december, 2004

december 12

merry christmas!

this year's christmas card

well, i don't know if i'll manage to do another update before heading for england if last week's chaos is anything to go by [i'm also not sure whether i'll managed to update or not while we're there]. it didn't help that toby starting throwing up on tuesday morning - so that meant tuesday and wednesday's excessive to-do-lists got added to thursday and friday's lists [by which time he was fine]. unfortunately thursday already involved a day of repair to my car, christmas shopping, playgroup, banking etc. etc. and friday i had a work meeting. on the bright side, it was definitely better that he was sick this week than during our 2 day journey next week and i HAD finally managed to get my christmas cards and most of my packages mailed on monday.

i made the mistake of trying to ship a bag of coffee to the US on monday. the post office sent me home with a url where i could just print out a 'prior notice' form for importing the food into the US. "i believe it's quite easy" she reassured me. HA. quite easy. it was one of the most excrutiating processes i've come across. first there was the registration process [which included a password which must contain uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers AND a special character. it should be noted that the special character was not just any old special character but a specially secret special character - only known to the FDA. i finally figured this out after 20 password combinations - 19 of which resulted in a generic 'illegal password' message]. the password was maybe the highlight of the process though - it was downhill all the way from there - figuring out where the coffee was grown, manufactured, the food plant code [??], how it was treated, how it was packaged [coffer / coffin etc. etc. etc. for about 350 types of packaging], the size, weight, units blah blah blah]. i still don't know if i succeeded because i never managed to print from the computer i was on. i just hope i can remember my password and somehow miraculously find the confirmation page. it may be redundant by then because the shipment date i gave has long since passed. in summary - NEVER SHIP FOOD TO THE USA!!!

anyway, that was last week. we've just had a great weekend in victoria - doing an early christmas with this year's neglected side of the family! toby has so many cars and car-based stuff that we're losing track of it all and aly is the world's biggest spoilt brat because she got her very own [shetland] pony! "oh", she said casually when she got back from her ride this morning "i just took my pony on a ride to the ice cream store". it's a hard life when you're 4. she was pretty stunned yesterday when the pony presentation took place [from her doting auntie nikki not her parents i might add!]. this morning during breakfast she suddenly remembered and, with tears in her eyes, shouted "i can't believe i have my very own pet - A PONY!!!!" she's a very happy little girl and i'm happy because the pony gets to live in victoria :-)

so anyway, a very successful, and fruitful, weekend all around. hopefully culminating with a trip to the scrapbook store to spend my gift certificates before we leave the island on the 7pm ferry.

pete arrives to stay for a couple of days tomorrow after a goodbye brunch at cecilia and carolina's house in the morning. then wednesday we leave for seattle and have an earlyish flight thursday morning. i've waited so long, but i can't believe it's here already! i'm alternatively between excitment and complete panic at the number of things we have to get done before leaving. hopefully one of the things we'll be able to cross off the to-do-list is for all 4 of us to get rid of our lingering coughs and colds.

at the ea christmas party

december 1

hooray, it's finally here :-) we started a new tradition this year - a present for everyday of December - mostly just christmas books, movies etc. we already have, but nevertheless, something to open everyday. i'd read about someone doing it in a scrapbook magazine and thought it was a great idea, so present number 1 kept both children very entertained all morning. i now have a couple of hours to myself, but have some web work to do.

here are the children with santa. toby is still a little confused about the whole thing and aly forgot to tell him what she wants for christmas. she's since remembered that she wants care bear toothpaste "because we've almost run out". should be a cheap year then!

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