The Curnew Christmas Letter

Greetings All,

How was your Christmas?

Jeff and I really enjoyed ourselves this Christmas.

The weekend before Christmas we went to a Friends "Happy Birthday Jesus" celebration, where there was a cold breeze walking you to the front door of their house, but oh inside it was toasty warm with people all huddled around a coffee table of goodies socializing. Afterward, we went outside for some blizzard-like caroling and will never forget how ridiculous we must have looked when hardly anyone opened their doors for their gifts, conserving their heat most likely, but we still laughed joyously and sang courageously battling the storm. Harmoniously as a group we built a fire with our bodies and stayed warm! (A couple pictures are posted here of us at this celebration – our friend Louise snapped the photos. Thanks Louise!)

Christmas Eve was spent at my Grandpa and Grandma Martins place. It was just the four of us! We had a lot of fun playing a variety of games with them, eating a lot of food, and conversing a lot. (o: I was tired and slept like a baby that night!

Christmas Day we woke up quite late and then after lunch headed out to the next town (pictures from the drive below – click on the img to enlarge it) for Christmas there at Jeff’s Grandpa and Grandma Donatelli’s place, and Jeff’s Auntie Pat joined us there with them. We conversed, played Ramoli, watched a Charlie Brown Christmas video, and ate a Vegan meal.

Boxing Day we spent some time picking up one item Jeff and I both really wanted this Christmas. Jeff got an all in one digital remote control-it’s like a mini-computer that you apparently can run everything on. We’re excited about that, since right now we have something like: 6 remotes! And I got a pair of Capris for volleyball, they are made out of a nice warm material and they have cool max in them which is great for exercising. After shopping we made our way back home in our low rider car, gnawing our way through the meter high snow embankments that hugged us down the lanes.

We just got winter tires put on our van a week before the snow hit us, which was great! However, our van’s power steering belt snapped in half (probably due to the cold) the morning of the 23rd while we were about to leave our carport for work, so we are driving the car this white winter, it has all-season tires, but despite that it has done remarkably well, surprisingly! I still can’t believe that we’ve had three foot bucket loads of snow blanket our streets this year! and all in the last 3 days,even! What’s up with that?!?!? So I’m surprised we’ve still been able to manage with just our car! God is definitely watching out for us this Christmas!

On the food front…I’ve been eating a variety of non-gi foods and gi foods (almost 50 50), hoping not to look at the scale until my pants feel like they’re falling off again and not while vice-versa is in-effect! smile. I imagine you are most likely in the same boat as I, and so therefore together we are waddling our way to the exercise we need most desperately. I still have not gotten back into the regular rhythm of exercise. Have you? I probably have not due to the fact that we have not gone to volleyball in almost a week. However, because I felt I had to do something last night I did do some strength training. Strength Training is my favourite way to burn calories right now, because it doesn’t effect my asthma too too badly and plus I burn calories quite fast and this is always a good thing.

Have you noticed some changes around here again on my blog? I recently had some fun with it. I often have these pictures in my head of how I want my Ehome to look, that I just have to design it that way!

Today,  I thought I should feature my latest photography artwork in my blog’s header, from time to time, for you to see. Today I’m featuring: "bridge ink". It is a piece of art derived from one of the photos in the collage below. I really like how it turned out!

My Grandma Martins is so funny. While at her house this Christmas Eve, she had me play her mini organ with her, while she tried singing along. I don’t play piano. I played clarinet in school 15 years ago. So it’s been awhile since I read music by notes. haha So at one point we left the organ in the dust and just sang a song together! Very cool! I can’t multi-task, so it worked out much better for us to sing. At one point I just played the organ while she sang, that was kind of neat too! :) I don’t think I was very good at all though and I think she got rather frustrated with me. Although, give me some time, practice and I probably could play that organ and sing at the same time with it maybe. We played Racko with them and that was ok, although my Grandpa only won once, the rest of us won multiple times. I didn’t know my Grandma was as competitive as I am! Although, I think I’m most like my Grandpa when it comes to likes and dislikes, especially with food.

Jeff and I had a great Christmas, and I am happy to have shared it with you through this letter. I’m hoping that sharing our Christmas with you through a letter will become a new Christmas tradition of ours! We’ve also discovered a few other rather weird traditions we have over Christmas too. We seem to visit the 7 eleven store probably because they are one of the only stores open, 24hrs, at Christmas. Although, we discovered that Shoppers Drug Mart is too, so we are adding that one to our Christmas shopping list, as well.

I hope you all the best and that your Christmas was filled with joy, delight and inspiration.

Merry Christmas! and a Happy New Year to you and your Family!!!