The Kucey Chronicles: Thanksmas with Grammy and Gramps

Grammy and Gramps came out to the Toon for their annual Thanksmas trip last week and had a great visit. Not only were they here for Leah's birthday parties, but they also managed to time their visit with the biggest and best RIDER PRIDE GREY CUP EVER!!! Pete, aka the luckiest man on earth, managed to score himself an invitation to the big game and donned his woolies to take in all the awesome action down in Regina. He sent us regular updates, pictures and sound files to help us feel a part of the scene (or rub it in - I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt). The rest of us watched from home with a big pot of chili and cheered the Riders on to their first at-home Grey Cup win. It was AWESOME!

We went sledding while we were waiting for the big game to start.

Pete's view.

Grammy and Gramps also had the pleasure of being here for the grand opening of the 2013-14 Longo backyard rink! We sold the play structure at the end of the summer which gave Pete more room to make the rink even bigger and better. The kids have logged a ton of hours on it already and are making our decision for next year a much tougher one than we were expecting (Background: We are currently in the middle of a very difficult "love it or list it" debate with our house. We love our street and our neighbours and really want to stay where we are. That said, we really want a pool and the size of our backyard limits us to either a pool or a rink. Before the rink was in, we had almost finally decided that we wanted to stay and would renovate the house to be what we want and give up the rink. But the kids don't seem anywhere close to outgrowing the size of the rink we're limited to and it's very tough to picture a winter without our rink. Argh. The debate continues... stay tuned).

Trying it out for the first time with Gramps.

Having a blast under the lights at night.

In the picture above you can see Ethan sporting the new goalie equipment from Grammy and Gramps. On their last night, we had our Thanksmas celebration where we went around the table saying what we were thankful for and then followed dinner up with presents. It was the perfect day to celebrate as I'd received some incredible news earlier in the day - I was officially declared cured by my cardiologist!!