Merry Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas to you!

The highlight of 2008 has to be the arrival of Ruby Anna Petry on 23rd January, to complete our little family (we hope!). After keeping us waiting for a week past our due date she then came into the world in rather a hurry by section. In time honoured Petry tradition we gave her one name and call her by another ... And so our Annie arrived. She does, of course, have her own blog.


Another Petry tradition is to have a photo of Clive in Rovers shirt in front of the most famous site we've seen over the past year. This year we haven't been anywhere grand as we've been getting used to Annie. But ... Al got his first Rovers shirt in July and it was hard to tell who was most excited - Al or Clive! Note the photo of the boys in their matching tops.

Winter

Soon after Annie's birth Clive passed his driving test - a miracle given the sleep deprivation he was suffering at the time. Since then he has been driving us all over the place. Clive and Al now have the responsibility of keeping the car clean!


Al loved the big snowfall that came in March, and building his first "haman" (snowman). He talked about it for weeks after.


Spring

Our main family holiday was all the way up the A10 from our house, in Norfolk. We had a cottage for the week, still referred to as Terry's house by Al, who particularly loved the landlord's dog, Ollie.

Following in Daddy's footsteps, Al began mixing with the rich and famous - he met Boogie Pete from Cbeebies in our village community centre at a toddler gig!

Celebrations

We've had a few celebrations this year - in May Al and his friend Joanna celebrated their 2nd birthdays with a joint garden party at our house, then in July we celebrated Shan's 40th birthday with another garden party in glorious sunshine. In September we celebrated Gran's 90th birthday with a big party up in Yorkshire compete with a cake with 90 candles.

Summer


Having decided we'd only manage a day ticket for the folk festival this year we discovered that Billy Bragg was playing two nights, so we had to get full 4 day tickets once again. Thank goodness we did - we all had a ball. Al loved the children's ceilidh and activities, Daddy loved BB, Mummy loved Imagined Village and Mauvais Sort, while Annie loved being cuddles lots. Both children enjoy music - Al has a guitar and happily performs his entire repertoire (including his own compositions) for anyone who sits still longer than 10 seconds, while Annie giggles and dances and sings along.

Autumn

Shan went back to work part-time in September after a long and glorious final maternity leave. Sadly no good news so far this year on the Bristol Rovers front .... Come on Rovers!

Shan's little cousin Gareth got married to Emma way up north and Al and Annie did their best to steal the show (see the photo on the front of the Christmas card for their outfits).

Winter


Clive continues to rub shoulders with the rich and famous - here he is with another of his long-time heroes, Martyn Joseph. We went backstage to chat to him after the concert and he was a real sweetie.

We are still enjoying being part of New Life Church and have just started a new home group meeting at our house on a Friday night.

TechnoPetrys

Both Al and Annie have their own blogs which we are trying to keep up to date. You can have a look at Al's blog and Annie's.

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2009 from all the Petrys xx

Happy New Year 2008 ... a bit late!

2007 has been a really fun year. No big life changing events to report this time (unless you count the death of the two gerbils in Shan’s class) but we’ve had a great time watching Al growing up. We’ve continued updating Al’s blog this year and hope to start one for his little sibling early in the new year (once he or she gets here). Keep your eyes open for an update on our new arrival.

Here is the traditional photo of Clive (and now Al) in his Rovers shirt in front of the most famous site we’ve seen over the past year. So that’s Istanbul’s Aya Sofia just in case it’s not quite famous enough!

2007 highlights for the Petrys

We had a great trip to Istanbul in March. This was lots of fun for many reasons—great city with lots to see and do, and Al learnt to crawl in the Blue Mosque … must have been the sight of all those men on their knees on the huge carpet! Contrary to popular speculation, after conceiving Al on holiday in Greece in 2005, Shan didn’t get pregnant while we were in Turkey. Oh no, that didn’t happen until the next month!
In the summer we had a trip to Brussels to catch up with friends and shop for things Shan still misses (Delhaize tins of mixed tomatoes and peppers mainly). We visited both sets of grandparents in Bristol and Hull, and had a week in Swansea. Highlights here were Al’s first dip in the sea, which he LOVED, and his stage debut at the Lifelink conference where he joined the other little people from the crèche to sing Heads and Shoulders in front of everyone.

Clive’s highlights have to be meeting Billy Bragg twice, and actually getting photographic evidence the second time. Oh and Bristol Rovers getting to Wembley where they won promotion into League 1. He also preached in November (very well in my unbiased opinion!) for the first time at our new church—we’ve been going to New Life since April. Not sure this counts as a highlight but Clive is also learning to drive.

