Carolling party at the Rowes

The day we left for the Okanagan was quite an interesting one. It had snowed about 30cm the night before, so we had to dig the van out of our parking spot. It took us almost an hour to just get off of our street! Then we had to head over to Canadian Tire to buy chains for the van. Finally, after all that, we were able to head out on the road. Fortunately, the roads weren't too bad and we made it to Summerland in about 8 hours - that included driving slowly and stopping for dinner. Not too bad.


The next day, December 23, we settled into Grandma and Grandpa's house for the week. After dinner, we went out to Great-Grandma and Grandpa Rowe's house for their annual carolling party. The boys had a great time being the only young kids there. We were excited to hear that Ryan and Jennette are expecting their first baby. Finally, a cousin for the boys to play with. (Well, a second cousin once removed, or something like that!)


We all gathered in the basement to sing along with Great-Grandpa on his bass, as well as the rest of his band, which included some neighbours, some cousins and friend, Diego. The singing was a little off-key but it didn't matter because everyone had a good time. Daniel had a great time playing along with the band, first on the triangle and then on Josee-Anne's violin. Adam just loved wandering around and socializing!

While the adults were singing and visiting, the boys were discovering all the fun things to do at Great-Grandma and Grandpa Rowe's house. They had fun playing "jail" under the stairs and running around like crazy.

Finally, Santa came to visit! Daniel was surprised to see him and Adam was in awe. But Adam still wouldn't have anything to do with Santa. Daniel went up for the two of them, though, and got a bunch of chocolates and candies.

Daniel got into the chocolate right away, as you can see, and Adam couldn't get away fast enough!

After getting three bags of candy, and eating a few, Daniel decided to walk around the entire room and offer his candy to everyone else who was there. There were probably about 50 friends and relatives there and he went up to each one and said, "Atooz me. You want some?" Everyone was so impressed with how polite and generous he was. He didn't mind at all that most of his candy was gone by the end of the evening. James and I were pretty proud of him that night!

The boys lasted a long time and we didn't leave until about 10:30. They were still in high spirits...but quickly passed out once they got in the van!