Oh, Canada!

I promised mom and dad I would document our trip to Canada, so here goes.

(This may end up being either a "What I did on my Christmas Vacation" report or a painfully boring session of family photos, so I apologize in advance.)

We left at 6 am on Saturday (12/20). In the 48 hours before we left for our trip we had gotten 3 feet of snow. This made me a little nervous, but our driver was fearless (and very safe!)

Here is the van where 6 of us spent the 50 hour journey....

And here I am with Marks's cousin and aunt at a rest stop in Montana.
Our first day on the road, we had packed sandwiches for lunch. We decided to stop and have a picnic on the Continental Divide....in 0 degree weather.....we ate quickly.
Knitting a hat to kill the time. FYI...trying to knit while the car is in the middle blowing snow in Montana is not always the safest idea.

A self-portrait with Marks's cousin (Kaitlyn).

A beautiful North Dakota sunrise on our second day of driving. We got up early and there had been snow during the night. The plows had already been out, so the roads were fine. The only problem was they had left a berm of snow blocking the freeway entrance. Soooo....Marks, his cousins, and I were out pushing the mini van at 7 am in ridiculously cold temperatures! We got the car on the freeway and we were on our way.
We got to Kenora, Ontario Sunday night. First thing Monday morning, we all headed out to cut down a tree for Marks's grandma. We thought this one in the yard looked alright.....But it was a little big (remember that scene from Christmas Vacation....it went a little like that.)

Laura made Marks his favorite Christmas treat (butter tarts)

Marks's cousins Shawn and Patrick came over every day we were there. It was great to spend more time with them!! What cool guys!

Here is the tree at Laura's on Christmas morning

Here we are on Christmas morning waiting for Marks to play Santa and hand out our gifts

We went on a walk to a lake out by the family property (yes, I am standing on frozen water) I brought my sled just in case there were any good hills to go down on our walk. There weren't any and I was stuck carrying a sled the whole time......Marks's dad and sister came from Winnipeg and spent the weekend with us.

We left Kenora on Sunday and drove all the way through to the Montana/North Dakota border.

Marks and his Canadian treat.....

The trip back was smooth until we hit a snow storm in Missoula, MT that didn't really clear up the rest of the way to Spokane. The last few hours were a little stressful (maybe just for me) but we made it home safely that night.

Winter Wonderland

The snow started falling yesterday at about 7am. I left my car at work at 2pm when we had gotten about 5 inches. It snowed all afternoon and all night. Overall we ended up with just over 2 feet!! The picture above is the tree outside out apartment. I was up at 5 am watching for school closures (because we all know how excited I was to drive to get to work today). Spokane went for 10 years without a snow day and so far in the last calendar year we have gotten 7 days off. Marks and I decided to venture out by foot today. The busses were only running 4 routes today, so we had to walk about a half a mile to catch a bus to Safeway. We went to lunch and walked to Safeway and Target. There's something about the snow that brings out the goodness in people. We saw people stopping to push each other out of the snow, the city was giving out free bus rides, and one lady even offered to drive us home from the store with our groceries.


This is how Marks found me when we got home......at least the cookies are suger-free!

We were taking the trash out tonight (which required me to get into my snow gear once again). I decided it was a great time for a photo op. I walked to a pretty tree outside our apartment.
It's up past my knees!

(Thanks for the snow gear, mom and dad!)







Okay, now how do I get up??





AND.... tomorrow's another snow day! Just preparing myself for the trek to Canada!