Our Christmas holiday
This Christmas holiday was one for the memory books. My first entry was posted with a link for photos, our Christmas in Michigan.
We left YVR on December 22nd. heading to Chicago, connection to Detroit, MI. When we arrived at O'Hare, our connecting flight was cancelled. Our airline, United, put us up at the Crown Plaza close to the airport. We were rebooked for early afternoon on the 23rd. (reason for cancellation was not enough crew!) All went well. It was special to see our family and also to have Teilann & Byron join us from Toronto, where Byron now plays for the Toronto Marlies, with 4 days off. When we arrived at Duane/Karen's home in Ypsilanti, the girls were all busy baking Christmas cookies in their busy kitchen! later to be distributed to the local fire station and Police station.
December 24th, Christmas Eve. After dinner, we all gathered round the fireplace and enjoyed a mini concert. I wore my usual "Christmas mouse sweater" given to me by Valerie when Teilann was a baby! I have worn this sweater every Christmas eve for 22 years!
Karen had new Christmas PJ's for everyone, as the kids all rushed to their bedrooms to change into their new attire! ( photos are on a previous post) It was a treat to listen to Lily play her violin, with Duane doing a reading, as well as Jack giving a reading. Lots of awesome Hors d'oeuvres, cookies etc. to snack on. Photo sessions, games were the order of the evening! Duane/Karen had a brand new skip-Bo card game that had never been used, so we introduced this to them! Well, this became the "game of the holidays" They fell in love w/this game! Duane put the turkey in the oven later on in the eve. so it was be ready for early afternoon as Teilann & Byron had to leave to go back to Toronto as Byron had a game on the 26th. Such is life for a hockey player. Lily & Jack put the cookies out for Santa, and we all called it a good night!
Christmas Day arrived and no snow! A green Christmas awaited us! We were up early to start our day in our new PJ's. We were all coordinated thanks to Karen! Gifts were opened and for us it was fun to see the excitement in the faces of the kids.
We all enjoyed a delicious Turkey dinner with all the trimmings around 2:oo pm as I said, Teilann & Byron had to leave and drive back to Toronto. The rest of the day was relaxing, playing games. We were all Thankful for the Blessings God has given us.
December 28th, Duane, Karen, Ed and myself drove up to the University of Michigan to take a tour of the hockey facility, were the Wolverines play, in the NCAA. This university has an enrollment of about 44,000 students! An impressive University. After this, we went to a famous deli, Zingerman's Delicatessen. This was an awesome deli, with breads, hundreds of cheese's, olive oils from around the world, meats, sandwiches to go etc. The to go place. Later back at home, Duane made his famous home made pizza! To die for!
December 29th we all bundled up and drove to a quaint Bavarian German town, Frankenmuth, about an hours drive. The famous Christmas store was our first stop, Bronner's Christmas Wonderland, the world's largest Christmas store. I understand, my sis, Lorraine/Eric have been here. None of us had any idea what we would see when inside! Oh, the wonder of it all. The first stop was for a family photo opt. The store is the size of one and a half football fields. It is overflowing with over 50,000 ornaments and gifts! There is something for everyone! Ornaments from every country, ornaments for every profession, nativity sets, trees, Dept. 59, villages, stockings, Nutcrackers, (thought of you Ron), Hummel's, where I fell in love all over again!
After this tour, we took a tour of the village, very quaint and German. Prost to you for God's blessings for 2015.
New years eve, and new years day: Staying home and enjoying family time was the order for New years, watching 2014 come to an end with the dropping of the "ball" on TV, with a glass of champagne. The weather had taken a turn for colder temps! Ice was forming on the backyard pond! No snow so far!
January 2nd, Duane, Ed and myself took a short road trip up to Livonia to check out a professional camera shop, as Duane was looking for a few items for his new Nikon. On the drive back home, we stopped for a photo shoot around the Huron River. This was the first time I had done a photo shoot with Duane, so it was fun. There was lots of water fowl to photograph plus some ice on the edges of the river. It was chilly, but I persevered! As usual, my fingers were getting cold!
January 3rd was family skating at the local rink in Ann Arbor. One of the highlights for Ed was meeting the famous Red Berenson, a former Montreal Canadien player, and Duane taking a photo of them together! Red is the current coach of the Michigan Wolverines. He has coached the Wolverines for 30 years!
Skating was fun to watch, and brought back sweet memories of my days skating! Ed and myself did not lace up skates! Of course the evening was Skip-Bo time! I think we played this game every night!
January 4th. An indoor day and a painting session with Karen, Jack, Tiffany, Lily and myself. The medium was acrylics. I had never used this medium, so it was a challenge. thought of my sis, Lorraine & Valerie who paint with acrylics. The weather had turned cold, and a biting wind! A little dusting of snow, not a huge amount.
