Rikki

We have a special relationship with a family that lives in Vancouver, BC. We met Rikki and DJ through my brother Steve and his then wife Susan ten years ago. At the time they had two children, Annika who was four and Aiden who was one. Now they are fourteen and eleven and Kaelyn has joined the family. She is now almost seven. They are our "pseudo" grandkids and we love seeing them all.

Today they all came down for a Christmas gathering. Steve came over and so did his house-mate Carroll. So there were ten of us. We all took a walk around the neighborhood before dinner. I made a huge pot of squash, mushroom, tomato, leek, bean and rice soup. (They are Vegans and so Carroll and I made a Vegan dinner.) Carroll brought over a yummy salad to go with the soup. We had fresh French bread and Rice Dream and Joe Joe cookies that DJ and Rikki brought for desert. And wine for the adults and sparkling cherry juice for the kids. Yum!

We exchanged presents after dinner. The family gave us a new game called Quelf and we all played. It is a silly and fun game and we all laughed quite a lot. The kids then gave us a concert. Annika has been playing violin since she was four. She played a bunch of nifty Irish fiddle tunes. Aiden did an improvised piece on the piano. He is amazingly talented and has been composing and improvising pieces since he was little. Kaelyn played some pieces on the piano too. It was a perfect ending to a wonderful afternoon and evening together.