Schwab Family Christmas

Christmas officially starts with the decorating. Usually this is as close to the beginning of December as possible but this year December started on a Monday and Kerry and I were both busy the weekend before so we didn't get going until December 6th. Lot's of decorating to do with not much time to do it. Our Christmas light display continues to expand. I wait until the second week and head to Rona to buy the lights when they are half off. I got three strings of 200 each this year plus a Snoopy that went on sale for the first time ever since he's usually sold before the sale starts.

When school ends and the the holiday begins we try to go skating at least once. Apparently we need to go skating a bit more often because I think Callie and Carter spent more time on the bench then on the ice. The bench is still fun though because we go to the Ice Palace in Cloverdale. They shut down a whole rink for most of December and decorate the ice with lights and trees. With the main lights turned off it's a great atmosphere.

About a year ago Canada Place replaced the IMAX theatre with Flyover Canada. It's similar to Soaring Over California at Disneyland. You sit in a seat and they suspend you over a curved screen making it seem like you're actually flying. For the rest of the year the scenes are of Canada and that remains for Christmas with a few twists. They add in a few elves in random spots but also add a couple minutes of the North Pole at the end. It was very well done and brought Santa's home to life for the kids.


For the past few years I've been eyeing the Vancouver Christmas market. Oddly enough I first heard about it when someone accidentally drilled into a propane tank a few years ago and there was a small explosion. It's not very big but that just adds to the fun. It's generally German and Polish themed and a majority of the booths are food. We had some great Bavarian sausages, waffles on a stick, hot chocolate and even got to ride on a carousel. We lucked out when someone leaving gave us some coupons for free rides that they had not used.

On the 23rd we went for dinner at the Kilden's and followed it up with an evening of Christmas light viewing. We found a route from someone on Facebook that took us past some great houses.  The really big ones haven't quite all converted to LED's but some of the houses with fewer lights have. I imagine they will continue to grow over the next few years. My favourite was one of the ones that had tuned their lights to music. They broadcast the music on a short range FM channel which I imagine is much less disruptive to the neighbours.

Christmas day was chaotic as usual. Uncle Ronnie slept over so we could get an early start. Callie came into our room at 1:30a which never happens. She didn't stay long because she said the bed was "too uncomfortable." After that they managed to stay asleep until about 6:45a. Gift opening was done by about 7:30a. So early it was still dark out. The kids had a great time opening their gifts though they are now getting old enough that they can guess many of them before they even get opened.

The rest of Christmas day was spent building lego sets. I think each kid got a big set, a medium set, a small set and a few mini sets. Callie enjoyed making her on her own but Carter insisted that I help him. He's perfectly capable of assembling all the sets he got but I think he enjoys the end result more than the process. We put together the Arctic Base Camp, a windmill and some construction equipment. Callie assembled her Heart Lake City Pool, Jungle Rescue Base and Barbie's Superstar Stage. We're running out of room for all these assembled sets.

Christmas Tree Hunting

I'm not sure what the trigger was but this year I decided it would be good if we got a real tree. I had real trees growing up because in Prince George you can't spit without hitting a tree that someone wants to cut down but since I'd moved to the lower mainland we've always had an artificial tree. Not one we bought ourselves but one that Kerry's parents had given us. I'm fairly certain they used it before us so it's probably seen 25 Christmas' by now. (Or maybe Kerry bought it when she moved down.) In any event, it was just not the same as a real tree.

I naively thought that the kids would be excited about a real tree and Carter was, however Callie was not. We couldn't quite get her to verbalize her issues but I think she thought the act of cutting a tree down would be traumatizing for the tree and wanted none of it. My back up plan was to find someplace that sold live trees in pots. We have a spot in the back yard that we could plant it and probably get a few seasons out of it since our living room is too tall. In the end we managed to convince her to take home one of the cut ones in the tree lot by telling her that if we didn't take it home it might not have a home for Christmas.

The Christmas tree lot we went to was much more than just a parking lot full of trees. It's the same location as the pumpkin patch we go to in the fall. I think it's only been doing it the past few seasons as they were probably jealous of a much larger tree farm that is just a few minutes away. The one nearby is quite hilly and looks fun but we decided to go to the pumpkin patch one since it had animals as well. It was a nice day with marsh mellows on the fire, a petting zoo and of course a beautiful "Noble Fir" that the kids named Firy Spike Spikefir. Now I just have to figure out how to get rid come January 1st.

