the Churchills re-united...

Surprise! If you are just looking at my blog to see if I actually have updated it at all...SURPRISE I did!! Updated!
Well, my friends, I have to apologize for being such a terrible blogger...yet again! Honestly I really wish I were better at updating and just even blurbing about my day for everyone who isn't where I am, just to hear about life. I will try harder this year to keep regular updates (for all of you across the sea) I forget sometimes that you aren't around me as much, so just knowing what I do in my day is different and unknown to you. SO honestly, keep me accountable! And I will try my hardest!

SO as of December fourth, I have been back in Canada....due to a sneeky appearance I surprised everyone minus three people here at home and it was wonderful! (leaving England and returning home is a whole blog in its self so i wont ruin it now). But being home has been really different but really good.
Just a few days after returning home, I started working again at the interior home decorative store called Pier 1 Imports. So over the holidays I've kept busy with work and reconnecting with people whom I haven't seen in months. It all felt so good. But in those moments I did miss my home in England, and 'my children'. Time has passed and it's definitely something I have to get used to, but it is definitely a different life here.

Being home was rather nice over Christmas though. It was so nice to just be snug in my home (because it is freezing outside) with my family, doing puzzles and reading books, taking time to reconnect with everyone. It was really nice. And i have to say, I believe that this Christmas which just passed, may have been my absolute favorite Christmas in my life. For some reason I just loved this year. Maybe because I had mentally prepared for it...or that I was with my family again for the first time in a while...or the quiet and the simplicity of it all, but it was just so beautiful.
Do to Julia working Christmas eve-until morning, our day was split up into sections of presents and rest times, and just quietness. Honestly, it was the best day. We also had a friend from the Sudan who our family in a way has adopted as part of the clan, came and spent Christmas eve and Christmas day with us. Which in its self was absolutely wonderful and so rewarding at the same time. It was his first time ever having a stocking, a handful of presents and for the first time in a while, a larger family to celebrate with. His brother came and shared dinner with us aswell, which was really nice as well. Oh Christmas was good! (there is a photo dad took of us before coming down to open our stockings Christmas morning--I decided to post my personal favorite, I think everyone just looked hilarious in the photo so it was great!)


For new years this year Julia and I were invited to our friend Christiane's home for a quiet New year hangout time. It was great. There were only a handful of us there, and we played a few games and just spent some good quality time together...THEN as an Ecuadorian tradition we burnt a stuffed paper mache-doll full of fireworks, which is kinda like leaving the old year and entering the new year. We set 'him' off at one our time, so it was in line with the time back in Ecuador...which was great! It was MY first año viejo ever!
During the celebrations of new years, our little province was getting hit by a blizzard..heaps and heaps of snow. So we had to bunk down for the night at our friends home due to foul driving conditions. It turned out we stayed two nights due to the heaps of snow we got. For those of you in England it is probably so hard for you to picture or imagine anything of the sort. BUT I will post pictures for you of the snow. It was up past my knees in some spots! Incredible huh? But it was a great start to the new year. Being snowed in, getting to spend time with some wonderful individuals... I loved it! I couldn't have asked for anything better!

So what now? Now that the Christmas holidays are over...it is the new year...I actually have no idea where life will bring me. There are many possibilities coming into my mind, but I will have to wait and see where life leads me...and which plan I feel lead to do. But for right now, I"m here at home, with my family, working at pier 1 and taking up odd jobs of babysitting so I can get my child fix...and I'm just working on loving those around me to the best of my ability.

I hope you all have had a wonderful new years! And I hope to hear from you soon!!! I miss everyone across the sea soooooooo much! I really hope to return to you all sometime in the near future! Heaps and bounds of love.
-alli