Niagara Falls

We took a short visit to the falls last week. Ellie was impressed with the amount of water and sea gulls she saw. But she was mostly interested in climbing and balancing on ledges. She is very in to climbing these days.

Even though it was a cold, wet, and cloudy day, the falls looked beautiful with snow around it (even the dirty layered snow that looks like sedimentary rock). But the sun peaked out for a moment and Ellie saw her first rainbow. We all squealed of course.

I have been to Niagara a few times this year already, including once for a really fun wedding. I'm excited to share it with you soon!

snowy day

This little bear loves playing in the snow! We climbed an Ellie sized mountain, romped around in the snow, and watched the big kids make a ginormous snowman. Also lately, Eloise has been squatting with me whenever I squat down to talk to her and I think it is the funniest thing!

I wouldn't have known....

I wouldn't have known that Christmas is on its way,
if it weren't for my dear friends.

With all the commotion going on in our lives, with moving and packing and renovating, and all the while, we still have our day jobs to attend to, Jin and I do not really have time to fully celebrate Christmas this year.

But...
Nikole gave me a beautiful hand made wooden bracelet from her shop,
Anabela gave me this print of Sonja Ahlers' bunny making a sugar igloo!(photo taken by Carly Waito)
and we got this handmade Christmas card from Melinda in the mail!

Thank you, dear friends for bringing a little bit of Christmas into our lives this year!

FIVE

This is the first winter I can remember where I am enjoying it, and don't mind the cold at all. We explored a little bit of ontario this weekend by taking a mini holiday in Ontario's wine country. It was to celebrate our 5 year (dating) anniversary - which is still unbelievable to me. My, how time flies! This is the first time we went on a trip anywhere around our city, as we usually plan bigger trips that require planes that fly over large bodies of water to get there. And we usually land in another city. But our scope of travel has expanded to more than other large cities. But we are not quite the type to rough it in nature yet....so camping is out of the question for now!

Jin said there are other fun winter things to do around us, and we want to try them more next year.

- staying in a log cabin up north, with a warm fire all weekend (sounds so nice!)
- dog sledding
- snow shoeing
- skiing/snowboarding (but I am so bad at both!)

Do you have any other suggestions?

Our trip, this time was not very wintery. I think I'd like to go back to the vineyards when the grapes are growing. It would make for pretty pictures. But there is something nice about leaving your home for the weekend. We should do this more often.

1. clean 2. dirty 3. dirtier

I wish snow could always stay white, instead of becoming slushy brown.

This is a neat video my friend sent over. Watch it here.

It's cute isn't it? He found it on Kanye Wests' blog. Interesting.