Grey Cup

This year the Grey Cup was being held in Vancouver. I wasn't planning on going but Dad called up about a week ahead of time and said he had got some tickets for free via a colleague at work. His plan was to fly down with Eric and pay for Jordan to fly in as well, so all the Schwab boys got a pre Christmas treat. Even though it was the Grey Cup, they had some difficulty selling all the tickets. Vancouver is a long way for the east coast teams to travel and I think the home town fans find it more exciting when the home town is playing.

We had planned on going down town to see Saskatchewan house at the convention centre the night before however Jordan's flight got postponed. Initially both Dad and Jordan thought it was postponed from 7:00a to 8:30a but it turned out it had been moved to 8:30p due to weather. A bit of a surprise for everyone. In the end we decided we would go for dinner after the game instead. The game was very exciting. The predictions were for Calgary to win easily and the first half looked like that was going to be the outcome.

The second half however was a different story. Calgary was not as dominant and Hamilton snuck back into it. The whole game came down to a single play. A kickoff to Hamilton that their punt returner took all the way to the end zone. The only problem ended up being a flag on the play and not enough time for Hamilton to make their way back down the field. A fun finish. Dad would have missed one of the most exciting finishes ever had it happened, as he was busy taking a taxi to Joe Fortes to hold our table. We had reserved for 6:30p knowing we might be a bit late. Turned out okay though because almost everyone with a 6:30 time slot was late. Dinner was excellent and it was a fun weekend with Dad and the brothers.

Surrey Nature Centre

In November I went with Callie on a class field trip to the Surrey Nature Centre. It's land that was donated by a couple who was concerned about the urbanization of Surrey and is tucked away right in the middle of the city. I go by it every day on my way to work but I had no idea it was there. We started the day with a game that teaches about the urban food chain. Kids were either squirrels, raccoons or coyotes. Callie got to be a squirrel and it was her job to find food, water and shelter while not getting caught. Looks like she got caught by a Coyote here and had to give up one of her life cards.

The afternoon was all about habitats. Callie's group got to be the coyote this time. They learned what they ate, where they lived and what, if anything, ate them. There was also an interesting history lesson about the Surrey Nature Centre property, right back to when it was first logged, destined to be athletic fields and then eventually saved and turned into the nature centre.

After some classroom learning on her animals habitat we went outside to a clearing in the woods to build them. Not life size of course but to relative scale out of whatever they could find. Some of the kids got very creative with beaver dams and eagles nests. The coyote groups struggled a bit since the habitat was just everywhere in the woods. They put together a few standing branches as trees and made a little nest of leaves for the coyote to sleep. I noticed Callie spent much of her time directing the work and not quite as much time actually doing the work.

A Pile of Leaves

This might be the last year of leaf pictures in front of our house with our own leaves. The tree on our front lawn belongs to the city and was unfortunately poorly installed. I don't t think the hole was big enough and someone put lawn edging too close. The end result is root girdle and it's choking off the rest of the tree. The branches spread in crazy directions and it's not as big as the healthy ones on the street. This year they cut down three and I think a fourth fell over. It's too bad too because I really liked seeing the trees in the spring with the new foliage and the colours in the fall.

It still did it's job this year providing a giant pile of leaves. With a bit of raking in the neighbours yard we had a great pile. Last year Callie wasn't too excited when she jumped in because the leaves were wet. This year she was expecting it and went back for more. Carter went out a half dozen times. My favourite outing was when he was naming his jumps before he did them. There was the "Super Hero", "The Zombie" and "The Ninja". Very creative.

San Francisco - Day Three - Sharp Curves Ahead

This was my last 'free' day before heading to my meeting the next morning. I had to switch hotels today which meant I had to check out by 11:00a. I stuck around the hotel as long as I could doing a bit of work before heading downtown. I had hoped to catch the shuttle but it seems that it only runs on Friday and Saturday so I had to take the airport shuttle instead and then get on the BART to go downtown. Not much of an inconvenience, however like the Vancouver airport the cost of getting on at the airport is excessively more expensive then at other stops.

Once I got downtown I hopped on a bus for Lombard street. This was another of the 'must see' San Francisco sites. The whole city is quite hilly and this particular street tops them all. What amazed me the most was that there were several houses lining the street that had their driveways here. I can't imagine having to push past all the tourists every day just to get into my front door. It was a fun sight but the hardest part was that the bus dropped me off at the bottom of the hill on the other side. A tough trek with my luggage and backpack but worth it.

