Merry Christmas from Sue and Kevin!!: Christmas Newsletter 2016

Once again it is time to write the Christmas newsletter
– and as ever the past year has flown by!

So what has happened this year?
Well, particularly the first half of the year, much the same as 2015...
We enjoyed time at the allotment,

in the gardens,

and joining Mum and Dad at Golden Oldie get togethers...

And here are the golden ladies:

Kevin spent hours cutting down trees...

and I spent a lot of time crafting.
Once again I have been to two excellent crafty weekend retreats over the year - great fun!!

...Going back to December 2015 however,

we once again decided not to spend Christmas in Australia but to stay in the UK.

This time Kevin shot off to Cairo in late December, but fortunately only for a couple of days. He was here for most of the Christmas preparations!

We again hosted Christmas Dinner with Liz, Pete, Dumble and Sophie staying,

Dumble really enjoyed his presents!

Here is Sophie imitating a photo from when she was 6 - waiting for Mum to say its OK to open her presents!

and Mum, Dad, Andrew, Kathryn, Caroline, Tomi and Michael

coming over for the festive meal!

We celebrated Boxing Day at Andrew and Kathryn's - Caroline had a quiz for us!!

New Year was pretty quiet - popping round to Mum and Dad's

and then enjoying racletting with Sophie!

In February we went down to Devon for wassailing!!
If you are on facebook you may have seen the video...

We went out for dinner and Lucas ate a huge plateful of ribs...

At Easter Sophie, Kevin and I went over to Australia, spending the first week in Paynesville - where the whole family met up - the second week we were in Melbourne...

In June, we had a big garden party to celebrate Dad's 89th Birthday, Mum's 85th and their wedding anniversary.

Also in June Jasmine was 8...

In July we went to Hampshire to attend Archie's 70th Birthday - and caught up with Abu Dhabi friends - some of the crafty ladies were together again!

We stayed in an airbnb for the first time!

We then went on to Liz and Pete's for a couple of days...

Lucas again had ribs...

We came home to find Dad in hospital... after 3 falls in one day... He stayed for a week and he came out not too good - in fact we were unsure whether we would make it to Anglesey and ‘Menai’. Kevin, Sophie and I had hired a holiday house to share with Mum and Dad as they can no longer manage the Cottage. Andrew and Liz and families went over before us and we finally made it over a few days later. We again took the Albacore {fairly traditional 5m long sailing dinghy} Kevin and Sophie sailed it most of the fortnight but I did join them once to sail it three up.

So once again we had three Albacores on the water...

Straight after Menai, Sophie and I set off for Australia. Bec had asked me to look after Aiden and Montana again while she and Adam were in Germany.

We were there for two weeks spending the middle weekend in an airbnb on Raymond Island near Matt and Nikki, Jasmine and Isabell.Tom and Aiden came over too. Nikki, as Pixie Violet, called on us at the holiday house.

Matty continues working in outdoor sports. Jasmine has just had an excellent school report

and Isabell is just about to start 'big school'!

The rest of the time we were in Melbourne spending the last part of the trip at Dan and Lizzie's. They have just bought a house in Frankston - should settle in February...

We managed to catch up with quite a few old friends...

After Aus Sophie and I decided to spend 3 days in Kuala Lumpur - we saw all the sights

and spent one day with Loretta and John (friends from Abu Dhabi)

While we had been away, Kevin had been to Amsterdam still working on the Egypt project. He has been waiting all year for this job to start - he finally went to Cairo in October.

But also Dad went into hospital again - this time with urosepsis - and this time for 3 weeks. Unfortunately Dad also has Alzheimer's so his condition had deteriorated when he came out. We had to rearrange Mum and Dad's house so that he has a bedroom downstairs with carers coming in 3 times a day.

During the October half term Sophie again popped up for a few days and we went over to Anglesey to check out the Autumnal colours like last year! We took some fabulous photos and met up with Sian and Roger and Ioan.

Dad was just beginning to improve when a fortnight ago he again ended up in hospital for a few days - and once again we are back to square one...But Dan came to stay around then which cheered us all up. He wanted to walk in Dove Dale, find some old pubs and visit his sister...we also made a trip to see Andrew's new 'big boat' down at Walton on the Naze. Dan had tagged a week on to a work trip of a week in Thailand then a week in India.

Here he is with Lynn...

Liz has been to stay with me a couple of times while Kevin is away and I am pleased to say she has finally been diagnosed (after 14 months of agony) with rheumatoid arthritis - and the treatment is beginning to work...