Shan’s highlights are passing the threshold at work and therefore getting a pay rise, and also managing to complete running the Care Confidential training course for new team members at the pregnancy crisis centre despite work, Al and being pregnant for most of it!

Al’s personal highlights of 2007

So much has happened in Al’s life this past year, as you would expect from someone who has just reached the 18 month land mark.
After crawling for the first time in the Blue Mosque, Al started walking properly at the Cambridge Folk Festival - what timing!
He has always been very chatty but over this year some words have actually become comprehensible! He started with daddy and has now progressed to such useful words as bravo, chair and cheese.
Al has shown great musical aptitude in several ways, ranging from performing the Hokey Cokey spinning himself round in circles at a moment’s notice to joining in with the chorus of “If I Were A Rich Man” in his own little way with a merry chorus of liddle liddle liddle lai. Al had lots of first experiences this year. One was the first time he saw snow when he had a little walk in it with his daddy at 7am. Another was his first dip in the sea while we were in Swansea—on the beaches Mummy used to play on when she was little. Yet another was the first time he set foot out of Europe, on a bus trip to the Asian side of Istanbul.
We had a lovely 1st birthday / Thanksgiving party for Al with lots of friends and family in our local country park.
Saying goodbye to Mandy, our old childminder, was really sad but we’re very relieved to have Sarah as our new childminder. Al has a ball there with his pals Joanna, Katie and Matthew.
Speaking of mates, he has a busy social life and lots of lovely little friends. We hope that his little brother or sister is as fortunate.


And so into 2008 ...

The main thing we’re looking forward to (and trying to prepare Al for) is the
arrival of baby number 2. At two scans we were told it’s probably a girl but we look forward to finding out for sure somewhere around January 16th.
Apart from that, we hope for a bigger crop from the Petry garden than a few carrots and tomatoes, some rhubarb and a solitary apple. In fact we’re looking forward to a productive year all round in the Petry household!

Petry News Christmas 2006

Merry Christmas!

We thought 2005 was busy … but in comparison 2006 has been even more so. We moved house early in the year, complicated by the fact that we had to move out of our old house 5 weeks before we could move into our new house, and Shan was 6 months pregnant at the time. That of course leads us on to the real reason this year has been so busy … the arrival of Petry Junior. Read on for more info.

January, February, March—Moving house

We left our letter at the end of 2005 with the news that we were trying to move house. This wasn’t the smoothest transition in the end, but we were in the new house 3 months before baby came so we can’t complain. We spent the 5 interim weeks as nomads—4 weeks at friends’ houses and a week on holiday. Our new house is fab—a Victorian terrace with beautiful fireplaces and a lovely long garden. Lots of character and space for visitors if you are in the area …

February—Wedding anniversary and holiday

We spent our wedding anniversary in a lovely flat by the marina in Whitby. Gorgeous week, but I think Clive would say the highlight was our day out to Goathland where they just happened to be filming an episode of Heartbeat! He’s watched every episode of the new series but still not seen the 10 second clip we watched them film! Bit of nostalgia for Shân who went on several youth group weekends there as a teenager. We also visited the abbey, rode on the steam train and ate fish and chips from the famous Magpie Café.

April—Work news for both of us

Two nice things this month—Clive’ got promoted and Shân started maternity leave! Clive is now a Senior Research Associate :-)

28th May—Rhys Alexander Petry

Absolutely nothing could have prepared us for the complete thunderbolt caused by the arrival of young Al in our lives! It took him the best part of a weekend to be born but he has been a total joy ever since. We could wax lyrical for pages about our lad but instead you can follow his progress on his weblog. Suffice to say he is beautiful, intelligent and good humoured! Oh, and since August he has officially been a “Young Pirate” (Bristol Rovers young fan club!).

September and October—Al’s first trips overseas … Copenhagen and Brussels

This year’s EASD conference was in Denmark and this time we went as a whole family … Al’s first holiday! To continue Clive’s long standing tradition of including a photo of himself in a Rovers shirt by a famous landmark, here he is by the Little Mermaid with his little son!
We then took Al on his 2nd overseas trip (all before he was 6 months old—starting as we mean to go on) to Brussels. Flying visit so we didn’t get to show him off to many people but we’ll be back in 2007 ...

Winter—End of maternity leave, and Al and his pals

Shân is back at work 3 days a week but still takes Al to see his pals at the village baby group. There must be something in the water around here … 3 babies in our street alone were born within 3 weeks of Al, and several more in the village were within 3 months so he has a great little social group already.

Al's blog

At the advanced age of 6 months Al already has his own weblog and you can take a look if you go to our family website www.petry.co.uk and click on the photo on the front page of Al when he was newborn. See some of his friends and family, as well as some of the places and events he’s been to in his little life so far ...