The laptop is fixed – it seems to have been switched off before it was ready to be switched off – the SYSTEM portion of the registry was corrupt.  No major issue, just time consuming really.

Vicky and Elliot seem content in just sleeping today – lazy buggers.

The temptation to take down the Christmas decorations is already kicking in, would you believe?

Simon can hear the gym calling…..

IT’S ALL OVER !!! All the preparation and cost, and it is done with no return 🙁

We had a great time this year (not that we don’t other years) and this was obviously slightly special, with it being our first family Christmas.  Even though we asked people to not buy much for Elliot as he does not understand the specifics of Christmas yet, it seems that we still managed to amass a huge amount of gifts.  Father Christmas certainly found our house OK this year, and the lack of a chimney seemed to not deter the kind natured fellow.  Elliot awoke us at around 5am and we all got up at 6am (Simon’s Mum, Bernhard, Jenny, Justin, Daniel and Winston joined us this year) to have bacon sandwiches and gift wrapping removal.  I think it is extremely fair to say that all did exceptionally well and the chap in the red suit is welcome back at ForkHall without question 🙂

We walked down to Vicky’s Mum’s house (as the venue for lunch and fun activities for the day) after dropping Jenny, Justin, Daniel and a whole heap of food off first (well, and Justin coating the inside of Simon’s car with a nice helping of Chocolate Cake – I won’t write what Jenny called him – suffice to say Simon found it firstly funny and secondly shocked to hear the words being uttered from his sister’s mouth.

The rest of the day was awesome – a great feast bestowed upon us, with copious amounts of Châteaux-Neuf Du Pape to wash it all down.  A pool tournament where Phil and Dave simply whooped Simon’s ass good and proper – congratulations for Justin for becoming the ultimate champion of the table.  The day finishing up in the real pool, where some lazed about in the hot tub, others kicked in in the pool itself, and those who preferred to keep their dignity played at BUZZ on the projection screen whilst watching the idiots making fools of themselves in the pool area 🙂

A great day yesterday – THANK YOU to all who made it possible, and especially Greg and Sue for hosting the entire day.  A note for Richard who seemed to spend the whole day filling peoples glasses AND THEN who ended up keeping the pool house dry by squeegee’ing the place down each and every time some sorry fellow got out of the pool and wet the floor 🙂 top job man.

Then today, Simon’s mum and entourage left for home at around 10:30AM, and Simon, Vicky and Elliot head out to Bridlington to see Paula and Richard.  Once again, we had a fab afternoon since Paula and her mum laid on a lovely buffet, and with their friends and neighbours the conversations were lively also.  It always seems like we have only just arrived when we are leaving and that time has been cut short (I guess we don’t see a lot of them anymore) but I’m sure we’ll catch up again soon.

Simon just has Becca’s new laptop to fix – seems that the SYSTEM part of the registry was broken at 9:25am on Christmas Day – he is on with fixing it now…….

Vicky and Simon’s 6th Wedding Anniversary today !!!  We are going out tonight for a nice meal to the Kaye Arms between Wakefield and Huddersfield, which we are sure will be nice.  Elliot’s Grandma and Granddad are going to come and look after him while we are gone.

Simon managed to reverse his car into a low wall last night (at the vet – and no he didn’t tell the vet it was him 🙂 ) which punctured the rear passenger side tyre.  He hobbled home at walking pace with all pedestrians helpfully advising Simon that he had a flat tyre – quite why they thought he was limping home, we’re not sure……

Then, to add insult to injury, once inside the safe confines of our own garage, Simon jacked up the car, removed the nuts……………. oh yes and then COULD NOT removed the damned wheel from the car.  It culminated in a call to BMW OnCall who came out first thing this morning with a large rubber hammer and dealt with the issue – the embarrassment of it

Vicky was up making butterfly buns for the party tomorrow, and we think we are all set.

Now all we need is a session in the Gym, a swim, oh yes and a new damned tyre – grrr

We have the photos from the small family photo shoot we went on back in November.  Frank has kindly scanned the images for us, and here is our second Rust Family Photo.

We hope you like it – we certainly think it is pretty good – considering that Elliot did not wake up throughout the entire shoot 🙁

A Happy Christmas to all…….

HOLIDAYS HAVE STARTED ……. YAY !!!

Last night was Simon’s works Christmas Party near Warrington in Cheshire.  It was a good night with plenty of drinks flowing.  It was also……….. Elliot’s first night out…………. he stayed at his Grandmas and he seems to have really enjoyed himself.  When we got back to him at lunchtime today, he seemed unaware that we had not been there and happy as ever.  As a note, since the cold has gone away he seems to be a really happy chappy in general and the sleeping patterns have almost returned to where they were a couple of weeks back.

Simon and Elliot went Christmas shopping this afternoon – clearly something that Elliot will cherish forever – he slept the whole time 🙁 Obviously Daddy is very entertaining and interesting………… oh, no ?

The Christmas shopping arrived from Tesco and Vicky nipped to Costco while Simon and Elliot were shopping, so we are all ready for Christmas Eve party at our place and with the exception of a little gift wrapping, we are all done for Christmas Day as well.