Whitefish was literally like a scene out of a holiday movie. There was SO MUCH SNOW and the little main street was decorated with lights and wreaths and bells and so on. We spent the next TWO WEEKS in a winter wonderland and as I look back at these pictures I am almost overwhelmed at just how magical our holiday vacation really was.
Grandpa hiked us up the mountain a bit behind his house to find the perfect Christmas tree, grandma made hot cocoa every morning and the kids played and played and played. All of the winter gear that we had bought worked out perfect and the girls loved building a Texas-sized snowman, making their own sledding hills, riding behind the tractor in the sled, making snow angels and absolutely everything else you could do in mounds of white fluffy show. When we occasionally came inside to warm up we sat by the fire, watched movies, finished multiple puzzles and played with our new Christmas gifts. Olivia loved that Santa brought her the American Girl Doll, Rebecca, and Isabelle felt very pleased with her new chromebook.
We headed to town for Huckleberry frozen hot cocoa, to eat at a favorite, the Fart and Slobber Inn, to ice skate and to see some movies on the big screen. The girls got their first real taste of skiing on Big Mountain and did better than we expected. Olivia was a killer like always and went down as fast as she could turning and falling and getting up again. Isabelle on the other hand was careful and slower as we would expect but managed some big runs and was graceful like always.
Of course one of the most fun parts was being with most of the Christensen family. The girls LOVE being with family and what is more fun than having cousins to play with from sun up to sun down? Olivia and Leo were buddies like usual and Isabelle loved taking care of June. They loved teasing Tara about pickles for two straight weeks and loved waking Grammie up at the crack of dawn. We were so excited to not only celebrate the holidays with the family but also Grandpa's birthday and his RETIREMENT! Now he can spend even more of his time in his happy place and we couldn't be more happy ourselves about that. We were grateful that we got to make so many memories with my family and love having such a special place to call our second home.
We rang in the New Year with black eyed peas and enjoyed being in such a quiet and peaceful place to welcome 2016. Sadly we eventually had to make our way back to Calgary and the girls cried and whined but we stayed as absolutely long as we possible could. (The girls had school only 8 short hours after we landed from a long exhausting travel day back from Canada.) It truly was the most wonderful time of the year and we feel so blessed when we look back at the months of 2015. We are humbled at the birth of the Savior and we are already counting down until the miraculous time of year we get to celebrate His birth again next year There is just something so special about Christmas.
Away in a manger, no crib for a bed......
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