![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.wobben.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/xmas2011_email.jpg\" "\\"click")
<\/a><\/p>\nNo drastic changes for us this year, but still a lot of ups and a few downs of course.<\/p>\n
To start with the downs, some of our friends and family had to lose loved ones, from Milan (our friends’ Anneke and Cordy’s son) at the end of last year to Bep (my sister-in-law’s mother) this month. We realize that this must be a difficult season for them, but we also hope it’s filled with lots of love and support!
\nA little down we had in our own house was that Nico put out his back at work in July, resulting him to be home for a month, then he slowly built up his hours again. Partly wear-and-tear, he’ll have to remain careful! And early in the year he was diagnosed with diabetes II (well under control with some tablets), he says it’s all downhill after 50 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n
And the ups? Seeing Heart again live (Ann Wilson is still my idol!), my bff Els and her family coming to Canada (we spent some days together in the – still wintery – Rockies in May), many camping trips here in Saskatchewan (most close by though because Nico couldn’t drive far after his injury), registering my own website design business Feel The Fire (after it being a hobby for 13 years) and a hectic trip to Holland! It was the first time back since we moved to Canada. It was great to see “everybody” again, but I already got a bit homesick after a week \ud83d\ude09 Other “ups” are that I’m now working from home for my Canada Life job too and that our “rental” cat Smokey is now officially ours. His former mommy felt she couldn’t take him away from all his playmates anymore after all this time. Thank you Char! <3<\/p>\n
The start of winter is very mild this year (mostly just mildly freezing and hardly any snow) so it looks like we won’t have a real white Xmas – who would’ve thought?! But we’ll be spending it with friends \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
Merry Xmas and all the best for 2012!!<\/p>\n
Nico & Marlies Photos: Oops, it’s been too long since we updated here! Busy busy… with work, my websites, camping! I’ll have to add reports and photo albums for that in the new year, sorry… but here’s our Xmas card and message: No drastic changes for us this year, but still a lot of ups and a few downs of course. To start with … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1013],"tags":[1017],"class_list":["post-2296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-life","tag-holidays","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6179,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2296\/revisions\/6179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wobben.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTess, Gandalf, Rider, Smokey, Sheldon & Penny<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nbig photo: our RV on the Icefields Parkway (photo by Els)
\ntop row: deer in Jasper, Peyto Lake viewpoint (Rockies) – dad and me, Eindhoven (Holland) – 5\/6 of our feline kids
\nbottom row: camping pics in Echo Lake Provincial Park, Moose Mountain PP (northern lights & Nico chopping wood), Waskesiu (Prince Albert National Park, middle and last pic)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"