A Tell All (of sorts)

I am not going to tell you that having 4 children under 8 is easy and I'm definitely not going to tell you that moving to England made life easier.  I will tell you, as any parent would, there are those all important moments that shine through the chaos and frustration to melt your heart, split your sides and make it all worthwhile. 

Since this isn't really a "tell all",  I am not going to show you pictures of what the chaos and frustration has really done.  There will be no pictures of my gray hair and wrinkles, I'm not going to explain how a brain really can atrophy, or tell you what brand of wine I religiously drink, but I will share some recent pictures of my "isn't it great to be a mom" moments. 

They were clean - the diapers, not the kids.  Gotta love half-term. 

Both disappeared just before bed time.  Not good.  I went upstairs and found Laney in her bed looking at a book like I asked.  AJ was not around.  Bad.  Very bad.  I asked Laney where AJ was and as soon as I said his name, his big noggin popped up from under the covers.  She was reading him Thomas books.

This is what usually happens when these two disappear - all 20 were applied. If that smile doesn't scream guilty I don't know what does.

I think his face may have been what prompted the band-aid bonanza.

Owen was sharing the bean love and for Owen that is really saying something.

Laney introduced a little femininity to the Nerf game. Or, maybe, she was being a rockin ballerina?  I have no idea, but whatever it was it was funny.

Sometimes they are just so sweet.

Oh, oops, how did that get in there?  Seriously, this was so fake it made me laugh.  If you could have seen her 30 seconds before this picture...so dramatic.

Then there was the Jedi battle.  Spencer escaped this time, but the princess at the bottom of the picture did not fare so well. Do you want to see how this cliffhanger ended?

I didn't do it - really.  Okay, perhaps I did. You probably don't know this, but if you put on these glasses and say "pyzam" they all collapse and fall into a deep sleep.  Definitely worth it in my opinion.

Such a good guy. 

Picaroons for sure, but they are my picaroons and they really are a good crew (most of the time anyway). 

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Normandy

During the last term break we took a trip to Normandy. We decided to take the ferry over because AJ has been so crazy about boats. Although it takes longer than the train, it was nice to be able to have lunch and walk around a bit and it made the little guy happy.

For a while anyway.

We decided to stay in Honfleur and rented a typical house in the center of the city just around the corner from the harbor.

Several of our days were spent just walking around looking at the buildings,

shopping at the art galleries,

a whole lot of time was spent watching this boat dredge the harbor,

and, of course, our trip would not be complete with feeding a few pigeons; however, this time they got a bit more than they bargained for when AJ started pelting them with French fries...

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is grocery shop. Because we had a kitchen we ate most of our meals at home and were able to try some of the local favorites. The house was right around the corner from a bakery, so we "sampled" quite a few things. In fact, by the third day, the woman on the bakery knew us and sent Sam home with a bag of goodies for us to try. Spencer ate three baguettes a day and all the kids loved the ham so I didn't feel quite so bad about all of my "tasting". Well, that and Sam probably ate 3lbs of cheese.

While there, we toured the beaches and visited the American memorial and I will never forget the expression on Owen's face as we came up the knoll and saw the graves -with his eyes wide and mouth hanging open, he just stopped. The whole D-Day tour was very moving, but the magnitude of the battle did not overpower the coolness of the tanks and boats until they saw all those headstones. Judging their reaction, they will not forget.

From the beaches we headed to Mont St. Michelle and had a great time exploring the tidal island.

The next stop was the walled city of St. Malo. We had dinner at a cafe on top of the wall and watched an incredible storm.  Walking back to our car we were treated to a rainbow over the city. 

We spent one day driving around the immediate area and visited the resort cities of Deauville and Trauville and we stopped at a beach in Villerville that was covered in mussels that were left by the receding tide. The kids were amazed and Sam hungry. 

April 1, the opening day, we visited Giverney. I have to say that Giverney was not at all what I expected. I liked Monet's house more than I thought I would (the kitchen and dining room are to die for) and the gardens were smaller than I thought they would be. Don't ask me why, but from his paintings I expected them to be bigger. Nonetheless, it was a beautiful place.

From there we followed Monet's path to Rouen to see the Notre Dame cathedral. Rouen was not at the top of our list, but were glad we decided to stop - it is a great city.  We toured the Notre Dame Cathedral and while there the boys saw a sword on an alter.  When I explained it was dedicated to Joan of Arc and when they learned she was burned at the stake right in Rouen they were amazed - I think we talked about Joan of Arc the whole way back to Honfleur. 

It was one of those memorable trips where everything went right - the sun came out every time we stepped outside and rained, even hailed, like mad the rest of the time. It seemed like all of the trees were in full bloom. There were no crowds and if there ever was a line we managed to miss it. The wine was fantastic and the Calvados better. Even AJ was well behaved, which might have had something to do with him being very proud of himself for letting us know (loudly) each and every time he saw a cow (by the way, there are a lot of cows in Normandy). It was a great trip and Spencer is already asking when we can go back and has suggested his birthday.

The First Edition

I suppose I should be grateful that we have a dryer at all -  a lot of people here don't.  I have seen a lot of outdoor clothes drying contraptions: airers, lines, hexagonal things, things that retract, on and on.  Actually, I find the whole thing a bit amusing since the sun never seems to shine here, but I guess that is a whole different complaint. 

