Merry Christmas from Victoria

To save some typing I've cut and paste our Christmas letter onto the blog:

The Holidays are fast approaching and in between the concerts, shopping, baking, decorating and merriment its always good to steal a little time away to reflect back over the year and share a snapshot of our lives with friends and family near and far.

We started 07 out with a wonderful Caribbean Cruise (wouldn’t it be great to do that every year?). Thanks to Jeremy’s parents we got to spend a week eating, sunning, eating, swimming, eating, visiting the Islands and more eating. Its true what they say about the amazing food on those cruise ships and the extra 10 pounds you take home as a souvenir. We enjoyed another family trip in July attending the Snider family reunion in Saskatchewan. Jeremy’s mom is the youngest of 15 so with most of the families attending we had almost 200 relatives take over Briercrest Bible college campus for a very fun and hot
weekend. If you know anything about Jeremy’s family you won’t be surprised to hear that there were a number of “competitions” including games of baseball, Run My Good Sheep Run, a baking contest and of course the family talent show. It was a great chance to reunite with many long lost relatives and get to meet some new ones that had joined the family since the last reunion in 1997. Other trips this year included skiing Mt. Seymour in March, camping at Parksville and on Hornby Island last summer, visits in Winnipeg and Montreal, and Penticton for Thanksgiving.

Each of us enjoyed some new challenges and accomplishments this past year. Here are a few highlights.

Bailey enjoyed playing soccer last year and progressing in her skating lessons with a big show at the end of the season featuring pro skater Shea Lynn Bourne who held hands and skated with our little Bailey in her cowgirl costume in the finale of the show. In the Spring Bailey played T-Ball for the first time with coaches Jeremy and Rob and learned to ride a two-wheeler. She turned 6 in July and got to pick out her very own pet Guinea Pig named Brownie. She was thrilled to start Grade One in September at the new primary campus of PCS and even had best buddy David placed in the desk next to hers (not surprisingly new seating arrangements were implemented in a few days as Bailey and David tend to be a bit too chatty). Grade One has brought many new accomplishments including riding the bus to school, learning to read and print words and weekly spelling tests.

Georgia has continued to excel in her many sporting activities including soccer, softball, cross-country running and skating. Her current soccer team hasn’t lost yet – maybe because she has a coach named Jeremy Martin (no not her dad – he’s the other Jeremy Martin in town). Georgia has also continued piano lessons and enjoyed learning the ukulele in school. She had a surprise solo that brought us to tears at last year’s Christmas concert and we are looking forward to seeing her play a toy shepherd boy in the grade 5 Christmas play next week. Georgia attended camp two weeks this year – one week with Rose and Bailey as volunteers for teen girls camp and the second week on her own. She got up on a wakeboard for the first time and they managed to capture the moment on the camp DVD for the week. We won’t tell you about her subsequent wipeout and visit to emergency. Another thrill for Georgia was getting the “Killer Bunnies” game for her birthday. She and Bailey are addicted to it so be prepared to partake in the quest for the magic carrot with them next time you visit the Martin house.

Speaking of the house, at long last Rose got the kitchen reno she has been dreaming of for years. Although there are a few finishing touches left to do it is much much improved over the dilapidated cupboards and stained countertops that were previously in place. Now we’re in the process of dry walling the unfinished room in our basement so we’ll have a much more comfortable guest room when you come visit us in 2008. Rose’s firsts this year included: designing wine labels for a new little winery called Marichel in Naramata, (pick up a bottle or two to celebrate the holidays!), sock monkey madness (started out as the camp craft and has become the biggest craze of 2007), supplying an awesome new kids store in Victoria called Sprouts and creating a series of amazing paintings to display in a 1.3 million dollar show suite in a new condo building overlooking the ocean in Sidney. Rose also reached the big 40 this year, which she celebrated several times over including on the beach in Parksville, with a surprise getaway for two to Montreal with Jeremy where we hooked up with the Beckmans and the Elgersmas and with a new sea kayak. She also got to surprise her grandma Jane by flying out to celebrate her 90th birthday in May and is off to Vancouver for a concert to help best firend Donna celebrate her 40th.

Jeremy’s big new challenge this year was taking over the reigns as managing partner of the law firm this fall and believe it or not the firm is still standing. Coaching T-Ball for Bailey and being the unofficial scorekeeper for Georgia’s softball kept him busy most evenings this spring. Jeremy geared up for a day of paint ball wars for the first time this year and had several welts to show for it – thanks in part to brother-in-law (kamikaze) Tom. Jeremy became the secretary for the Board of the Chemainus Theatre and we’ve enjoyed using our season’s tickets to catch some really wonderful productions over the year.
Call us up if you’re interested in catching a show in 08 – the line up is amazing! Jeremy is also hitting the stage this Christmas as the Nutcracker in a small town fundraiser version of the show in Sidney this weekend and as the authentic Saint Nicholas at the Christmas Eve services at our church.

Probably the most exciting new addition to our lives this year was Finnigan, a silver Labrador puppy who arrived in mid October. After a year without our beloved Josie we felt it was time to get ourselves a “big dog” again (no offence to Jasper). Well Finnie started out small, cute and wrinkly but has already doubled in size and loves nothing more than to play fight with his buddy Jasper. Correction, he loves food more than life itself. Although being awakened for 3am pee breaks and cleaning up accidents from time to time has been a bit of a pain, little Finnigan has brought much joy and affection to our household. We wish you and your family much joy and affection this Christmas too.

We will be home for Christmas and plan to share turkey dinner with our friends the Olsons and to celebrate New Years with our friends the Stewarts on a little ski trip up Island followed by a few days on our own in Ucluelet on the west coast of the Island. We hope you can take time to reflect and make time to give something of yourself away to others around you.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!