Once I'd tackled Lombard, it was a short walk to Ghirardelli Square where I felt it was important that I replace all those calories I had lost climbing the hills. Ghirardelli is a well known chocolate company and San Francisco was it's birthplace back in the 1800's. It was recommended to me that I try out one of their Sunday's and I'm certainly glad I did. I chose the Sea Salt Caramel creation and it was layer upon layer of sticky goodness. It more than made up for the lost calories and then some.

After several more hours of wandering around it was finally time to meet up with my work colleagues. We were meeting for dinner before driving out to San Ramon to our hotel which was near the location of our work meeting the next day. I was quite surprised that the first thing Will wanted to do was to get on the carousel at Pier 39. I think he's 90% kid. Even after dinner he wanted to check out some San Francisco sites when the rest of us were ready for bed. We obliged with another trip to Lombard. This time with a car and we drove down in the dark. I'm glad we did. It was a fun evening and a fun trip overall.

San Francisco - Day Two - A 'Full' Day

At the end of yesterday I finally found a transit map so I was able to do a bit more planning of my day. My first destination was Golden Gate Park. It was just a single bus ride away from Union Square and the route took me past some new San Francisco neighborhoods. So far I'm amazed at how diverse the houses are. All stuck together crossing many architectural styles. Considering the fire in 1906 I'm surprised they let people build so close together. I entered the park off Haight Street and scoped out the McDonald's nearby.

The reason I needed to know where the McDonald's was that I had a bit of work to do and I needed to find a place with WIFI. I quickly tested it out and then headed into the park. The park is incredibly long and I only had time to check out a portion of it. This included the botanical gardens, the lake, several sports fields, some great old buildings and a funky bridge made out of very large boulders. I think you'd need at least a full day to see the whole park.

A 30 minute walk from the park were the painted sisters. One of their claims to fame is that they were in the opening credits of a show called Full House from the late 80's and early 90's. I think the only reason I watched the show was because of the neat buildings and the funny uncle. Today my mission was to find them as well as the house from the show. It was only about 20 minutes from the sisters. The walk to both locals was relatively flat. By San Francisco standards at least.

After I'd done the Full House tour it was time to transit back to the hotel. I'd already planned it out and decided on the route that took me past AT&T park. I didn't have tickets but it was still fun to take in the atmosphere outside the park. After a few pictures I headed to the Cal Train. Yesterday I had taken the BART because it had a stop called South San Francisco which was on a map as being near my hotel. Turns out there are two different lines and two different stops. It took an extra hour to get home yesterday so I had learned my lesson and new to take the Cal Train this time.

San Francisco - Day One - Planes, Trains, Trolleys and Boats

One of the projects I'm working at work involves rolling out new tools for designing electrical substations. The group who will be using the tool had previously been in discussions with Pacific Gas & Electric on their experiences with the tool and decided it would be beneficial to get together for a day to share knowledge. This meant a paid trip down to San Francisco so I thought it would be a good idea to go down a few days early and check out the sites. A good idea except for the fact that the Giants made it into the World Series making it somewhat difficult to get a hotel.

It took some work but Kerry finally found one near the airport. Not a great location for site seeing however they have a free shuttle into town. A 45 minute bus ride later and I'm in the heart of downtown San Francisco at Union Square. I hadn't put much thought into what I was going to do first because I had no idea what was at Union Square. It's mostly shopping but it also happens to be the starting point for a cable car that goes all the way to Fisherman's Wharf. After about a 45 min wait I was riding a form of transportation that's over 100 years old.

The cars are powered by a single electrical motor in a central power house. As I was walking down to them there was an odd screeching sound coming from the street. It was only when I saw the first street car go by that I realized it was the sound of the cables dragging underground. The trip was about 30 minutes and went from Union Square all the way to Fisherman's Wharf. I'm not sure how they do it but it manages to go both up and down hills and make turns. I was expecting a single straight line up and down a hill but it was much better. Amazing technology for the time.

After a brief tour of some older ships including one of the oldest tug boats on the west coast I stopped at Lou's Fish Shack for some fish and chips. It didn't disappoint. It wasn't your typical beer battered fish but was very crispy and the tarter sauce was perfect. I'm a bit of a fish and chips connoisseur and this was up there on my list of favorites. After lunch I took a stroll down the peer and there was a boat advertising tours of the bay for $15.00. It wasn't a big ship but there were already about 30 people on board so it was ready to go.

