Christmas is always full of surprises...

Christmas is ova

and now its time to recoup

we spent Christmas Eve up on Cypress Mountain which was pretty much the coolest Christmas Eve event ever...

went tubing with steve and ashleigh and it was jam packed with little kids everywhere...



they had this pulley thing that you hook your tube onto and it pulls you up the mountain...they also had a path to walk up the mountain...but being the lazy wops that we are we chose not to do that...


it was cloudy and then sunny and then cloudy and then sunny...



chad coming down the mountain...he would use his hands to steer his tube but it just made him look like the biggest dork ever...





it was all very cold and snowy but it hadn't snowed in a few days so everything was a sheet of ice...

this is where he threw snowballs at my head constantly...



rosy cheeks...


we got two hours of tubing for 15 bucks...but because it was so busy we only got to go down about 6 or 7 times...which was a little crappy but they told us to come back later in the season and we could get way more runs in...


kids and their tubes...

chad pretended the tubes were dogs since they had a leash...here chads dog is trying to do my dog...

bad dogs!

he didn't have snow apparel...so he wore my brothers snow pants and opted for runners instead of boots...the man is insane...

here we are at the look out halfway down the mountain...it looks like bloody summer...

my camera was dying so we were trying to sneak in a few more shots...

but clearly chad didn't know what to do with his face...


after the mountain we popped over to visit with chads nonna (italian grandma) since we weren't going to see her over Christmas...after chatting for a bit we discovered that chads grandparents were good friends with my uncle who is a priest...grandpa ciavarro died some time ago and when chads grandma remarried my uncle preformed the ceremony...meaning chad actually met my uncle twenty years ago without even knowing it!!!

it turns out that chads step-grandpa was an amazing singer back in his day and sang in my uncles itlaian chior...the same chior that half my family use to sing in...it was mind blowing sitting there listening to him talk about my uncles and anuts and the time he went over to my grandparent farm and visited with my grandfather and everything...we sat there in shock...

our two families connected some twenty years ago and we had no idea!

when we got back home we told my parents the news who were totally surprised...my dad realizing who chad step-grandpa was phoned my uncle with excitement over the news...back in the late 70s / ealry 80s the italian chior put out an album and on the back cover was a picture of them...and there was chads step-grandpa looking exactly the same!

i dont know how we never made this connection before but when we did it was amazing!

fate

the fate that began when chad was adopted by this family...this family who would then become connected through my uncle to my family...the connection would not be known for years...until someone started a blog...and someone read a blog...and somewhere they meet...and they hang out...and they fall in love...and they plan to get married...and they find out twenty years ago...a connection had already been made...

my uncle married chads grandparents...and now he will marry us...

fate