Vancouver

So, we arrived in Vancouver early afternoon and went directly to the Canadian Customs office to clear our shipment, which took all of...two minutes. The confusion surrounding our shipment with the movers was totally unnecessary and to top it off...the notarized letter we had sent much earlier (that gave authorization for someone else to clear our shipment if we weren't there)...had been delayed and opened by Canadian Customs...not lost by USPS as I had originally thought. Not that it mattered how or why at this point...so we got our stuff, it didn't cost us a fortune as I was originally led to believe, and we only ended up cutting our trip short by one day - no big deal.

We went "home" to my brother's house too see everyone: my sister in law, niece, nephew and my parents - who were in Vancouver for a visit. On their way to Vancouver, they had stopped in Calgary to pick up their new puppy - Finnegan...


He looks just like a Webkinz!

He was so tiny, he would practically fit in the palm of your hand...as demonstrated here by Nick

My brother has a 2 year old Labrador Retriever named Daisy who is so sweet and good-natured. She is actually pretty small for a Lab, but she was HUGE compared to tiny little Finn...

We weren't sure how Daisy would handle being around such a tiny little puppy, who was jumping and biting her and totally encroaching on her home turf...

but she was awesome, she let Finn bite her ears and jump all over her and she played very gently even though she could totally crush Finn

Every so often we'd hear a "yelp" and we'd think one of them finally hurt the other, but no, they were just playing...

It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship...they were almost inseparable...





Daisy even shared her toys...not sure how Daisy ended up with the small bone and Finnegan the large one...but they seemed ok with it




phew...tired after a busy day of being a playful puppy! I guess when you play that hard - you're ready to sleep just about anywhere...

...either in your travel crate...

...or on it...


Finnegan was enthralled by Nick's guitar playing...


time to go home :-( quick snooze on the way to the airport

The week following our arrival there were lots of things going on with the kids for the holidays...
first up was a Hannukah party at the Synagogue. There's my nephew Jacob (in the middle in white) being a very good candle...


"don't worry, it doesn't snow in Vancouver" everyone said...so we went to Vancouver...and then it started snowing, and snowing, and snowing...this is the view of the backyard...


On our way to a neighbouring school to see the kids' Christmas concert, you can see how happy Nick is about the lack of snowfall...

The grade 1's singing...

...the grade 4's play


and the whole time, it just kept snowing and snowing and snowing...compare snow levels to previous picture backyard picture...


First night of Hannukah with the Marcovitz's




Lighting the candles