The boat took you out past the Golden Gate Bridge and included your typical tour boat commentary and corny jokes though this one included a bit more political commentary than usual. Not Democrat or Republican. Just anti-government in general. The trip was only an hour which was the perfect amount of time and the weather was nice most of the way with the exception of some fog around the bridge. That just added to the experience. After we rounded Alcatraz and headed past some slumbering sea lions we were back to the dock.

Further down the dock was the San Francisco Mechanical Museum. Mostly made up of old penny arcade machines and amusement park novelties all converted to quarters. I started Callie collecting crushed pennies after a few of my previous trips and she's hooked. A nice cheap hobby. She would be in heaven here. There were crushed penny machines everywhere. A combination of electric and hand powered with multiple images in most of them. And they were only 50 cents where most are a dollar. I had change for five of them.

After the museum I headed to Pier 39. I had heard about it before but it wasn't originally on my list of things to check out. I'm glad I did though. The atmosphere was great and there are lot's of restaurants, tourist shops and sweet stores. It will be a great place to go back to on Sunday so I can pick up souvenirs for everyone. Callie picked the crushed pennies and all Carter wanted was chocolate. I'm covered nicely on both those items.

By this time I was ready to head back to the hotel. Unfortunately my Blackberry has a map but isn't great for planning your travel. I had hoped to find a transit map by now but hadn't come across one yet. I knew Fisherman's Wharf was as far as I could go so I decided I would just hop on a bus and see where it took me. It was a neat old electric trolley bus and it had two drivers seats for going in opposite directions. Very neat and it got me back to a Bart Station that I 'knew' would get me home. A bit of a story there that I will discuss tomorrow.

The Pumpkin Patch

We took our annual trip to the Aldor Acres Pumpkin patch last weekend. We've been every year since Callie was born and the place gets better every year. It's a family run farm that includes a petting zoo, a dairy farm and a Christmas tree farm. The pumpkin patch portion is on all four October weekends and I believe they've been doing it for over 20 years. Judging by the number of cars that arrive when we're there and the cost to get in, I'm fairly certain this is a big piece of their income.

Callie's favourite part is the fact that you get to pick up and feed the bunnies. I think she went back into the bunny barn three times this year. In previous years I've felt very sorry for the bunnies as she would grab them very quickly and often dropped them from quite a height when she put them back. This year though she was an expert and was even able to hold them with just one hand while she fed them hay. There were also a few baby chicks. (It's a good thing they have wings and seem to bounce when they get dropped.)

Carter was a bit pre-occupied this year. He had received some money from Barb and Reg for looking after the dogs while they were in Vegas and he was itching to spend it. He wanted to do all of the pumpkin patch activities as quickly as possible because we had promised him we'd go to the store so he could spend his money on new lego. We did manage to get him to pose for a few pictures.

As I'm looking through the pictures I've realized we forgot to get one of the kids in front of the height indicators. They have various picture boards for the kids to stand in front of that show how tall they are so you can look back at previous years. We haven't been that consistent so I'm not too concerned. At least I got one of Carter as a tiny rooster.

Geocaching at Campbell Valley Park

This summer we went Geocaching quite a few times. Geocaching is an GPS based treasure hunt. People hide cache's all over the world and post the location to a web site. Participants then get to track them down, sign the log book and move on to the next one. We've found 70 so far and have one of our own at the little free library in our front  yard. Some are just simple film canisters with a log book but others can be more elaborate and include small toys or books. The best part of geocaching is that it gets us to go to places we wouldn't ordinarily go. Most cache's are placed near something unique that you wouldn't ordinarily stop to look at.

The kids had been to Campbell Valley Park with Kerry already but Kerry wanted to go back to find a few they had missed and to take her parents with us. On one of the board walks, someone had left handfuls of bird seed. We don't usually feed the birds but since they food was already there I took advantage and showed the kids how to get the birds to land in their hand. The birds had obviously done this before and as long as you stayed still and kept your hand out they would eventually land. Callie, Reg and I all got one. Carter got one too but he immediately ran away from it. He didn't like the claws on his hands. The chipmunks were friendly as well though they never got close enough to actually eat out of your hand.

