Happy Holiday Friends & Family –
What an amazing, exciting and unpredictable year and we can’t wait to share the highlights with
you.
We know that many of you can’t wait to hear about our word
of the year. Some of you love to tease
us about it, others celebrate it with us and a few share YOUR word of the year
with us. Either way, it gives us an
opportunity to stop in this crazy world we live in and appreciate and remember
all of 2011’s great events.
Drumroll please…. Our 2011 world of year is “Firsts.” We have had a lot of FIRSTS this year: parenting, a home, our dogs and many, many
more. We can’t wait to tell you about
our year of FIRSTS.
FIRST TRIP TO CHINA – This year, Christina’s company decided
to host their global sales conference in CHINA.
While Christina was not excited to be away from her family, it was a
unique experience for her. Once she
survived the 24 hour flight (they had to emergency land in Alaska because a
young man had a heart attack), she was excited to arrive in Hong Kong. A small group of co-workers spent a full day
seeing the sights, shopping and eating local cuisine. The people were beautiful, respectful and very
hospitable. She wanted to take all the
little children home with her, they were so cute! After Hong Kong, they went about 2 hours
north to the province of Dongguan. This
is where the majority of footwear is produced around the world. She was able to see the factories for the
FIRST time and see where the leather was prepared, outsoles produced and shoes
that were well, turned into shoes, placed in shoe boxes and shipped all over the
world! It was an incredible thing to see
and to watch the thousands of people who leave their families in hopes of better
providing for their family and do it all to make our shoes. She was also grateful for SKYPE. With the 12 hour difference, she would wake
up in the morning to say good night to Clive.
Seeing each other every day helped bridge the distance. They were all glad to be reunited after a week apart!
FIRST EXPERIENCE WORKING IN THE WORLD OF BEAUTY – So you
think we’re talking about Christina…
NOPE. Josh started a job with
Living Proof. It’s a beauty company
based in Cambridge, MA that makes a fantastic line of products for your
HAIR. A couple of guys from M.I.T.
started it and they have big plans for really growing. The twist with this company
is that it’s built on science. They
create a product that scientifically works with your hair. Pretty cool. So if you have frizzy hair, need a good
product for blow drying your hair straight or want to restore your hair to its
“virgin” status, call us. We get a great
discount! We use it now and it really is
good stuff.
FIRST HOUSE – We bought our first house together! We moved to a great neighborhood in
Waltham. We are near Brandeis University
and it’s really centrally located to just about anything. It only takes us 10-15 minutes to get to
Boston. We live in a quiet neighborhood
at the end of a dead end street. Clive
can run and play and we don’t have to worry about cars driving by. We have a view of the Cambridge Reservoir
which has been really nice lately since all the trees have lost their leaves. We a ton more space and a good size backyard
to run and play in. We are happy to call
this our FIRST home.
FIRST DOG- Putter was Christina’s first baby, first dog, and
first real companion. She experienced many
of her FIRSTS with Putter (first job, first apartment on her own, adding their
first baby, Clive). This past July, they lost their Putter. It was an incredibly tough time for all of
the family, but they knew that he had an amazing 12.5 years. Derby is doing ok and adjusting to being the
only dog and Clive certainly keeps her on her toes! Josh and Christina would always joke, that
in their next life, they want to be Putter!
Putter always looked out for Christina and knew that she would now be in
good hands with Josh, Clive and Derby.
They miss him every day and often tell stories about Putter. Someday Christina hopes to write her FIRST
book…about Putter and his adventures!
FIRST BIRTHDAY – Clive celebrated his FIRST birthday! It was such a great day and they hope to
carry on the birthday breakfast tradition.
Josh and Christina want to always start Clive’s day on the right foot,
so they will always be able to have breakfast together and celebrate as a
family. We had a breakfast party and
invited our friends (to come in their pj’s) and celebrate Clive’s special day. We enjoyed yummy breakfast
food (including a waffle station) and a balloon twister. We had a Curious George theme and the balloon lady made
Clive a monkey out of balloons and any other animal the kids could
imagine. It was a huge hit. Clive had a great FIRST birthday.
So, we can’t end this year without one dose of SECONDS…just
like Thanksgiving, it’s almost taboo to not have seconds. So, we wanted to share some great news with
you. Clive is going to have his FIRST
sibling! New Baby Newman is due at the
end of June. They are all very excited
and are looking forward to their newest family member. Clive is going to be an amazing big
brother. So far, Christina is feeling
great and look forward to sharing more updates soon!
We hope you enjoyed hearing about our year. Please tell us about yours. We say this every year, but we think of each
and every one of you. We wish you all
the peace, love and happiness that you deserve.
Enjoy the holidays and here’s to a 2012 filled with SECONDS!
Love,
Josh, Christina
Clive, Derby and New Baby Newman