I would like to say we dry our clothes like this because we are being environmentally responsible and, yes, that is part of it, but really the dryer that came with the house is horrible.  It smells.  As the heat intensifies, so does the smell of dirty socks.  The other problem is the door - when you open it, the little port hole it dips down so that when you go to close it again you have to wrench it up to get it to latch.  Next downside, it holds 2 towels.  It has two settings:  hot and no heat.  The best part, when it is on, you can open it and it still runs and the clothes self eject.  It is a First Edition, do you think that might have something to do with it?  Perhaps they got all of the kinks out with the Second Edition?  I sure hope so. 


I think AJ has found the best use for this First Edition:

Mother's Day

You may be surprised to learn that Mother's Day has come and gone here in England.  When the notice came home for the Mother's Day reception in March, I thought I was really loosing it.  Here "Mothering Day" falls on the 4th Sunday of Lent and was historically a day that people visited their "Mother churches" and a date that servants were given off to return to their families and attend church.

King's College Chapel

To commemorate the day, we decided to see something new and headed off to Cambridge.  It was fantastic!  Actually, it is a lucky thing that my first visit came after the move or Sam would have a bigger commute. 

Great St. Mary's Church

There was a market in the center of the city, and we found a stall that sold baguettes.  While I was buying the baguette Sam headed to the pasty shop to get us a snack.  When I returned the pasty was gone so I headed back for more.  I returned again with piping hot pasties only to find the children feeding the "better than what we have been getting in Essex" baguette to the pigeons.  Before we knew it people were watching and in the blink of an eye, a tourist gabbed the boys (see arrow), threw her arms around them and documented the "British boys" feeding the pigeons. 

A bit stunned, we decided to move along and see some of the sights.  That was when tragedy struck Laney's face.  Actually, it was a cobblestone that stuck her face.  It was cold and she decided to put her hands in her pockets.  Worried that she was going to miss out on a bite of this piping hot pastry filed with cheesy vegetable goodness, she lunged and tripped over my foot.  I'm sure you can fill in the blanks on this one. 

Yet again, we were attracting attention to ourselves so it was time to move along.

We strolled the streets for a while, looking into courtyards as we passed.  We went in the first that welcomed visitors and stumbled upon a chapel with a "princess" (in Laney's eyes) practicing a classical piece on the grand piano.  As if the little church was not amazing enough with its stained glass windows, the sound that came through the piano and filled the church was truly amazing.

We had a nice meal at a pub and I was treated to a beautiful view of the river and boats.

Of course no trip to Cambridge would be complete without a trip punting down the River Cam.  Okay, so my trip could have been complete, but the boys were dying to go on a boat.  So we struck a deal and agreed on the one way trip which proved to be perfect for AJ. 

Owen, Laney and Spencer in front of the Mathematical Bridge

I must say it was beautiful with the bridges and seeing all of those beautiful buildings from that perspective. The added bonus was watching the other tourists try to punt themselves back up the river on the blustery day, now that really worth the ticket.

And to finish off the day - a silver man.  Yeah, not so sure about this one either. 

I had a wonderful Mothering Day. I hope you do too. 

Nothing Like The Last Minute

It had been a while since I had been to the Netherlands to see my grandmother and I had a yearning for some Mergpijpjes (kind of like a petit four only with marzipan rather than fondant) and with a bank holiday on Monday, we decided to make use of the time.  Okay, truth be told this was an 11th hour trip.  Really we woke up Saturday morning, had a cup of coffee, got to talking and by noon we were packed, had a hotel and train reservation and were on the road.  7 hours later we were there.  We traveled one hour by car to Dover and drove our car onto the train that took us through the Channel Tunnel and 35 minutes later we were in France.  We then traveled though France to Belgium and from Belgium to the Netherlands.  Although the weather was beyond lousy, we enjoyed our time with Oma and seeing a few sights in The Hague. 

For anyone interested, we stayed at the Novotel in the center of  The Hague and it was really nice.  It is right across from the Binnenhof (the location of Dutch parliament) and attached to the Passage (a shopping arcade built in 1885).  The hotel was clean and served a very complete breakfast buffet.

Sunday we bought our Strippenkarts (long tickets used for public transportation) and rode the tram from the city center to my grandmother's flat by the dunes of the North Sea.  The kids loved the tram ride, watching the giant waves and eating lots of Stroopwafles (a cookie that is two thin waffles with a caramel like syrup in the middle) with Oma. 

We had a bit of time to show the children a few things in the city and Laney was, of course, particularly enthralled with Princess Maxima and Queen Beatrix.  Having just celebrated Queen's Day on Friday there was plenty to see.  We walked over to the Noordeinde Palace, but Laney was disappointed when I told her we could not go in and say good afternoon, or even "goedemiddag" (she was working on her Dutch). 

Although there was no tea at the palace, Laney did get the royal treatment from her brothers which more than made up for the lack of hospitality from the Dutch royalty. 

We had a nice log weekend and the kids are already planning a return visit, which is probably for the best because if left to me who knows what will happen.