Wonderful weekend and Early Christmas

This past weekend, my FI and I drove to Edmonton in the frigid temperatures to celebrate an early Christmas with his side of the family. The roads were ok driving up, there was only one really icy section. We passed about 8 cars in the ditch, some of them still had people in them, so they must have just gone in. We also so another dozen sets of tracks from previous days where people had hit the ditch. We made it through that section ok, but drove about 70km/h on the highway where the speed limit is 100km/h.

Once we got to Edmonton the temperature that afternoon was -31C. At one set of stop-lights my FI had to keep pumping the gas peddle so the car wouldn't stop! That's way too cold to be out and about. The evening went to about -36C. Craziness!

The whole family hooked up on Skype with the brother/sister-in-law/nephew that live elsewhere. It was great to be able to 'see' them and spend some time with them. We went out for supper at a really nice restaurant, Ric's Steakhouse, then proceeded back to FI's brothers where we stayed in and opened gifts, played games and ate way too much. It was a great evening.

Sunday morning we all go up and went to The Sawmill for brunch. After that we drove to the hospital to see FI's grandmere. She seems to be going downhill, and it's really sad. She still seems in good spirits when people talk to her, but life is getting harder.  She is unable to walk far, so she stays in bed most of the day. Really hard to see someone like that.  FI had a hard time with it, and said it was very sad to see her like that, and that he doesn't think things will get any better. It's disheartening to hear that from him. He doesn't do well expressing himself when it comes to those sorts of things. I can relate to him at least, losing two grandparents and not ever knowing the others before they passed.

All in all, it was a great weekend, aside from the sad visit. It was nice to see the family, hang out, give gifts and have good cheer.