Ginger Dreamer: January 2015

Hello 2015!

I meant to post a few blogs in December going over my Christmas but as soon as I hit vacation mode, there was no stopping me! I’ll try to recount from the last post. I’ve crammed so much stuff as well as a whole lotta nothing in the space between today and the 17^th of December.

The 19^th I got together for my first TF Christmas secret santa. When we drew names I got the one person I had no idea what to get for and I was panicking up until the last few days before I managed to pull it together with some help. Denise got me and holy crap her gift made me cry. In addition to some wicked cool tree branch pencils that I now have on display in my living room and earrings that I have wanted for AGES, she got me a beautiful picture frame with my favorite photo of Charlie and I love it and it sits on my bedside table.

For the past....what is it, four years now? Corey and I have been doing a Christmas exchange with some of our friends from Wales. Every Christmas we fill a box up with Canadian goodies and ship it off to the UK and in return a lovely little box arrives with delicious goodies from across the pond.
This year was a ton of fun. Last year Corey and I got to skype Hannah and Rhys while we opened our gifts. This year Corey had to work on the weekend to make up for the time he took off for Mexico so I was just me. So on the 20^th I sat down and chatted with some very lovely people and opened a wonderful box of goodies that I couldn’t wait to get into (Literally, I was sneaking gummies while Skyping). It was great seeing them and especially talking to Hannah about all the cool wedding stuff.
Sunday was our work brunch with the girls, our men and my boss and his wife. We went to this lovely restaurant right on the beach and ate way too much. It was nice seeing everyone in one spot. Afterward Corey and I walked the pier and made friends with gigantic seagulls.
Later that day I accompanied my boss to look at a lot for a possible daycare expansion. He was really excited about it at first but later that day he seemed to flip a 180 and decide against it.

Christmas came very quickly after and boy was that day busy! Corey and I woke up super early and cuddled on the couch with our fireplace going. Oh that was so cozy. We exchanged gifts. I got my very own hunting knife set so I don’t have to borrow Corey’s whenever we go out camping and a few other awesome little goodies.
We zipped off to my parents and got together with hot chocolate and family and settled down to open presents. It was a little bittersweet because Charlie is no longer around to lay on top of all the discarded wrapping paper and get decorated with bows but Zoey made sure everyone got licks and gave their quota of bum scratches. I love my family’s Christmas. Everyone snuggles on the couch or sprawls out on the floor and smiles are endless. We had a wrapping paper fight and chugged hot chocolate before Corey and I had to bolt out and make it to his parents. We got spoiled yet again. So did the dogs. Zoey kept trying to steal Teeka’s toys despite getting a whole bunch of her own.

We jumped back and Forth between houses most of the morning and had a yummy Turkey lunch with Corey’s family and grandma. Later we drove up to my aunt and uncles and met my family and most of my extended family there for dinner, presents and laughter. My family and I stayed until everyone else had gone, talking to my aunt and uncle until late. It was really nice and not something we get to do often.
Finally we packed it in went home after a very long and exhaustingly awesome day. The days following Corey and I had a friend or two over to try out our new deepfryer. I made chicken strips and mac and cheese balls. Mmmmm deep fry everything!
Corey and I went out to Mec and Atmosphere to look at hiking boots. The boxing week sale was still on and I managed to pick up both a summer hiking shoe and a boot for 200 bucks! That’s half price, people! I was so excited and I broke them in a little around the house. Corey got some nice boots as well and we are both excited to put them to good use.

Tuesday Nicole and I got together and headed out to Ihop in Whiterock for a quick meal before we went to go see the Movie ‘Wild’. As we park, we make a bet that 90% of people in the restaurant are going to be seniors. Yep. Guessed correctly. We ordered pancakes, waffles and special hot chocolate that looked nothing like the picture and ended up laughing at the obscene way my whip cream wiggled. We were the youngest people in Ihop and the movie theater by like…40 years. Haha. Nicole lent me the book Wild by Cheryl Strayed and I tore through it at lightning pace. SO we were both very excited to see how they played out the story on screen. It was enjoyable and while the book is ALWAYS better, I think they did a decent job on the movie itself. I enjoyed my movie date with Nicole and we always end up laughing so much it hurts.

