December 31, 2007

Time for one last posting in 2007. Been a hectic month with Christmas and a lot of work related parties.

MA and I worked Christmas Eve and then drove out to Long Island for a Christmas Eve party at the place of a friend of mine from Reuters. Had a great time, and got home pretty late on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day picked up the boys around midday and came to open presents. The boys did very well, a telescope to look at the night sky, the mandatory PSP game, some clothes and lots of books.

Dropped the boys back at Anita's later that day. MA and I had a pretty quiet Christmas dinner at home.

Boxing Day we got up early and drove down to Philadelphia. We were booked in for a guided tour of a Renoir landscape exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (made famous by the Rocky Movies where he is running up the stairs).

It was really interesting and a great way to see the exhibit as by the time we came out there was a big queue to get in.

Spent the rest of the day mooching around Phillie and stayed the night in a hotel by the river.

Next day we went to the National Constitution Center to see an Exhibit about the First Ladies which again was really interesting.

Friday was a jobs day. Picked the boys up in the evening.

Have had a pretty quiet weekend so far. Not doing much tonight. Cooking a tasty feast and the boys are pretty adamant they will be up at midnight, I am really certain I won't be.

Some photos of Christmas attached.

We wish all and sundry a Happy and Prosperous New Year. I am sure you will all be waiting with baited breath for new postings in the New Year!!!!

Christmas 2007

Weekend of December 8-9th

Picked up the boys Friday night and it was straight home to cook them dinner as according to them they were both starving (even though they both said they had eaten about an hour earlier).

I now know a little of what Mum must have gone through with 4 teenage sons as my two (but Kieran in particular) seems to be a bottomless pit that needs to be incessantly filled with food.

Saturday morning MA and I got up and went to the gym. On the way home we picked up bagels and coffee. Got home and the boys got stuck into those. We then went and looked at an old farm house in Newtown PA as we are starting to think about possible places to buy after the wedding. It is a great buyers market here in US at the moment. This was an old/new house as it was about 150 years old but had been completely renovated. It was a really nice place, 5 fireplaces throughout.

Then went grocery shopping while the boys went to Best Buy to play on the video games (or so I thought, but Nicholas was later complaining all Kieran wanted to do was look at cell phones. Obviously we have moved on from video games to the cell phone phase!!!).

Quiet Saturday night at home, watched a "little bit of TV" and then we used the cooking utensils and cook book Nicholas' got for his birthday to make a cheesecake for dessert for Sunday. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday it was off the the gym again for MA and I for our training session where we got our butts right royally booted.

Then it was home for lots of cooking. I made breakfast burritos for everyone for breakfast and also cooked a loin of pork on the BBQ for Sunday afternoon lunch. MA was busy cooking meals for the week. It felt like the kitchen at the Savoy. The big recipients of all of this were the boys who happily ate anything that came out of the kitchen.

In the afternoon the boys and I went out and picked up one of Kieran's friends and went to a movie (The Golden Compass). After the movie we went home to try Nicholas' cheesecake which had turned out very well.

While we were out Mary Ann finished off the sweater I had been knitting for Nicholas (photo above). A very long project, so long unfortunately that Nicholas has almost grown out of it already. He will probably get a winter out of it and that will be it.

Dropped the boys and their mate off and then it was home for an early crash out (for me anyway) about 7.30.

Weekend of December 1-2

I worked from home on Friday and went to Nicholas' class to give them a talk about New Zealand and read them the Maori legend about "How the Kiwi lost it Wings". Great fun and nicholas and I gave a demo on giving a Maori hongi.

How the Kiwi Lost it Wings

The boys had to go to Bar Mitzvah so didn't pick them up Friday night.

Saturday morning Mary Ann and I went to the gym. Then it was a day of jobs for the rest of Saturday. Visited a couple of real estate agents to start thinking about property. Very quiet Saturday night, dinner at home and then a DVD.

Sunday it was gym again then picked the boys up. It was a pretty miserable day. Nicholas opened the rest of his birthday presents that arrived from Auntie Catherine which was all very exciting.

Sunday lunch at the local Indian restaurant and then the boys and I went to see a movie Sunday afternoon. Again quiet night at home on Sunday night.