Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

There are always ups and downs over Christmas, unfortunately most of the downs have to do with the kid's behaviour. It's a difficult time of year to be dealing with all the outbursts, tantrums and downright disrespectful behaviour during the holidays. We'd like to think that the threat of Santa not visiting is enough to curb their behaviour, but it's not. Perhaps it's all the excitement and build-up over the holidays as well. The holidays are always filled with lots of events, we try to do lots of things to keep up with tradition. Tracey and I hope that one day the kids will appreciate all our effort. This year we added to more things to the Christmas bucket list including Canyon Lights at the Capilano Suspension Bridge and the Peak of Vancouver at Grouse Mountain.

Christmas concerts

We had to split the Christmas concert viewing this year into two, as Melody did the primary one and Malcolm now being in grade 4 was in the intermediate one. It's always such a frenzy at the primary concert with parents jockeying for position to get their best shots with their phones and tablets! Both kids did really well, it's hard to imagine next year that Malcolm will be leading the school as a fifth grader because next year his school will be moving to a middle school system. The kids did well in their performances. Grandma even continued the tradition and went to both concerts!

Burnaby Village Museum with the Lees.

As part of the annual bucket list we made it to the Burnaby Village museum with the Lee family. The rain cleared just in time for us to enjoy our visit there. Even though we have gone to the museum a number of times, we saw an exhibit that we haven't seen before. Thankful to the hospitality of the Lee family as they hosted pizza dinner afterwards.

Conder family Christmas party 2015

A fun time was had by all at the annual Conder family Christmas Party. It was a fun gift exchange, yummy treats and good company as always. Here are some pictures from the event.

TKD continues...

The kids have got their second test under their belts... well for yellow belt fingers crossed. They both performed well. Malcolm even broke two boards with his push kick! I took pictures of all the kids last Saturday and passed them to Master Young for distribution. The kids are doing really well there, let's hope they can continue and finish their black belts.

Melody's Birthday

We celebrated Melody's 6th birthday this past weekend. We had a Michael's party making arts and crafts followed by dinner at Boston Pizza. Melody and her friends had a great time decorating a photo frame, christmas ornaments and gingerbread cookies. The next night, the family went to see Frozen on Ice. Here are some pictures from the birthday.

25th Grad Reunion

A couple of weeks back Roger had his 25th High School Reunion at the Steel Toad Brewery in Vancouver. It was a pretty good turn out for an event that was planned just weeks earlier. It was a good time reminiscing about old times and talking about the present. Everyone looked really great. There was a lot of talk about where the 30th should be, I guess it remains to be seen. It good to see so many familiar faces. You know things are quite different with Facebook, you don't necessarily have the same shock factor because although you may not see your friends face to face, you often see updates and pictures online. Perhaps social media has changed the notion of reunions and staying in touch.

Malcolm's Birthday

Malcolm's birthday was a hit, on thursday the family went out to White Spot to celebrate. It was grandma, Roger, Tracey, Carol, Grandpa Harry and Annis for dinner. He got to enjoy his favourite mac and cheese. On Saturday, we had a small party with a number of his friends and classmates at the house. Tracey and Roger had put together a movie theme for his party, with four kinds of popcorn, candy and lot of kid favourites to satisfy the group. Best of all his best friend from school was able to join. Here are some pictures of Malcolm's birthday.