Santa's arrival

Santa showed up, but he was a lot shorter than we thought he would be.


Bill couldn't tell which was the real Santa!


With Santa here we could start opening presents up. Bill was sneaking over to open some of Ray's presents up.

Later we had Christmas dinner, and Bill got a nice hat to wear from a cracker.

Christmas!

For Christmas we went to the US, and Bill got to meet Strange Claus, also known as Father Panda.


After I got dressed up Bill wanted to also, so he became a stocking stuffer.


The tree looked really big from down there.

And there were so many presents!

Beautiful bowls together at last

Dad finally got around to making a bowl of my lovely face as well, so now there is the perfect set, just like the two of us together.

Our bowls were very popular at the Christmas dinner.

My bowl - it's the best!

My face is so gorgeous, and you can see my little tail sticking out the top.

Here you can see my bill and feet which go over the edge of the bowl.

Here's half of the bottom of the bowl - with a tree with a tiny SP climbing it and the sun.

On the other half of the bottom there are yummy water bugs for me to eat.

Thanksgiving dinner

Dad cooked us a big dinner for Thanksgiving this year, so we all got to eat lots of food.

There was nothing left at the end except the paper turkey and pumpkin. Strange Panda tried to eat the pumpkin but he said it didn't taste good.

Marathon all finished

Here we are all kitted up in our marathon clothes - Strange Panda wore the shirt and I had a the number on.

After we finished they wrapped us up in a heat sheet to stay warm and gave us this shiny medal.

Here we are with our medal again.

New York Marathon - here we come

So we got to take another trip to the US. This time we went there so we could run in the New York Marathon. We stayed with Dad's friend from college, Carmen, in New Jersey.

A lot of the preparation involved waiting and trying not to get injured. So here we are checking our email.

We also did lots of resting of course.

And we made a new friend Chloe the cat who also liked resting.

We also watched a bit of TV. Anything to keep busy and not get hurt.

Fun in the sun

The family took a trip to the beach, where we got to do some nice resting, as you can never do too much.

The beach cottage was right by the ocean. We could look out the window to see lots of waves.

Unfortunately we couldn't see any sea-platypuses or sea-pandas from the window.

Visiting the grandparents

We got to visit our grandparents and do lots more resting at their house.

Room with a View

Our hotel room had a little balcony which we could sit on and watch the garden below.

There was a nice fountain which played music down below that we could watch too.

Off to the US

We packed ourselves in Dad's bag for another trip to the US.

When we got there I was very tired so I went to bed, but Strange Panda ran around the hotel room a lot.

Garden of Delight!

The best part about the fancy garden was the bamboo forest it had!

It's so hard to find good bamboo in England, so I had a feast of bamboo from this garden.

Fancy house on a hill

On our last day we went to a fancy house on a hill and walked around their gardens. They had a lot of flowers.


They also have a fountain that Lindsay, Maria, Strange Panda and I posed in front of. Dad took this picture while we were all primping our hair.


This is the final picture, with us all looking gorgeous.

Monaco

After watching the Tour de France for awhile, I walked around the Monaco harbor.


Monaco seemed very pretty to me - there was a lot of water, and that equals a lot of water bugs.

Racing in the Tour de France

I decided it might be fun to race in the Tour myself, so I put on a human body and got on my bike. I did pretty well - number one in platypuses in the time trial!


Daddy tried to do well in the bike race too, but with SP and I pushing him out of the biker body, it was difficult and he was disqualified from the race.

Tour de France

Bill and I decided to go to the Tour de France Wednesday morning and we brought Dad along.

It was neat seeing all the crowds who were here to see the racers. I don't know if a panda can enter the Tour de France but I might try next year.

We found this devil guy in a local restaurant. He was desperate to have his picture with us so he could become famous.

Walking around France

We took a walk around the peninsula and found a nice place to eat our lunch. We had packed a bag so we had some food. We borrowed Maria's sun hat for our lunch so we did not get burned.


Lindsay was holding me and Dad had Bill for this picture. Unfortunately, Bill was talking to Dad so they were not looking at the camera.

This is when Maria took the picture again. Bill was still causing trouble (as usual) though.

View from the hotel

The hotel had a great view from its balcony.


We liked to stare out at the sea and bask in the sun. It was very beautiful, but a little hot for me. Strange Panda got burnt and his fur turned a bit pink in the sun.

Planning our route

Dad didn't know where to go in France, so Bill and I helped map out a good walking route for him.

Arrival in France

Dad took us to St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in southern France for a five-day trip. We got to the hotel and fell asleep, tired from the travelling.