Christmas 2008

We had an absolutely amazing Christmas! We celebrated at Lisa and Mike's house in Battle Ground with much of Karina's American family.
We also had an amazing amount of snow. It took us 12 hours to drive down to Battle Ground from Howard and Ingrid's place in Langley, British Columbia, because of the snow - the trip should only take 6 hours! For the last 100 miles we had to drive with chains on, so could only go 30 miles/hour. Luckily by then we seemed to be the only ones silly enough to be on the motorway!
We celebrated Christmas with Lisa and Mike; their three children Annika, Eva and Alexander; Howard and Ingrid; Mike's parents Bob and Liz; and Howard's sister Nancy. We had a wonderful Danish style Christmas Eve dinner complete with a tasty flæskesteg. We spent Christmas morning at Liz and Bob's, where they made us a gourmet brunch!

Mike made us another lovely Christmas dinner that night.
Over the next few days we had a visit from Howard's brother, Richard, and his wife Mary. It was great to see the three siblings together - especially making music!

Thanks for a wonderful Christmas season!

Andrew and Karina's Christmas Card

Goodbye Milo

Whistler, British Columbia, Canada

Karina finished her exams for the term last week and is now on winter vacation, so we took the opportunity to come up to Langley, British Columbia to visit her parents. I have also had the chance to visit both the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver to find out more about their graduate programmes, which has been very worthwhile.

We also went up to Whistler for a night, the mountain resort village where most of the events of the 2010 Winter Olympics will be held. It was a beautiful place. The weather in the Pacific Northwest this past week has been particularly extreme, with lots of snow and temperatures well below freezing in most places. The drive up to Whistler was very slow because it was snowing, and there were times where we thought we wouldn't make it. Also, the day before we left, one of the towers on one of the gondolas at Whistler collapsed! Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, but some people were left dangling in gondolas for up to 3 hours while waiting to be rescued!

Luckily, we had nothing but great experiences in Whistler. It was extremely cold while we were there, around -15°C during the day (and colder up the mountain!) and -25°C at night! Despite the cold, it was beautiful, the weather was great, and we got to check out the new Peak 2 Peak gondola during its first week of operation. The new gondola links the peaks of Whistler and Blackcome mountains and is the longest and highest in the world, spanning 4.4 km. We also saw the Olympic Park, where they will have ski jumping and cross-country skiing events.

Thanks so much, Howard and Ingrid, for an unforgettable trip!

The Julekalender

The Julekalender - God jul og Merry Christmas!


The Julekalender - Støvledance - De' bar dæ'jlig!