The big update!

How exciting, I have my parents here for 9 days (Oct 5 - 14th) and one of my big priorities is to update the blog and especially to update our photo files and put them on the kodak gallery with links here. So much has happened this year that we have hardly had time to upload the pics etc so here we go....

In March we had Cooper's baby dedication at church and it was so nice that my mother (from New Zealand) and sister Jacqueline and her husband Hugh (both living in England) could all come for it. A few people took some pictures (which when I locate them, I will add a link to here!)

In April we hosted a surprise 30th birthday for Amy next-door. It was a complete surprise for her and about 40 of her friends and family turned up. Here are some pics including when her, Brad and Isabella came in the front door - she was quite stunned! A week after that, we went to NZ for 3 weeks and most of the pics are already online.

In May we went to England (see previous posting/s) In July I took Cooper to England again whilst Jamie went to Chad's 40th birthday (yes a few pics were taken-click on the link!) at his new house in Alabama.

In September, we took Jamie's Mom with us and went north to Boyne Mountain, a very cool resort. We stopped in Traverse City to visit one of our favourite restaurants, but the main reason for going to Boyne was for Laura & Scotts wedding. Here is a link to their website and also a link to the pics we took at their wedding. We were away for 4 days and had been out for dinner the night before we left and as per usual a couple of times once we got back so over 8 days, Cooper had eaten out about 18 times in almost as many restaurants. Being related to Jamie he seems to enjoy eating out as much if not more than at home and sits up in a highchair feeding himself his broccoli, cauliflower, kiwifruit, banana and of course crackers and a few snacks off my plate as well. We stayed at Boyne Mountain Grand Lodge and had a fantastic time. On the Sunday we all had booked spa treatments and it was almost as good as being at the Grand Wailea! (well, sort of... hopefully we'll get another chance to compare treatments when we are in Maui for Christmas).

Also in September, we were very excited to have Shirley & Robin (my Aunty & Uncle) from NZ come to stay for 4 days. They were getting towards the end of one of their epic 100-day world trips. It was great to catch up and I had fun listening to (and answering!) their questions about the USA which were similar to the ones I used to bombard Jamie with when we first got married "what's with the flashing orange/red traffic light - who gets to go?", "do all children travel to school in the big orange (the US term is yellow) school buses?" etc. Like Mother & Dad this last week, they were fascinated by the squirrels (I think they are unique to the Northern Hemisphere) and CJ enjoyed exploring their suitcases and having other people around to interact with.

At the end of September, I had been really looking forward (for weeks!) to having dinner with our friends Dee & Biren (and 3-year old Aren) as I really miss eating Indian food here in the USA. I didnt realise how often I had it in NZ! Dee cooked an amazing vegetarian feast for us and several others of Jamie's colleagues from the previous practice he worked at. We stayed the night which made things a lot easier and then went shopping at Costco, our favourite place the next day as where they live is 3/4 of the way to Detroit. One of the greatest things was that Dee gave us the leftover so I got to have the yummy food for the next 5 days!!! I had some tomato chutney from our trip to England which I can highly recommend with samosas for breakfast!

At the end of September, our church was running a programme that came via satellite over 4 nights about the creation/evolution debate. By a series of unplanned events, Jamie ended up being the key person presenting things and me the person organising all the printed information etc, so that all involved quite a lot of work for us. The website promoting it was very cool - click here to see the previews.

Click here for quite a few more pictures of our cool wee man taken between June & August who is growing so fast! He zips around the floor crawling or using the furniture and can race up the stairs faster than he goes on the flat floor.

Lots of people have been asking how my dear friend Maria is finding life in Dubai. Here is an exert from one of her emails:- what a fascinating part of the world I am living in. It has been very interesting for me even tho I have only been here a few days. U hear the prayers being called from the loudspeaker of the mosque and see people wearing traditional Arabian clothing alongside huge big buildings - the whole city is under construction and the school has provided a very nice apartment in Hor Al Anz, and provides an air conditioned bus from our apartments to the school. The apartment is spacious with everything in it and a gym and swimming pool. The teachers are all very nice and all very well traveled and seem to be used to teaching at international schools around the world and traveling to different places. U are never bored or lonely because people are always doing different things and the streets and shops are always lively and open late.The women's salons also offer henna designs- and u bargain for the price. They deliver groceries and laundry and have local tailors measure and deliver to your home - very nice neighbourhood way of doing things. The traffic is crazy because of all the construction!

Here is a picture of Maria - isnt she looking fabulous???

While Mother & Dad were here they took some family pics for us. Here are a couple....

(whoops, pics still to come when I
find Jamie's camera....)