Annual Round-up (aka Christmas Letter)

Seasons Greetings to all of you reading this, whether you are a regular visitor or this is your first time over at the North Family blog. As most of you will know by now, we decided this year, for a variety of reasons, not to send out our usual Christmas cards and letter - this is partly due to cost, partly due to environmental issues and partly due to the fact that the task was beginning to feel really onerous and thus taking out all the Christmassy pleasure you'd hope was associated with this kind of activity.

But of course, being me, I couldn't possibly not write a Christmas letter, so I am merely changing media and publishing it electronically. I expect it will be much easier this way as I don't have to squish it all onto one piece of paper and can link to entire albums of photographs, rather than just a few select shots. You may all come to regret this move to the virtual world!

So, here's a whirlwind tour of 2007 in the North family household, with lots of links to side-road detours, should you wish them, and of course some photos thrown in for fun.

January brought with it some excitement for the kids (and grownups too) in the form of a decent covering of snow - not a lot by the standards of those of you in the American midwest or northern Europe, or even I was used to growing up outside DC, but darn good for London, and the children had great fun with it. As, I admit, did the mummies on the way to school.

You can see more photos of the trip to school here on flickr, or a video of Alex pulling a sled here on YouTube.

We had a bit more snow in February, and of course, that brought with it Alex's birthday (4) - it seems so long ago now, as he is nearly 5 as I write this. He had a nice little party at a local recreation centre - an hour in the play room with bouncy castle and soft climbing stuff, and then time in the party room for a birthday tea and a few games. Not many photos from that as I was busy doing other stuff, but here's a video of us singing happy birthday.

In the spring, we had a lovely visit from our friends Cathi and Dave (and their girls Aine and Aisling) who live in Ireland. Bob Dylan was scheduled to give a concert in London in April and I jokingly asked Cathi if she'd like to come over to see him with me (Cathi and I have a history of going to Dylan concerts together) - she mentioned it to Dave and he suggested they all come for a long weekend. As the concert happened to be during the school Easter holidays, this was an excellent suggestion, and so - a lovely visit. The kids had a great time (though Aisling was going through a bit of a difficult phase, not being happy sleeping, etc in a strange house) and we did lots of fun stuff, including going to the zoo. Loads of photos were taken. This one shows Aine and Olivia practicing being flamingos. They're wearing the right colour for it...

A lot of other stuff happened in April, most of which I have blogged about, so if you want to know more, you can always check out the blog archive for April. (Or indeed, for any month - just use the navigation on the sidebar.)

During the May half-term holiday, we had a trip up to Grandma Lucy's house, this time without Geoff - as he was due to go off on a business trip to the US the following week, it was a bit hard to fit the trip into a time which would work for him, too. But that's ok, we had fun without him, going out to a variety of places, including Snibston Discovery Park and Cadbury World. Some photos - quite a few, actually - were taken.

Towards the middle of July, Grandma Kathy arrived for a visit, bearing all kinds of junk food type gifts for me (well, and the kids, too). Coincidentally, she has brought some with her at Christmas too (she just arrived today, as it happens) - but not nearly so much. No doubt she knows we'll be providing plenty of junk food of our for the holidays.

While she was here we went lots of places and did lots of things - like Chessington World of Adventures, Kew Gardens, Camden Market and so on. But one of the highlights of summer actually happened on the last day of school - we had torrential rain and flash flooding, which truly was astonishing. We usually all take the kids to the park on the last day of school and have a bit of an impromptu picnic/party, and we thought we'd have to change that plan, but as it happens, we all ended up in the park anyway - though no picnic. I'm sure the kids will remember this forever, as it was very unusual and quite fun. Even if you don't click on any other links in this "letter" make sure you check out these photos... Of course, it was only fun for us because we weren't in any danger of having our house flooded - others locally and in other parts of the country were not so lucky.

Once my mother went home (early August) we had a fairly quiet month, until the latter part, when we went to Ireland to visit Cathi and Dave in return - most years we only see them once, so this was a nice exception to that, with lots of visiting. This was the first time we'd visited them since they moved to their new house, which is in Ballina, Co. Tipperary (and yes, it's a long, long way). We did lots of great things, explored interesting bits of Ireland, hung out, played golf (Dave, Geoff & Sarah), stayed up late (me & Cathi) and generally had a fun time. I blogged nearly every day and took lots of photos, so for more detail, I recommend August's blog archive.



As many of you will already know, September brought some sad news to us - my father died very suddenty (though not entirely unexpectedly, as his health had been very poor of late). For various reasons, the actual funeral & interring of his ashes did not take place until November, so I did not go to the US until then, but my stepmom, Nancy, arranged a Celebration of Life in Ensenada (Mexico) where they lived, which many of their friends attended - people got up and shared memories, etc. Although I was unable to attend, I did write a piece for someone else to read aloud, which you can read here, if you like.

The service in San Diego in November was lovely, and I had a very nice trip, all things considered (I went alone) including being able to spend some quality time with my stepmom & her mom, and my brother and sister in law - as well as some briefer but still enjoyable visits with the rest of the family (that is, Nancy's family - but they have always welcomed me into their family). I also got to meet Christine (sister in law)'s mother and Steve & Christine's dogs - JR and Amber. JR is probably the most adorable dog ever and Amber is very cute but a bit of a handful - she clearly has second child syndrome - who knew it was true of dogs, too?

Anyway, on a happier note, September also saw the start of a new school year - Sarah started Year 5, which means only one more year after this one before secondary school; Olivia started Year 3, which is the first year of "Juniors" (there is a bit more independence and they don't have an afternoon play); Alex started Reception (a bit like all-day Kindergarten, for those of you unfamiliar with the UK school system). Because his birthday is before Easter, he had the option of a full day or going home at lunchtime - he was very ready for the full day and was extra keen to take his lunch with him to school like his sisters. And yes, he loves it. He really adores school, and seems to be getting on very well. In the first half term they do a lot of work on phonics, and after this past half term, they have been officially teaching reading (though he was doing a bit before) and he has taken to this like a duck to water - much better than his sisters, frankly - not that they were slow, particularly, but he's just really keen. It's fun to watch. He was so excited when he brought home his first book with words in it (I was in San Diego, actually, and he insisted on telling me on the phone).



And of course, September brought the start of the birthday season - Sarah was 10 (10!) at the end of September, and Olivia was 8 in late October. Geoff also had a birthday in October, and mine was in November - we won't mention any numbers, but both of those ended in a "9", which means next year, we are going to have a big party... And it's our 15th anniversary next year, too. Lots of big numbers.

And that pretty much catches us up to the present - obviously there are all kinds of things I haven't mentioned, but I am fairly good about keeping this blog up to date, so for news of us, the best thing is to come by once or twice a month and see how we're getting on. (And with Christmas coming up, there should be plenty of new photos this month). My mother is here for the holidays, so we'll be going out doing lots of fun things, and just after Christmas we'll be going up to see Geoff's mum as well, so we'll have news and photos to share from there...

We hope everyone reading this has a lovely holiday season and we hope to hear from you all this year - leave a comment here or send an email - or heck, even a paper card is more than welcome.

Merry Christmas to all!

Kate, Geoff, Sarah, Olivia, Alex