Home Again, Home Again . . .

It has been just over a week since we've been back from vacation and it feels good to be home. We spent Christmas this year with Sterling's family in the great white north -- Cardston, Hillspring & Balzac/Airdrie, Alberta Canada. Temperatures here in Utah were about 25 to 30 but in Canada it was-25 to -32. Brrr! I thought of my brother Paul and sister-in-law Carmell, who live in Alaska. This is what it's like for them too. But for the time being we'll stick with visits scheduled for the summer months.

Even though I consider myself rather warm blooded I think that if I lived in Canada my heating bills would be outrageously high. This is the third time in six years that Rich and I have been to Alberta, but the other two times were during the summer when the weather was alot more mild. Sterling has talked about growing up with Canadian winters and I could never imagine how cold of a winter that was, but I can say that I have had a taste of one.

1. The Cardston, Alberta Temple at night

2. Chief Mountain
3. Blowing snow
4. Snow covered field

5. Blowing snow -- this is what we were driving through on our way back to Cardston from Calgary

We knew that Canada's prices were higher than those in the States, but we had forgotten just how high. For example -- Milk $4.19 a gallon, gas 68.5 per liter (times this by 4 and you have about $2.75 per gallon -- in Utah gas was only $1.39 per gallon), and cereal $6.29 to $10.99 per box!! I don't think that I will complain about our "high prices" here in the good ole' USA.

We spent our time visiting family (our main reason for going) -- "Mum", sister, brothers, nieces, nephews, uncle and cousins -- most of whom we knew and got to know better, a few that we had never met. Everyone knew we were coming except Mum and she was really surprised. That was our plan! On Christmas Eve we attended a live nativity in Calagry. It was sooo cold! Nathan & Kina (Sterling's nephew and his wife) were Mary & Joseph. The pagent was pretty awesome. The live Nativity is something that has been performed for the past 40 years and and though it was extremely cold (metal bleachers) it was pretty neat to see. The performances were every 15 minutes beginning at 7:00 p.m. and going until 9:00 a.m.

1. Part of the cast of the nativity
2. Kina & Nathan as Mary & Joseph
I was glad that we had made the time and sacrifice to make the trip. Rich especially enjoyed visiting with his cousins whom he rarely sees and though he keeps in touch through the age of technology with the assistance of "textmessaging" and "Facebook", it is not the same as being able to spend time together. Rich and I are truly blessed to be a part of the Martin family. They're a crazy bunch of Kanucks but we love them alot!