January 5th saw the kids return to school and Duane off to Minneapolis, MN. on a business trip. Karen asked me to be the "mystery reader for Jacks grade one class" made me a little nervous at first, I let it sink in and picked out a book from Lily/Jacks library, "Green Eggs and Ham, Sam I am" I used to read this Dr. Seuss book to my kids over and over again, it was a favorite in our house! So off Ed and myself went to Jacks school for the last session of class. It was so much fun and I just winged it! All these little ones were sitting on the floor waiting for the mystery reader! Jacks teacher is an amazing person, the school is very fortunate to have her. This is a "charter school" and rated in the top 10 in the state. I had fun reading and had the little ones in the palm of my hand! Jack sat on Papa's lap to listen. I told the kids I was from Canada and very few knew where Canada is! However, they are just young. One little girl said her Mother was from Canada! This was certainly one of my highlights for the holidays. Thanks Karen for asking me to be a mystery reader.
January 6th. The dreaded day for saying " Auf Weidersehen" Karen & Chelsea took us to the Detroit airport. When we checked in, my suitcase was 6 lbs. over! ( it would have been $200.00 international charge!) So, with Karen's help. ( she stayed with us till we were done checking in, thank goodness) we shuffled a few items into Ed's bag! Whew! Off we went to our gate! I might add, I decided while packing to pack a few essentials in case we got stranded, good thing I did! "Let the fun begin"
Our flight to O'Hare was late, not surprised! When we arrived in Chicago, we knew we had time for our connecting flight to San Francisco, our flight to San Francisco was late, for over 2 hours! We knew then we would miss our connecting flight to YVR, Vancouver, @8;45 pm. When in fact we did originally have lots of time between flights. When we landed in San Francisco, we checked the board, and sure enough, it had barely left the gate without us! So, off to the United customer service desk! What an experience this was, a long line-up! This took a few hours! When Ed finally got his turn, we were booked on the next flight out. It would be too late to take a ferry when we would arrive in Vancouver. So, Ed called the hotel where our car was and booked us a room! We did have a choice to stay over, or go, I just wanted to get home!
In retrospect, we should have stayed! But that was one of those "shoulda" Now, I might add, we had originally paid for the better seats up front with lots of leg room, but the agent said they were all full! I am getting perturbed by now! I checked my I-pad and saw later that the flight we missed had landed at YVR. At this point, we went for a bite to eat before going to our gate.
We boarded, and the crew closed the door! In a few minutes, the pilot came on and stated he was waiting for clearance to leave from here to YVR...due to fog at YVR! I did not like the feeling I had, because I know fog! We waited for at least 15 minutes. The pilot came back on and stated we would not depart, due to fog, there were no planes landing at YVR this evening! Lovely! I think you know where we went next after leaving the aircraft! It was a mad rush to see who could be in line first! Well, we are not spring chickens, but we hurried to get in line. Thank heavens for those automated walk ways. By this time, I am so very tired...so, we took turns standing in line! There was a lovely talkative gal in front of us, so that helped pass the time, she was going home to Eugene, Oregon. She was a big Ducks fan!
Time was late, this took a few hours to get to the service desk! When Ed got to his turn, we were booked for an 8:00 am flight! They gave us a voucher for our hotel, food vouchers, like $7.00 each! By this time there was no place to eat, and we were not hungry at this point in time! We were told to go to the international section to retrieve our luggage, line up there! I asked a question as to what to do, the kind lady said it would take about 2-3 hours to get our luggage! Well, at this point, I almost lost it....Ed pulled me aside, and we decided to leave for the hotel. I had a thought later on, that our luggage would go with us on our flight, did not think of this at the time! My mind was DONE.
When we got outside to catch the shuttle to the hotel, there was one fellow there who stated that all shuttles were not running anymore, they quit after midnight! Oh brother, well, turned out, this driver drove us in his shuttle, thank heavens for little things! We finally hopped into bed around 1:30 am! Wake up call for 5:15 am. Short night! Beautiful suite we had, unfortunate we could not enjoy it!
All we saw was green grass at the hotel, wanted to see much more of San Francisco, perhaps another time! Saw some from the aircraft after taking off, and we did take off for YVR, a half hour late. Reason, because were told our luggage would not be on the airplane till we were physically on the plane! Hmmm. I happened to be on the side (window) and could see the international luggage being put on! Oh, we had great seats, what we originally paid for, up front with leg room!
It is something to see how people get on board with their carry-on! No wonder, as the extra cost of $ for checked luggage.
I was one happy gal when we had lift off! Beautiful scenery as we flew back home...I did take a few photos from my window seat.
I would like to add, that United was very good to us, they did their utmost best they could considering the circumstances. They were not the only airline with delays, cancellations. It was a zoo at every airport.
We arrived through a thick fog at YVR safely, thank goodness. We took our shuttle to our hotel to retrieve our car and drive to the ferry terminal. Our peace and quiet on the sail home, or so we thought! Ed and myself had dozed off, when all of a sudden, the ferry's fog horn went off, every 2 minutes, and the lady behind us was snoring so loud, she had everyone snickering! End of our peaceful ride home!
We arrived home around dinner time, safe and sound. Home Sweet Home.
Thank you to Duane, Karen, Tiffany, Chelsea, Lily and Jack for a memorable Christmas vacation. Your hospitality was super, and made us feel at home. We are grateful.
Photos will be posted in the next post, a few favorites. Should you wish to view more, they can be found in Flickr, or Facebook, a few on Instagram.
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