Carter's Birthday Party

This year Carter decided that his birthday party was going to be pirate themed. He toyed with a few other ideas including Spiderman and Transformers but we encouraged him down the pirate them route since we had so much gear already from our Disney Cruise and from a pirate night at Kerry's school. With his birthday happening before school even started it resulted in a rather eclectic mix of attendees because he hadn't built new friendships with any kids at school yet. There were two cousins, one of Callie's class mates, the daughter of a family friend, one kid from school and Uncle Ronnie.

It's fun that the kids still enjoy having their birthday at our house versus something like bowling or swimming because it means we get to work on the family activities as a family. They included;

1) Pirate Ring Toss - A game we made out of a sheet of plywood and some captain hook hooks screwed to a board.

2) A Pirate Treasure hunt that ended with a treasure chest I had built.

3) Walk the Plank

The cake was pirate ship shaped though when it was all decorated it just looked like a deserted island. We also got some great treasure box shaped cupcakes from Kerry's friend Kathy. They were complete with little coins and skull and cross bones. She always makes amazing goodies for the kids goodie bags. Lot's of gifts of course with one of the hits being some 3lb weights from Uncle Corey. Carter is trying to build up his muscles. 

First Day of School

First day of school was a bit later than usual this year. The teacher's strike that had started at the end of the previous year carried forward into the new school year and it wasn't until September 22nd that they finally got to return. By this time even the kids were eager to get back to see their friends. Three months of playing in the back yard and watching reruns on the Disney channel was enough.

I ordinarily schedule the first week of September off so I can help with the transition and I did exactly that except of course that turned out to be the wrong week. We have a tradition where the kids and I go to Rickey's for breakfast but since I couldn't be around on the first Monday we had to do that on the Sunday before. Barb and Reg had come down for Carter's Birthday so they got to handle first day of school duties. A few quick pictures and they were out the door for another year.

A Chocolate Slip & Slide?

We've thought about it for the past few years and this year we finally did it. We went on a family camping trip. Both Kerry and I did some camping as kids. My family had a tent trailer and would spend time at our lake property and Kerry's family had a trailer and toured Vancouver Island a lot. We have neither of those things and for now can't justify the expense. We've also decided that we're not tent campers so that left us with one real option. Renting a cabin and luckily the KOA network in the US offers just such a thing.

Our destination was the Concrete/Grandy Creek KOA campground about 30 minutes EAST of Burlington in Washington. It's an excellent family camp ground at the base of Mount Baker and they have these nice little cabins that sleep 6 people with a double bed and two sets of bunk beds. It was good that there were two sets of bunk beds because it meant both kids got their own top bunk. They even came with electricity and a space heater. This is luxury camping.

I mentioned that this was a great family camp ground. The reason for that was all the activities that were available for kids. There was a jump pillow which is like a giant trampoline, mini-golf, a pool and hot tub. Did I mention that this was luxury camping? Most of the site was well maintained and my only real complaint was that the cabins were on the edge of a very open field. At first I thought this would mean no privacy but it turns out you're so far from people on the other side that you don't feel exposed at all.

The campground had an 'Everything Chocolate' theme for the weekend. This meant chocolate ice cream, chocolate themed craft time, a sucker hunt in the dark, a night time showing of Charlie and the Chocolate factory as well as a pie throwing event where the kids threw chocolate pies into their parents face. (I unfortunately couldn't attend because I had to look after Wilson at the cabin. Too bad.) The highlight for the kids though was the chocolate slip and slide. Luckily they added as much soap as chocolate.

We went with family friends Melissa and Kathy and their families and it sounds like we may make it an annual event. Great fun!

My First Attempt at Canning

This year I decided to try canning. Canning is definitely a dying art. With the cost of canned goods being so cheap in the stores most people don't see the need to do home canning anymore. To some extent I agree but it is a skill that I'd like to have. I've also found that you can get most fruits canned in the store and they taste pretty much the same. One exception however is cherries. Most canned cherries tend to either be the very heavy syrup or the candied ones. I wanted just regular cherries in a light syrup.

I started with a 20 pound box that we picked up on our way home from Oliver and I picked up the canning supplies for about $50 dollars at Canadian tire. For the 14 cans I got I think it ended up costing about $100. The good thing though is that about $75 of that were one time costs. So although it was about $7 a jar this time, the cost will drop dramatically as I do more. So far they've turned out nicely. Every one sealed properly and show no signs of any kind of discolouration or mould. Callie and I both agree that they taste delicious.