Hello and a Merry Christmas from a (comparitively!!) warm Cleveland, This time last year it was -20 degrees, I had no work permit and everything was going a little miserably for me, this year it is 20 degrees warmer, I have a work permit and a awesome job and everything seems to be working itself out :)
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| Amanda and I on the purple people bridge in Cincinnati on my birthday :) |
It has been a rollercoaster of a year where a lot of fun has been had - I owe you all huge apologies for not sharing enough of these good times with you on my blog, but once the sun came out I found it a million times harder to write, I was always out and about and simply too busy it seemed!! However you'll be pleased to know that now the shadow of winter has returned I hope to make up for some lost blogging!! 2014 has also had some incredibly sad moments for me and Amanda with the passing of my brilliant and beautiful Nanny and also Amanda's lovely Granny Minute, you'll both be terribly missed, especially around Christmas but I know you shall both be here with us in spirit making sure we are behaving ourselves by not eating Indian takeaways in the living room or putting our feet up on that little wooden table which seemed to have been perfectly designed to put your feet on :)
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| my wonderful Nanny and Pompa enjoying a nice bacon sandwich in the sunshine in the summer of 2013 |
Me and Amanda have also been having terrible trouble this year with a noisy neighbour. Every single night we would hear him and his stupid booming music and parties at seemingly any time of the day or night. this music raised itself into a magnificent crescendo one night which ended in our annoying and incredibly stupid neighbour calling the police claiming Amanda and me were harassing him by banging on the wall over the loud music. This resulted in the police showing up, knocking on our door to find out why we were harassing our neighbour, hearing the insanely loud music, going over to his place to have a go at him for wasting police time and telling him to turn the music down! why or why if you have called the police would you continue to play your music really loud, even if you knew the police were on the way? Unfortunately even after he called the police on himself the loud music continued so we have now switched to a much bigger and quieter apartment, it is an old history classroom and still has the original blackboard on the wall! we also have much more space, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms so if anybody wishes to come and stay you will have your own en suite :) :)
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| Me and Amandas christmas tree, it is a Norfolk island pine, one of the hardiest trees in the world so lets see how long it takes Amanda and me to finish it off! Kim, can you spot your acorn? :) |
Well that will do for today, I hope to write again very soon and have every intention of keeping the blog up, at least through the winter! Here are some pictures of the lovely gingerbread houses each department made at my work (i had absolutely no input into the construction of any of them!) which one is your favourite? The winning department gets a pizza party :)
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| Notice the sign on the right! |
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| A gingerbread pagoda |
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| this is my favourite, a almost perfect model of our hotel! |
Amanda and Greg x x
