Christmas Visit Between Mack & Barbara

Post from Barbara:

In a previous article last year you may have read about CI and ChildHope Zambia sponsors Macky and her Mum, Carolanne (who made the lovely quilt for Macky's recent raffle), from Washington State and Barbara from Vancouver, Canada meeting in Vancouver for an Halloween visit.. This Xmas they visited again this time for two days with Macky's grand-mother, Dorothy, a spry 80 year old in order to take in the sights and lights of Chrismas in Vancouver. We had great plans for a carol cruise, the Bright Nights in Stanley Park and several other sites.

 Unfortunately, since everything was booked ahead with so many other prospective visitors all descending on the same sites we could not get tickets for the 'children's Xmas train ride' until nine p.m. but we filled in the time taking several photos of the many beautiful lighted Xmas scenes. Since both Macky and I have two little boys in Zambia we tried to find appropriate photos to take which wasn't hard to do since there was such a variety. Because two of the proposed raffle prizes, the Grinch and his dog Max, were not claimed we were going to send the Grinch to Macky's sponsored boy, Fanwell and his dog Max to my child, Maxwell. So, naturally when we saw the Grinch in lights we had to have our photo taken with him to send to our boys. We also took other photos to show them how Christmas is celebrated in the West and also the igloo to teach them about the Eskimos and penguins.

After filling our stomachs at a well-known chinese restaurant we returned to Stanley Park to take our turn on the Xmas train.. We had thought there there might be fewer people for the last rides but, boy we wrong!! There were literally thousands of people all hoping to get on the last rides and mostly adults like ourselves. We had to wait in line for almost two hours with Dorothy and I frozen to a park bench under a blanket until Macky and Carolanne made the front of the line. It was a lot of fun on the train with the music, some brave people singing carols and the many lights and scenes set amongst the forest portion of the park. Here are a few photos for your enjoyment and Happy Xmas to all our sponsors.