Later the group got together for our big group secret santa even though we were missing a few people. It was a bit of a gong show trying to get everyone together and not leave anyone out but we eventually did it! I got Den and went straight to Le Belle Vie and scooped up a cute little owl door stop/decoration and a bunch of flakes from the chocolate shop. Britt got me and I received a Tardis cookie jar! Ah I love it! It will now match my tardis mug, earrings, blanket, decoration, socks, and scarf. Woo!

The next day was New Years Eve and Corey and I went going up to Vernon to meet and spend the next few days at a friends family’s cabin at Kalamalka lake. Five of us piled in Mikes truck and off we went. The ride up was long, almost 5 hours but between the group of us, we kept ourselves busy. Kat, was already up at the cabin, having spent the week after Christmas there and two others were coming up New Years Day. We arrived and the cabin was glorious. Steps from the water and so cozy. We celebrated by ringing in the new year as noisily as possible and wore silly hats. The next day the boys went out onto the lake to fish while the girls stayed inside and hung out and chatted. That night another couple arrived and we broke out the games and even more food. Saturday the boys and Andrea went out to Beaver lake to ice fish while I stayed back at the cabin with Britt and Kat. We laughed, napped, chatted and puttered around the cabin before setting out on a walk a few miles down to a little convenience store where we bought way too much candy and walked back in the snow.

The next day we all went out to beaver lake and went fishing and snow shoeing. It was a blast. I suited up in about 100 layers and threw on my new hiking boots. The trek up the mountain in about an hour and when we got there is was stunning! Snow frosted trees and quaint little cabins surrounding a wide frozen lake. We piled out and walked out onto the surface. It was about a foot thick of ice (Or more in areas) We set up camp where the boys had fished the day before and set to augur a few more holes. I got to try my hand at the augur and that was a blast, finally cranking through to the water underneath. I fished for a bit but mostly read and snowshoed while we were there. Corey caught a ton of baby Japanese carp but no rainbow trout or lake trout were caught except for the day before.
We piled back in the truck and headed back for the cabin. We ate like kings and then settled in for a night of games. We were then sent messages of extreme weather warnings for the coquihalla highway. We started getting worried, thinking that we might not making down on the trip home tomorrow. Everyone was firing off texts and emails letting work and home know that if the conditions were not good we would be holding out a day. The coqu runs through the mountains and the summit is especially dangerous and snowy. Deaths in that area in the winter are all too common.

We took at as we saw it and the next day it seemed like it would hold off long enough for us to get through and Monday was going to be worse. We packed up and said goodbye to our little winter paradise and set out for home. We took it nice and slow since it had snowed quite a bit. We stopped and ate mcdonalds and then followed a snowplow up to the highway. The drive was fairly easy and it wasn’t nearly as anxiety causing as I thought it would be. The whole way down through the mountains we took it easy and only saw one car sitting on the side of the road. No massive crashes, no disasters. The snow and fog was pretty thick but it wasn’t until we got to the point of flat, straight, mildly slushy part of the highway between Chilliwack and Abbotsford that we saw that everyone suddenly didn’t know how to drive. On that super easy flat stretch where no ice or snow was built up we counted 11 cars in the ditch and one spun out. How does that even happen? Silly people try to go out in winter conditions with summer tires. Geeze.
Once we got home we picked up Zozo who we had missed very much and settled in for our last night on holiday. <3
So, I’m super excited about this new year. Nicole and I hope to do a bunch of hiking and I am hankering for a number of great outdoor adventures. Cheers to 2015!

Here's some pics of the trip!