November
Dawn left us for England early in November, as we braced ourselves for the promised bitterly cold New Jersey winter - pah! These guys obviously haven't stood on an open terrace at a football game with bare-chested Newcastle fans and six degrees of frost !
In an inspired moment of clear thinking, we decided to channel Thomas' 'nervous energy' into something more controlled and disciplined, and he began Karate lessons at The Little Gym. The sight of Thomas in a sparkling white Gi suit launching flying kicks at other small children gave us doubts about the wisdom of our decision, but after a while he seemed to get more satisfaction from practising the exercises and less from inflicting pain.
Another holiday, another trip to the Wishnick's ! Michael and Jennifer invited us to the major American holiday at their house, with Michael's mother and brother, Jennifer's parents and two sisters - all in all a houseful. With Michael being Jewish, we fell hook, line and sinker for the 'kosher ham' jokes, since Michael and Jennifer aren't orthodox and the consumption of cooked ham was allowed. The amazing thing about the day was the speed with which the food was cleared, packed and left-overs handed out.
"Would you like to take some Turkey home, Linda ?"
"Actually, can I eat some here ?"
Second time around and Linda passed her driving test with flying colours - just in time for us to board a plane for our first family trip back to England.
December
Chris needed to be in London in time for a Trade Show, so this was a great moment to make our first full trip - time to catch up on friends and family, exchange christmas gifts, and of course, throw a birthday party for Tom. We decided to stay at David's, which made it easier to persuade the company to let us rent a nice big car for the week, which Linda got to drive while Chris struggled into The City by train and underground. The combination of freezing cold mornings on Potters bar station, incompetent underground staff and two hour return journeys persuaded Chris that we had absolutely definitely done the right thing in relocating. Work had become pretty miserable, since the long hours, a transition of duties and trying to work transatlantic hours contributed to a round of sleepless nights and night sweats, as well as Chris not getting to see as many people as he would have liked (apologies !)
Thomas' party at Borough Way went with a swing, particularly Adam's magic tricks, and rounded off the week before we headed ...'home'.
Back in Hopewell, Thomas brought about our first brush with the emergency services when he took a tumble at Nursery and split his eye open on a table corner. A couple of frantic phone calls later and we converged on the paediatrician (Thomas has a different, GP-equivalent to Linda and Chris, a child-specialist) where they calmly dealt with the emergency trauma with soothing words a four stitches. We were in and out of there in about 40 minutes.
The 21st was a very special day for us - well, of course it was Chris' birthday, but more importantly we saw Thomas in his first proper Nativity Play in the Presbytarian Church. Tom played a shepherd, and not only did he sing all the words to all the songs with gusto, but he was also not the worst behaved child on the stage - thank goodness !
For Thomas' American friends (actually Alex Smith, and Joe and Louis Capon are all English) we threw ANOTHER cinema party, this one taking in Jimmy Neutron and some pizza. Tom's new girlfriend Jasmine came along. Thomas has promised us that they are going to get married when they grow up - gulp !!
We visited Richard and Deidre Baum for drinks on the Sunday before Christmas. Richard is from Australia and Deidre from NZ, but they count as Factiva ex-pats and are part of the social circle. They have a darling young boy called Jared who Linda sometimes looks after when Deidre has to work (she has trained and is now working as a realtor).
Christmas Day finally rolled around, and we joined the Smiths for an enormous Christmas lunch, games, present opening before we retreated back to our apartment to nurse our tummies and curl up together. The first and only and all to brief snow fell between Christmas and New Year, so we took the snowboard that Tom received from the Capon's for his birthday and took it to Hopewell Cemetery on the side of a long hill out of town.
January
Thomas returned to Nursery and the world returned to normal early in January. January is normally a quiet month, and apart from a visit from an old Factiva colleague from London, we had a very quiet month mocking the Americans about the lack of snow. Thomas did his first performance at Karate, and earned himself a red stripe for his white belt. We also threw a couple of dinner parties, including one for Sandy and Craig, neighbours who we have become very friendly with, only to learn that they will be moving away soon.
February
One thing that life in America offers is opportunity - and one long standing ambition Chris has is to learn about picture framing. Princeton Adult Education offered a six week evening class, so Chris jumped at it - not least as a welcome respite from the increasing pressure of work.
Linda's birthday was spent at lunch with the girlfriends ("ladies who lunch" - ha!) at the local Bistro Brothers Moon, and she was so full of food that we had to delay a family meal until the weekend.
The 24th of the month saw Chris desperately scouring the TV pages and the Internet for some small chance of viewing Spurs in the Worthington Cup Final. Having already resorted to listening to the semi-final victory on Chelsea's own internet radio station, hopes were not high. A trip to a sports bar in Washington was contemplated, but it soon became clear that nowhere in the continental US would be showing pictures of the game, and in a ghastly 'history repeating itself' way, the only internet radio station was Rovers Radio, which recorded Blackburn's victory in a very downbeat way.
