Max's 1st Birthday!

Hello everyone,

It's all snowy, cold and beautiful here at the moment. New York suits snow, especially with all the twinkling christmas trees and lights. We went to Central Park today and it was magical. We saw people trying to sledge down snow covered rocks in a canoe. Then they tried unsuccessfully to drag it back up to the top again. I love snow. It seems to bring out joy and nutters! I have to say though, the snowmen in Tooting Common last year completely thrash the Central Park ones.

Last Wednesday was Max's 1st birthday. To mark the occasion, Max started walking on the monday before. He looks very proud of himself and gives himself a round of applause each time he walks. On the morning of the big day, we played with Max's new toys and balloons, went swimming and then went into town to meet Tom and Paul for pizza. After lunch, Paul took us to a brilliant toy shop where children are allowed to play with the toys. There is a huge piano there from the Tom Hanks film 'Big' that children are encouraged to play on. Sam bought Max some building bricks and then we went home and played a bit more. I think Max had a fun day. I was pretty exhausted by the end of it.

Calv and Isa came to visit the weekend before and we had loads of fun. We went out and played Beer Pong again. Then we went to a restaurant where a guacamole expert come to our table and prepared it in front of us. It was almost like performance art, but we had a huge incredible bowl of guacamole to show for it. Calv, Isa and Tom went to a huge local derby NFL game between Philadelphia Giants and Eagles. Isa got loads of great photos of topless fat blokes when it was -4 degrees. Big thanks to Isa who kindly imported, stamped and posted all our christmas cards, meaning for the first time in years our friends and family got Chrismas cards.

We're really looking forward to Christmas in New York, but I'm going to miss everyone back there in Blighty and those of you in Oz. I feel a long way away from you all.

New York doesn't hold back on celebrating holidays and Christmas is no exception. So, I'm sure it's going to be an experience. Sam and I went to our local fire house's christmas party a couple of weeks ago. It was for the firemen's and Sam's families. We felt very honoured indeed.

Sam and Max are decidedly unconvinced by Santa which is a shame beacause he's everywhere here. He came to the lobby in our building. When Sam saw Santa, he needed to keep a good distance. One of the much less scary elves, threw Santa's sack of toys to Sam, so Sam would not need to get too close. Max was braver until Santa laughed. Then Max screamed and Sam was rooted to the spot with fear. The next evening, we were in Little Italy and there was some kind of drunk Santa convention which didn't really help Sam and Max's opinion of the celebrated man in red.

We've put some new photos on our flickr site. We'll put a video of Max walking very soon. Have a lovely lovely christmas. We miss you all very much and will be thinking of you.

Lots and lots of love

Lyn, Tom, Sam and Max (now 1!)