Family Gatherings and Friends

On Boxing Day and the 27th I had two family gatherings. On Boxing Day it was with my mom's side of the family. We're fairly big, so usually whoever is hosting it uses their church for us to meet! It's always so much fun hanging out and eating and laughing together. Every year we have a doubles ping pong tournament and it's a lot of fun! Here's some pics from that gathering:

My cousin Mika and I

My cousin Desiree and I

Desiree, Omi and I

Lucas, Chad and Bobbi (my sibs)

A bunch of cousins and a couple uncles

hahaha.. Okay, so my aunt doesn't normaly looks like this, but she was trying to be cross-eyed for the picture and was laughing at the same time and this is the snapshot I got!! :)

My cousin Fred and his wife Tarah

My cousin Devon

My mom and Bobbi posing with the cake my mom slaved over!!

The first and second place teams for the ping pong tournament

My Uncle Pete and I who were on a team together for the tournament

After the tourney, we like to play the blowing game where you have to blow the ping pong ball away from you so it doesn't fall off the table where you are. It's hilarious to play and it's hard not to laugh the whole time!

I made it to the final three.. you can tell in this picture we're all ready to blow! haha

Omi wanted a picture with some of her grandsons to see who was the tallest

Omi with some of her grand-daughters

These pics are from my family gathering from my dad's side of the family. It was pretty snowy and so it took people a while to get there because the roads were slippery. My car wouldn't make it up the hill to their house, so my cousin and uncle had to come rescue me! We had a huge feast and played the gift exchange game. It's always fun to see what everyone brings, because a few people have trademark gifts they put in every year. This year, as every year, I was reminded of my Opa, Oma, Dad and brother who aren't with us. Empty spots around the table are reminders of loss, but also reasons to celebrate because the richness of life and joy they brought to us. While eating dinner I was thinking about how every year my dad would always forget to take the buns out of the oven for the meal and we'd always find them afterwards. I am thankful for all the good memories for sure.

My friend Lindie from Calgary came out for a few days to visit. She went to the hockey game with my mom while I went to my family gathering. I would have loved to see the Canucks beat the Flames with her (she's a big Flames fan), but my mom got to enjoy it instead!

Kelly, Lindie and I went for dinner in Vancouver to our favorite Japanese/Korean bbq place where it's all you can eat and you get to cook your meat!! it was so much fun! Then we went to two different theatre sports afterwards in Granville Island.

And so ends my whack of posts. Perhaps there will be a few more soon about things I have been thinking about! :) Hope you are all enjoying the holidays and time with family and friends!