Merry Christmas from the Russell-Roses – 2008
Hey, I’m getting this letter done BEFORE Christmas this year, which is an improvement over the Jan 6 effort of last Christmas.
And I’m writing from a snowy Chilliwack, which is fairly unusual at Christmas time. I always tell the girls, when they wish for a white Christmas, that it’s not necessarily the best scenario, as it throws all travel plans into disarray. Will family make it out to our house Christmas Eve and Christmas Day? Will we make it to the big Russell party on Boxing Day? All of that remains to be seen, depending on whether the weather cooperates, or if we get more blizzard-like conditions right when we want to be driving.
Because as all seasoned Fraser Valley drivers know, you don’t want to be on the freeway between Abbotsford and Chilliwack in a blowing howling snowstorm. Has to be experienced to be believed. I guess Daryl needed a refresher course, as he boldly drove into Burnaby last Wednesday and got stuck crawling along in near-white-out conditions on the way home.
We hope to see everyone when we’re supposed to over Christmas, but we’ve decided to just take things as they come and if that means snow delays us seeing folks until a few days later, we’ll enjoy their company when the fates allow us to do so.
We’re happy to have each other in our lovely home and a gas fireplace to snuggle up to and four cats to drape on our laps if we need to keep warm. Daryl and Molly and I quite enjoyed sitting in our great room and watching the howling winds blow the snow horizontally the other night.
The first half of this year was filled with more travel than the Russell-Rose family usually does. We spent a very relaxing few days on Hornby Island with our friends Sharon and Rudy Rogalsky at spring break. Sharon gave us a very thorough insider’s experience of Hornby, complete with hikes, beach walks, craft fairs, evenings in the community hall, and a tour of the famous composting toilet. It was just what we needed and we are very grateful to them. We saw (and I got to photograph) eagles and seals on this trip too.
It seemed that almost every weekend in spring was consumed by some activity for Emma – Destination Imagination competitions, a skipping championship, and a soccer tournament. Then when her DI team won the provincials we decided to go to the global finals in Knoxville, Tennessee, which meant a few more weekends of fundraising by selling raffle tickets at the mall.
However, the fundraising was worth it, as Emma and four other girls and five of us mums had a fun-filled and educational trip to the University of Tennessee campus (and Dollywood!) for a five-day festival experience completed geared to the thousands of participating kids enjoying themselves (with a little creative problem-solving competition thrown in along the way).
We also spent a weekend with our longtime friend Linda and her family in Olympia, Washington, stopping in Seattle along the way. This included a real American 4th of July, with their neighbourhood turning into a pseudo-battle zone, as each family set off a personal pile of fireworks. A fun contrast to the orderly, gather-in-a-public place-and-watch-sanctioned-fireworks experience we had in Canada on July 1.
Then it was off to Victoria for our friend Nicky’s very fun wedding to Justin. We tied the traditional Victoria experience into the weekend, including the provincial museum, with its very excellent exhibit commemorating B.C.’s 150th anniversary, and Miniature World. It was neat to see my friend Cheryl Claibourne’s grandma featured as one of the BC 150 historically significant people.
(It was quite a year for a museum aficionado like myself, as I also got to the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville and the Experience Music Project in Seattle.)
From Victoria we went to a provincial park near Sooke, where we spent a few days camping and day-tripping to beaches. Was a bit chilly for July there, but we still enjoyed it once we got decked out in warm clothes. (Note to self: don’t forget to pack pants for the boy for a summer camping trip.)
Our final trip was to the Cariboo. Emma had an adventure camp for a few days up there, and Miles and I stayed with our friend Tara and her kids at their log house at 108 Mile during that time. Then Daryl brought Molly up to join us once she finished her own summer camp, and I ventured with the kids to see the Williams Lake Russells. This included a side trip to Barkerville, so I really got a good dose of B.C. history in this historic year.
Our kids continue to thrive. Molly is doing very well in French immersion at middle school and also enjoying being on a new soccer team with two young women coaches who work her quite hard. She’s actually proud of her ability to do pushups now, much to her mum’s delight. She’s also playing basketball at school, on a small team that struggles against some of the other powerhouses. She and two friends recently wrote their own version of lyrics to a French pop song to reflect a social studies assignment and then made a music video of themselves performing it, editing it on our computer and handing it in as a DVD. We certainly weren’t doing that in Grade 8! I also admired the strength, compassion, and maturity she showed when supporting a friend through a family tragedy.
Emma had a very exciting year, what with the Destination Imagination trip where she got to experience southern U.S. culture, meet kids from around the world, and carry the B.C. flag in the opening parade. She’s also keeping busy with soccer, school, volleyball, DI, and skipping club. She’s happy to have the “not so much homework” teacher for Grade 5 this year.
Miles finally got to enroll in the school he’s been visiting since he was in the womb, and became a kindergartner this year. He also got off the sidelines and onto the soccer field, where he played with surprising gusto. He’s a real stickler for the rules though, and has been known to stop the ref to tell him/her that another player pushed him, and that that’s not allowed! As he matures, his funny ways of expressing himself are not as common as they used to be, although he did say, when faced with the prospect of going to sleep during a power outage last week, “I like a little light with my dark.”
Daryl continues to keep his clients happy, to hit the gym a lot, and to keep order around this house and in the kitchen. Now that he’s not busy both day and night with work (just days now generally) he’s actually tapping into the Rose family hockey gene, which has been latent until now, and watching the Canucks regularly.
I continue to be frazzled by the competing demands of work and family, spending a lot of my post-work hours getting kids to activities. But I enjoy watching them, and very much value my home time when I get it. And I love my job, and enjoyed the small role I played in communicating about our transition from university college to university this year. And it was invigorating to once again be part of the Rosedale Rockers old-women’s soccer team. This year we formed our own Over-30 league so we wouldn’t have to play the young girls, and we actually won a few games. And I continued to take lots of photos everywhere I went.
We count ourselves lucky to be surrounded by the love of family and friends. We celebrated my eldest brother Brian’s 50th birthday (with more 50ths to come in the Russells for the next few years!), and a triple 40th for some Chilliwack friends, and attended lots of other delightful social events, including a rip-roaring Halloween bash for which we dressed up for the first time in years.
All in all, we’re happy to be here and happy to know y’all (hey, there’s a holdover from my Tennessee visit).
If you want to see the year in photos, go here for family and cat photos
, and here for my favourite scenics!
Love,
Anne, Daryl, Emma, Miles, and Molly
(mixing up the order a bit so as to be fair!)
