and a cute little poem or question . Each person's is different. Of course... no food until we put on the hats... ugh....

We enjoyed a wonderful meal with Connie and Sheila and Sheila's son & family from Toronto.
Happy Boxing Day to all !

2nd and Last Christmas on our Montreal Mission

It's our last Christmas. We had already had the kids do things for the missionaries, and the Elders from Hawkesbury were staying there for Christmas, so we didn't expect much of a Christmas day.  But, it looks like we did okay....

Linda McCaskill gave us a present with All Things Canadian inside....

Mark & Debbie Davis remembered us:

Connie & Sheila Merpaw:

Cameron and Lindsay Sanders:

And the Monroes:

who also sent their pictures:

Then I gave Roger his CAN-MAN:

And he gave me some photo albums and a Hippo necklace:

There's a story behind this. All during December we would hear on the radio a song called: "I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas".  So, as a joke I started singing it all the time. So, E.Mahaffey actually went on line and searched and searched and found me a blinged-out Hippo necklace!  We really laughed and laughed.  How many other women can boast of having a Hippo necklace? What a wonderful companion I've got!

For Christmas we made Transfer Board cards to each of our grand-children. We made them look just like the real ones we used in the office for the missionaries we had.  We sent them a picture of our President's office where he uses the transfer board cards to place each missionary in a certain area and with a certain companion:

We put each of their pictures on the card and the year they would be eligible to go on a mission. Here are some pictures of them on the refigerator of the Mahaffey home:

and the Monroe home:

(of course, when we got them all done, we mailed them all out before we took a picture...  so I had to get a few pictures after the fact.)  We are hopeful that every time the kids look at the cards, they will be reminded that it won't be long when they can serve a mission.

Svenson's Annual Christmas Sing-Along

Every year we love going out to Chesterville (about 40 minutes NW of Cornwall) to the home of Walter and Sherry Svenson. He used to be the Stake President, but now they run the Family History Center. They are both very talented in music and love to host a holiday sing-a-long for ward members,
family, and even non-member neighbors.  Their daughter Felicity plays the piano.

They clear out all their furniture and set up folding chairs in the two adjoining rooms- the living room and dining room.

Sometimes, so many show up that Brother Svenson has to sit on the stairs.

And, of course, we EAT! Everyone brings something, but Sister Svenson always cooks a ton too!

It sort of reminds us of the sing a-long that Musetta Mortimer in Antioch used to have in Dec. every year.  It really is fun and reminds us that we just don't get too much opportunity to sing Christmas Carols very much, unless we MAKE the time.  Plus, when the non-members there, it was a great chance for us to talk about the Savior and our church!

Christmas Conference

Every year we have a 2 day Christmas Conference for all the missionaries in the mission. Since we have half the mission one day, then the other half the next day - We come up to help with the luncheon and stay at the mission home that night so we'll be close to come back for the second day.

All the senior couples come to help with the luncheon and since this is Christmas, it's usually a big one.

Turkey dinner with all the fixings.  Here's the kitchen help from one of the days - other couples come the other day, but some of us do both:  (E.Bendio, E. Cannon Sr, S.Arhets, S. Cannon Sr, S. Howard)

E.Howard, Mahaffey, Arhets, and S. Jarvis:

A quiet sitting down moment, while the Missionaries are in watching their movie, just before they come in to eat lunch:  (Sister Cannon, Sister Cannon Sr, and Sister Howard - who is in charge)

Sisters always start the meal.... always allow our elders to be gentlemen....

Sister Gutierrez and Sister Cantu came all decked out with their Christmas tiarras.

Then come the ever-popular skits by each zone:

Our zone did 2 dances.... one WITH the sisters (since there are only 2 in our zone)

then they did an all-elder Hukka dance!  It was amazing!  Leading it were the AP's - E.Bagnall  and Teuira - who is from Tahiti.

It was so loud that the people in the kitchen even came out to see what was happening! ha!  Then they have the white elephant gift exchange. President reads a story and every time he says "right" or "left" they have to pass their gifts that direction. At the end they open and then go around the room and each missionary get to keep to trade it one time.  Sister Cannon likes to clown around during this time:

President Cannon and Daniel the Elf hand out presents to each missionary...a cookbook and apron with "CMM" on it.  We needed a photo with Daniel too.  (He does this every year)

When we went back to the Mission Home that evening - we gave President and Sister Cannon their presents from us. We gave Sister Cannon a ton of Taco Bell Green Sauce packets (which she loves but can never get because there are no Taco Bells in Canada- but there is one in Massena, NY when we

go to get groceries each week! )  We also gave her a picture mouse pad.

We gave President Cannon a Missionary CAN-MAN with his name tag on it.

The CAN-MAN was made by our downstairs neighbor- George Kelly. (He usually makes them to look like famous Hockey players - complete with jersey colors, name and logo designs)  This was the first time that he'd ever made one with a suit on!  (Little did E.Mahaffey know that I secretly ordered one to give to him for Christmas)