our little entrepreneurs

Letty has been asking to have a lemonade stand... and since we weren't really enthusiastic about it  so she and her dad came up with growing tomato plants instead.  After purchasing some seeds from the pound store they were planted and she dutifully took care of them, naming them and all (sprout, leafy tiny etc.).  She was so excited to go out on the street and sell her plants.  After an hour and a half she was sold out and very excited!  T-man then had fun teaching her about business fundamentals of costs and profits etc.  I'm wondering what she is going to want to sell next?

Leeds Castle and Canterbury

At the beginning of the month we took an excursion to Leeds Castle and then when on to Canterbury.  I'm not going to take the time to go into a history here but in case you want to learn more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leeds_Castle help yourself.

 Leeds has amazing grounds and plenty of space.  It is also full of birds.

 We had fun in the hedge maze.

 Canterbury has been the center of Christian worship in England for over a thousand years.

 quite extraordinary inside

 I had to take a picture of this picture to show what a presence this cathedral is.

She really wanted some of the noodles as you can see.  She was pretty proud of her skills.  She seems to be able to use these joined chop sticks pretty sell.

 Yum yum

local happenings

In between our guests we've had a couple of things going on around here. Gracie started going to preschool two days a week.  She was very excited.  This is her on her first day.  A lovely thing about England is that they provide three and four-year-olds 15 hours a week of free preschool.  I'm only using about half of my hours.  She really likes it, and its great for her to be able to do something on her own and not e depend on her big sister.

 The Brighton Festival started yesterday with a kick off of the Children's Parade.  There were about 75 schools that marched in the parade with the theme of "Stories through the Ages."  It was cold but the kids liked it and we enjoyed seeing the creative floats and unique way of making them.

 an example of the art work

 I think this one was part of Peter Pan

 A posing for the picture.  Her posing reminds me how Letty used to pose, always ready for a picture.

Letty's class did Romulus and Remus.  A legend of how Rome was founded.  The story goes something like this:  Romulus and Remus were twin brothers abandoned by their parents put into a basket in the River Tiber.  A wolf found the babies, nursed them until they were found by a shepard who raised them.  When grown, the brothers wanted to build a city where the wolf found them.  They quarreled and Romulus killed Remus.  Romulus then decided on the place for the city which is now know and Rome.  So there you have it a story I certainly didn't learn in the second grade (or year 3 as the call it here).

visitors and excursions

We have been very fortunate to have had family come and see us.  It's been a lovely treat.  Pika came on my birthday.  It was very nice to celebrate with her and she allowed Tim and I to go on a little date that afternoon.  Shortly after she returned to her stay in Germany, my sister, her husband and mother-in-law came for a week.  They stayed very busy as they toured London, Paris, and some English sites.  It was really nice to have them here even though it was short.

 Eating dinner at our local pub.  They have awesome pizza.

 T-man went to a lot of work to make me this birthday dessert, it was great!  The picture was an after thought as it would have looked nicer before we dug into it.  It was very sweet of him to make something instead of the easier buying it.  A true labor of love.

 Near Brighton Pier

 Having a tea party on the back steps.

 Windsor castle, where the Queen spends as many weekends as she can.

 J and his Mom

 Windsor Castle

 Oxford is a beautiful city.  Here we are at Christ Church College.

 I kept seeing signs like this, I'm not sure how you find your way around.

 Bridge of Sighs

 I loved the pattern of this gate.  It was part of Bodleian Library (one of the oldest European Libraries)

 I thought these looked like asparagus.

This is what we look like most of the time touring around :)

 My sister and I enjoyed an outing to Arundel Castle.  Luckily we enjoyed a rain free day.

 Watering my kids.  The castle gardens were beautiful!

 Arundel Gardens

 Arundel Gardens

Walking around this castle made it easy to invision living there.

Brugge and The Hague

A couple of weeks ago we had a long weekend so we took a trip to Belgium and the Netherlands.  We drove and the kids loved going on the EuroTunnel (not the driving).  You drive your car into the train and ride for about 30min.  It was pretty cool.  It felt so good to be driving on the right side of the road again (All mainland Europe drives on the right) even though our steering wheel is on the wrong side.  Brugge is amazing!  Such a beautiful place.  We stayed right in town and enjoyed this awesome walking city, cobble stones everywhere and lots and lots of chocolate shops.  We would start in about 10:30am trying the different chocolate shops just to make sure one wasn't better than another.  We had a nice boat tour and enjoyed walking all over town.  We had a great couple of days there.  The weather was a bit cold but no rain until Holland.  We tried to stop in Brussels on our way to the Netherlands but because of traffic we scrapped it.  We made a pit stop in Antwerpen on our way to The Hague.  We got into our hotel which seemed really nice and headed to the dining room to get some dinner.  So we are sitting there waiting for our food and I notice a few tables away that the people kept staring at us.  I figured it was because of our "large" family which happens on occasion but they just kept staring.  I was getting pretty uncomfortable at this point until I see them pointing to the floor.  I look over to see a little mouse...I gasp and instinctively pull my feet up which made them laugh, not funny in my mind. The little old man gets up with his napkin and tries to throw it on the mouse which didn't work and it scurries under our table somewhere and then disappeared or else off to torture someone else.  A few minutes went by and the manager comes over and says "so I hear you had a little visitor" a little visitor...yeah I say eye brows raised. "Yes, well it's a known problem and we are working on it."  Working on it! are you kidding me! Where I come from you can't have mice in a restaurant. I didn't really know how to reply to him I was still shocked. Needless to say no one was feeling very hungry after that.  I guess we'll never forget that evening right?  As for things we did we got to see a cute little art museum, walked around their downtown, saw the Temple, went to church all in Dutch, saw windmills, and went to Keukenhof (amazing gardens).

 Brugge

 Brugge

 The oldest Brugge bridge "Mead bridge" where back in the day they would sell mead and other herbs.

 crow-stepped gable, very typical of Brugge

 fun holland shoe decoration

 loved all of the bicycles

 The Easter bunny managed to find us in Begium and left some delicious chocolate eggs in carton.

 A sampling of some yummy chocolates!  Melt in your mouth goodness that have divine fillings not sickeningly sweet gooeyness that we do in the states.

 The kids begged to stay for primary in The Hague and ended up with these darling bunny breads from a sweet Dutch lady who spoke very little English.  They came with an egg in the middle.

DE KERK JEZUS CHRISTUS VAN DE HEILIGEN DER LAATSTE DAGEN 

Den Haag Nederland Tempel

 The Hague standing across from Museum Gevangenpoort where we saw Vermeers' Girl with the Pearl Earring (it happened to be on loan from the museum we wanted to go to but it was closed).

 Parliament buildings and Knights hall

 The Hague, I need that door.

 Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse- Holland

 making wooden shoes

 We were lucky to not have rain until Monday our last day and we happened to be outside most of the time which made it slightly miserable but I thought these tulips captured the drops beautifully.

 Amazing colors...they had some awesome greenhouses which allowed us to escape the rain.

 Stroopwafel, yum.