UK Bound - 2008 December 31

Greetings all. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy New Year, Happy Hogmany (pick one or all that apply).

Hope this email finds you well. It only dawned on me a couple days ago that this was the last week of 2008. Not that we lead exciting lives, but just that we're always seem to be on the go.

For Seth's and my birthday presents, we received year passes to Paultons, which is a local amusement park. When we first started going on the rides, Seth, enjoyed some of the medium sized rides. In October, he tried the roller coaster and when we went back in November, we went on it about 10 times. So, coming this summer, we're going to run away to Alton Towers for a long weekend, and hit all the big rides. In the summer we went to LegoLand, but there weren't very many big rides and the queues were outrageous, so we won't be doing that any time soon. Shame that LegoLand didn't live upto the hype. We're thinking about hitting Florida in a couple years when Seth will be big enough to go on all the rides. Side note: Seth and I tried to go to Paultons today (Dec31/08), but it was closed! I don't know why! There's no snow and it was above freezing! When we went in Nov, the log shoot was closed, as that's mainly a summer ride, so I wouldn't expect any water rides to be open. We were dressed warmly enough, with enough extra clothes to dress a couple other people as well. Sigh. We'll have to wait until mid-Feb to go on the rides again.

For Christmas, Seth received a remote control quad bike from Santa -- we've been to the beach a couple times with it and he's getting pretty good at driving it around. I'm sure he's thinking the next step is to convince us that he needs a real one. Maybe in a couple years. He's driven a little 75cc quad before, and quite enjoyed it. Maybe....

So far, we haven't been personally hit by the credit crunch. There's been some sales on toys that I'd like to buy like a newer SatNav, or bigger telly, or nicer camera, but I really can't justify a new one as the one I have works fine. At work, there's a global hiring freeze which means that we can't replace the guy that left in July, so it means that his work has been extra busy.

On the holiday front - we haven't done anything more than day trips since our summer trip, and we have nothing planned until summer'09. We've finally paid off our loan to move from Glasgow to Bournemouth, and now we're working on paying off our trip to BC last Feb.

I've included two pics in this addition -- the first being Seth's school picture and the second is Seth with Santa. Let me know if you want to print them, and I can send you the full size picture.

I've updated our web page a little more (including this letter), so have a boo if you haven't been there in a while. As well, if you have a web page, please let me know, and I'll put a link onto mine (if you'd like).

If you're reading this online, I've included the Flying Frog mini-roller coaster from Paultons Park. Next time we go there, we'll be sure to get a picture of "The Cobra" which is the big roller coaster. WWWWeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

And, lastly, if you don't think that 2008 has been a long year with it being a leap year, not only did we have Feb29 as an extra day, but in addition, we also had a leap second! I'll let you ponder that while you finish off the last of your chocolate pud!

Anyway, that's enough about us. Let us know what you've been up to.

All the best.

Brian, Kim and wee (err, small) Seth.