Goodbye November

It's a dark, dreary December day, a perfect day to stay in, wrap a few Christmas gifts and work on Chistmas cards, with the fire in the stove creating a lovely cosy atmosphere.

Although what is coming down today is wet, we did have a nice white covering of snow a couple of weeks ago. This is how it looked on Sunday morning, the 23 of November. We know that is only the beginning of the white stuff, though!

In Fredericton Junction, our neighbouring community, the new arena complex is taking shape. It will be a wonderful asset to all the surrounding communities providing facilities for many public and sports events. This is how it looks so far.

November has become a time of celebrations for our family, since all three of our children married people with birthdays in that month. How coincidental is that? Miranda's visit was just before her birthday, so we were able to celebrate with her. Then there was a party at the chalet for Rudi on the 22nd. Here is his birthday photo.

Then, after a soak in the hot tub, he took up a paddle and smacked the seahorse-shaped pinata. As you can imagine, candies flew in every direction!

That Sunday I invited the two Fowlers and three Woollins for a roast beef dinner with birthday cake and ice cream for the two birthday boys. It's nice to have a reason for parties to brighten up November! Here they are with their cake (and Maeve!)

Amy, Rudi, Kevin and I had a quick trip to Freeport, Augusta and Bangor, Maine, for a bit of pre-Christmas shopping in the middle of the month. The weather wasn't too nice but that didn't prevent us from having a terrific weekend. I learned a lot about using our GPS as Rudi and I followed them instead of maps - but I'm not ready to throw away my maps just yet!

So we are now in the last month of 2008. You know what I'm going to say, but where has the time gone? Another Advent season has begun and now the Christmas preparations are underway. Christmas already??? Time certainly does fly by!