Our apologies for the lack of updates during December and over Christmas and New Year.

We all went back to the UK for 3 weeks vacation (well, Simon worked a few days) to enjoy the festive time with friends and family.  During this time, some dumbass switched off the IT kit in the house, when meant that the website could not easily be updated – hence it wasn’t updated at all 🙁

Anyway, we got back yesterday evening following a 4 1/2 hour drive down to London’s Heathrow airport, and then a 11 hour flight direct to San Francisco.

The boys were really good considering the amount of time spent sat down doing very little, and they really enjoyed Christmas Day #3 when they found a third set of parcels here in Los Gatos.  The first set were in Ossett and the second in Halifax.  Father Christmas really has spoiled them this year 🙂

We are hoping to begin Olly’s training tonight, as he has been unwell during most of the time in the UK, culminating in his requirement of sleeping in the same bed as mummy and daddy pretty much every night.  We allowed him to sleep with us again last night, what with it being our first night back, and hence our need for sleep to get into the timezone etc.  Tonight he will not be so lucky….

We braved the weather and checked out the Los Gatos Christmas Parade today.  By braving the weather, we took a coat and a brolly (there were sprinkles in the air as we left) just in case.

The parade was tremendous – there were more than 150 floats / groups that were involved in the parade, which took place right through the main streets in the town from 11am.  It was a real spectacle to watch with some really impressive setups built up by the locals – from the fire engine and police car from 50+ years ago, to the school bus (again from 50+ years ago) carrying the pensioners, to the groups of children walking and riding their scooters from Elliot’s school.  It really made us feel like our local towns back in the UK just don’t get into this sort of thing, and it is a real shame – having now experienced it here

The oldies bus…

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We wondered what on earth this was….

and then found out when it drew alongside….

Check this out…. cool piece of work

And then finally, we saw Pepsi dog in his Santa outfit 🙂

There was a whole load more, but we didn’t get the camera out until much of it had passed us by, and while we have some video footage, I suspect that it is highly suspect 🙁

Two weeks was over in no time at all 🙁

Grandma and Granddad left the house about 5 1/2 hours ago, and their plane took off just over 1 hour ago so they are now probably tucking into a nice meal with a little red wine, before getting some shuteye in.

They are hoping that the snow subsides just long enough to get back to Ossett in good time tomorrow afternoon.

So we got the results from the photo shoot from Wednesday…..

We thought this was a TYPICAL Olly pose…. 🙂  As you can see, Olly was once again, all too pleased to be the centre of attention.

In all seriousness, here is one of the better shots…..

Granddad has eaten his way through 10-12 toilet rolls this last fortnight !!!! That’s right readers, that is almost one entire roll per day.  We were convinced that he was eating the stuff – takes us 6 days as a family to go through a single roll, so we can only assume that oral consumption has been taking place…… 🙂

Christmas is just around the corner….

We will be getting ready to head back to the UK in under 10 days and will be heading back in 2 weeks…..

The temperature is dropping daily and is now around 1 degree Celcius over night but is back up to 14 or 15 during the days so it is a little frosty in the mornings, but soon disappears thankfully.  The UK is taking a massive amount of snow right about now, and some areas (north Wales as an example) have experienced -18 degrees overnight this week !!!! Yikes !

Daddy has to head out to Seattle for two nights tonight 🙁 We are having some photographs of the boys taken today as well before Daddy leaves.

Our first ever official Thanksgiving Holiday, and we are lounging around at home doing nothing but Christmas movies and a little light baking – gingerbread men and bread.

We are actually going to our first ever Thanksgiving meal shortly so are really looking forward to the experience 🙂

Vicky has put the Christmas decorations up since apparently it is acceptable given that the Thanksgiving week is the signal of acceptance…. 🙂

We have three trees up, one in the lounge, one in the family room and Elly has one in his bedroom 🙂

It has got quite cold here as well in that we have needed to switch on the heating in the house this last 3 or 4 mornings.  It definitely has been getting close to 0 degrees C in the nights, although does raise up to 14 or 15 C during the days thankfully.