one year ago today was the cumulation of months of planning, packing, cleaning, researching. we said goodbye to our house, pets & families and said hello to 7 months on the road.
wow. did we ever have an amazing time.
2014 was an epic year for the Carters. that’s the best word I can use to describe it.
epic.
we travelled. a lot.
Turkey in January and in February we left on our big trip.
we had an absolute blast. in no way I am saying that everyday was peaches. laundry still needed to get done, the kids – were, well kids, some days more than others, Rob had to work, kids did school work. but it was amazing. new places, awesomely cheap groceries, being outside for days at a time, spending so much time together.
so for good reason I’ve had a hard time saying goodbye to 2014. this post has been rattling around in my brain since January 1st.
2015 – so far you’ve been cold, we’ve had a stomach bug circling around the house, work is busy, kids are busy. we are doing life.
the little things, the mundane.
my hope for this year is to find comfort & carve out special moments in the mundane. reading books to my ever growing 4 year old. watching my wee tenacious basketball player. teaching the twins to cook.
here’s to 2015. you probably won’t be as flashy as 2014. you might not go down in the history books but you are here & we are going to have a great year.
Merry Christmas…
the day is done, crawling into bed, gathering up the remnants of wrapping paper on my bed from early morning stocking opening.
my kitchen looks like a pumpkin scone exploded all over it, topped with a toberlone cheesecake hurricane. it can wait until tomorrow.
it was a wonderful day full of presents, food, family, naps, games & fun…
so blessed.
time for bed.
I did it! 25 days of blogs. there were many nights I felt like putting it off until the next day but I persisted and got it done. some days may have been less than exciting to read but I hope someone out there enjoyed it.
Christmas eve
Today is done.
All the presents are wrapped. We had dinner together with our family, appetizers & reading the Christmas story together.
The cheesecake is made, two of them for tomorrow’s dinner.
A few years ago I stumbled upon the easiest, most delicious cheesecake ever.
Toberlone Cheesecake. It’s a Kraft recipe that tastes like it took hours to make but its easy and has some pretty common ingredients.
Except the Toberlone bar, if you live in Moosonee. That one you sometimes have to plan ahead for.
Here is the full recipe.
http://www.kraftcanada.com/recipes/no-bake-peanut-butter-toblerone-cheesecake-95341
I used a 9ish inch springform pan. I suppose you could make it in another pan size & cut it into squares but I haven’t tried that yet.
Mix the crust – press in into the pan.
Use your handy mixer to mix together the peanut butter, sugar & cream cheese. I have used light cream cheese as well and it turns out fine.
Chop up the chocolate, not all of it, you will need it for the topping too. Don’t eat too much.
Mix in the coolwhip by hand.
Then spread into the pan.
Put in the fridge & then put the topping on before serving.
The more days you can stand to have this in the fridge the better. The longer it sits the better it gets.
Merry Christmas Eve.
May your wrapping be all done & your kids stay in bed until at least 7am.
santa claus
as I was finishing up my Christmas wrapping tonite I was contemplating Santa.
we are a passive Santa Claus family. we believe but don’t believe.
we celebrate Jesus’ birth as the true reason for the season. that is our focus during this holiday but let the kids have their fun with Santa.
as I child I don’t ever remember believing in Santa, I remember pretending to believe for my siblings but I never really remember believing. my parents let us have fun with it, we had some presents under the tree from Santa but there was always a little roll of the eyes from my Dad when Santa was mentioned 🙂
when our kids were littler we didn’t really say either way, we rode the wave of Santa. we put out cookies if they wanted to put out cookies, wrote letters if they wanted to write.
no Santa tales or untales. much like the tooth fairy & the easter bunny. all in good fun but no ones heart is broken when the tooth fairy forgets for a night or two (or a week) to put the money under the pillow. its a wink wink, nudge nudge bit of childhood fun.
so tonite as I finished wrapping the presents, good old Saint Nick did get some credit for some of the presents. but not all of them & certainly not the good ones.
home for Christmas.
I left home to finish high school just before my 17th birthday. from that time I never lived at home with my family for anything more than a couple months when I was university. but I always came home for Christmas.
often I would take the overnight train home from the south, spending the wee morning hours sleeping the Cochrane rail station or arriving in Cochrane after driving all night after an evening exam.
Christmas crazy train. in those years the train did not run in & out five days a week. it came in 3 and out 3 days so you had to time your trip home. often in the mess that was Christmas exams, finishing up semesters & finding a way home often it was very close to Christmas before I could make it home.
something so special about that train ride home. train packed to the gills. people, presents, shopping, groceries & the feeling of relief that you were going home.
the adrenalin rush of finding seats, none were assigned, the crowd following the train as it pulled up, ready to jump in an open door.
it was always a time of reconnection, of seeing friends you hadn’t seen in awhile, people from long ago that happen to be home that year, family & familiar faces.
we went to the train station today as three of my siblings & their families were on the train, with about 300 other people.
the passenger cars were full. the parking lot & train yard full of family members eagerly awaiting those getting off of the train.
its one of those Moose country moments that makes you realize how unique our little town is.