{"id":58,"date":"2005-12-23T12:37:20","date_gmt":"2005-12-23T12:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/?p=58"},"modified":"2017-02-11T11:29:46","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T11:29:46","slug":"merry-christmas-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/?p=58","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas Everyone!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello! I&#39;ve now (almost officially) been writing this blog for a year &#8211; a whole year! And what a year it has been.&#160; When I look back on all of it I&#39;m a bit lost for words, a bit lost overall.&#160; It really has been a rollercoaster!&#160; I remember feeling absolutely rotten a Christmas last year: tired, sick and exhausted at the slightest thing&#8230;and I just thought it was because I was pregnant!<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Christmas this year will be such a special event.&#160; We are absolutely ready! Santa has been informed of all requirements and I believe he has even had to import one item from the USA (via eBay) because it was sold out in the UK!&#160; But before I go on (and on!) about Christmas, I&#39;ll give you an update on life in the Love household.<\/p>\n<p> <!--more--> <\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/boys1.jpg\" width=\"467\" height=\"350\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/chistening1.jpg\" width=\"350\" height=\"467\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>November 27th was the boys christening and it was a wonderful day.&#160; Everyone at church made a wonderful job of decorating the Ashdale hall &#8211; it was such a surprise to see it so beautifully decked out with balloons etc.&#160; I was almost in tears!&#160; The christening was a real milestone for me.&#160;&#160; Charlie and I wanted to do it earlier but it just wasn&#39;t possible &#8211; trying to slot it in between chemotherapy, when I wouldn&#39;t know if I would be well or not, just didn&#39;t seem like a good idea.&#160; I really didn&#39;t like the thought of missing by own sons&#39; christening!<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/chistening2.jpg\" width=\"467\" height=\"350\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Ian, the rector from our church, did a wonderful sermon, which you can download as an mp3 file <a href=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/12\/Sermon.mp3\" target=\"_self\">here<\/a>.&#160; The boys were well behaved (well mostly \ud83d\ude42 and everyone had a good time at the bun fight after (Thank You, Mr Marks &amp; Spencer).&#160; And it was the last formal outing for my wig!<\/p>\n<p>I have so much hair! Its growing in at a phenomenal rate &#8211; thick, curly and&#8230;er&#8230;mousey brown &#8211; that&#39;s not the colour I asked for &#8211; it was supposed to come back in platinum blonde! Oh well, so much for planning (!) &quot;Charlie&#8230;pass me the cheque book I&#39;m off to the salon :-)&quot;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/london1.jpg\" width=\"467\" height=\"350\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The weekend after the christening we went (sans petits enfants) to London.&#160; Amber and Megan were so excited!&#160; It was a such a good time to go&#8230;all the Christmas lights were on and there was carole singing in Trafalgar Square, the streets were mobbed and Hamleys looked like there could be a riot at anytime &#8211; its amazing how Christmas brings out the best in people &#8211; as small children are crushed by adults manically scrabbling for the teddy bear counter&#8230;<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/london2.jpg\" width=\"248\" height=\"477\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We met up with our friends, David and Marylee, in London.&#160; They have two boys, Nathaniel and Ben, so we went down to Leicester Square, and spent some time on the Fairground attractions there.&#160; Megan decided she was a little princess and simply MUST ride on a unicorn on the merry-go-round!&#160; I felt like such a kid on all these rides&#8230;I had such fun!&#160; I must thank Charlie for organising the whole thing, he is such a wizz with directions, airmiles, online booking, the lot&#8230;I&#39;d be lost without him \ud83d\ude42 xxx<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/london3.jpg\" width=\"263\" height=\"271\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We had a great time at Mademe Tussauds (Charlie and Amber too part in the X-Factor)&#160; My sides nearly burst laughing!!!!&#160; And I love this shot of Amber in Little Britian!<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/06\/london4.jpg\" width=\"291\" height=\"326\" hspace=\"6\" alt=\"Image\" title=\"Image\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In terms of my treatment, I am now on maintenance therapy which means that I have a range of different drugs to take over the next two years.&#160; I&#39;m currently taking Mercaptopurine &#8211; which reduces my blood counts a bit (I think its called <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello! I&#39;ve now (almost officially) been writing this blog for a year &#8211; a whole year! And what a year it has been.&#160; When I look back on all of it I&#39;m a bit lost for words, a bit lost overall.&#160; It really has been a rollercoaster!&#160; I remember feeling absolutely rotten a Christmas last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":197,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanessablog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}