The Zombie Hideout and the Do-It-All-Bottle

    By: Caleb      While we were in Belgium we visited a Flemish beguinage that's recently been added to the UNESCO World Heritage list. Here beguines, or 'religious women' (think nuns) wished to live an independent but committed life outside the recognized orders of the day, and took a pledge of fidelity and poverty. The convent had a hospital and a cathedral-looking gothic church, and it was made to function completely independent of the outside world. So of course I immediately thought, "what a perfect zombie apocalypse hideout!" The zombie hideout convent is complete with walls surrounding the whole thing. Boo-ya.

                                       
                Everything you see here is within the walled beguinage.  (Mom always points out the                           flower boxes in the windows.)
                                               

                                                                   The Entrance

                                          A walkway lined by trees woven together to make a flat wall.

And...let me introduce you to the Face and Flower Finger Flusher--the device which enables you to wash your face AND water your flowers AT THE SAME TIME. CALL NOW and this too could be yours...BUT WAIT we'll double the offer if you call NOW. (Note the sign in Dutch.  I'm sure it says, "Here are the Face and Flower Finger Flushers.")
                                                     

Greetings from Belgium

Our princess, Victoria, has already posted on our trip to Belgium, but I (Brad) cannot help adding a blog entry as well.

We spent about five days in Belgium (August 15-19) and had a wonderful time.

Here we are, totally candid in the Brussels train station (we took the Eurostar from London to Brussels, then another train on to Leuven, where we spent the bulk of our time).

Once in Leuven, we experienced our first Airbnb.  It was super, and was great to have a complete home/flat for our time in Leuven.  Here we are outside our flat.

We had the opportunity to visit a Beguine community in Leuven.  It was absolutely beautiful.  Essentially a "city-within-a-city," where single women (generally older) could live as a type of religious order.  The plague below explains this.

We rented a car one day and drove to beautiful Bruges.  A wonderful medieval town.  Here we are overlooking the river that runs through the town.

And we are here outside our first-ever airbnb.

And I am not sure I will get used to the small coffees that are sometimes served over here.

So long from the Greens!  Blessings to you!

Lovely London.

Well this entry is by Dan the man. Ok lets see, after our lovely stay in Belgium we, on the trek home, stopped by London and saw our wonderful friends the Greylings. We got to their apartment, after a long underground from Kings Cross, and had an awesome dinner and San Pellegrino sparkling water. Yum. We had a great sleep then went to the city centre of London! Well actually the girls split off to go to some market thing. Shrug. Sounds fun tho. Here are some pics of them with some chocolate truffles... or "truffles". (They were fungi truffles :/ )

                                                              I'm sure they had a blast.

              Now the boys went to the Imperial War Museum with a special World War 1 exhibit! The museum had a very large variety of World War 1 exhibits and Caleb said it was his favourite exhibit he has ever been to. They had lots of weapons, tanks, uniforms, and screens telling us different ideas of the war, and much more. Here are some pics from the place:

              Once we had had our fill, we joined the girls and went to Mary Poppin's house!

                                    (The Greens kids when they think no one is watching:))
              Anyway, thanks for reading, and so long till next time,
                                                                                                  Dan.

The following entry brought to you by Victoria, Duchess of Dwelling 8:

WELCOME TO BELGIUM!

...and Caleb says hi 

As we were in Belgium, I thought it was appropriate to eat some chocolate...

maybe a bit more...

and just a wee bit more. :)

My exquisite parents bought me a hands-down scrumptious Belgian waffle with Nutella and strawberries...

We could not keep our eyes off it, or my mouth from inhaling it. Behind my mater and me is a perfect example of a typical Belgium street, complete with bikes, flower boxes in windows, cobblestone streets (probably dating back to the Middle Ages, of course) and outdoor cafes lining the streets. 

While in Ghent, a flemish city in the province of Flanders that is famous for a poem by Robert Browning, we saw this beautiful church, with a charming river running alongside. The fact that it was sunset completed the picturesque scene. Beside me are the two stud boys, and I am in Neverland. (I'm reading Peter Pan at the moment.) 

Below is Leuven's (where dad had a conference) city hall...compare it to Jackson's (if you need comparison). ;)  In each alcove, there is carved a different disciple, saint, monarch, Jesus, or other important figure from the Bible or European history.  Everything you see is carved in stone. Wow.  It's sad that people don't build these types of things nowadays.

Just another breathtaking memory...

So long from Belgium.

And so ends another post from the Duchess of Dwelling 8.
Ciao!

Ok, this entry is by Dan. So i am gonna speak about this legit castle in Scotland we went to called Alnwick castle, pronounced "anik". Classic British. Anyways, this castle was very old and aesthetic looking in and out of itself, but what made it special is that it's where 5 different scenes for Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone were filmed. And the best part is that Mom and Dad surprised us! Well Tori and me at least. Caleb was somewhere else in Scotland.

1. The first scene we saw that was filmed there was this.

We obviously didn't take the above picture.  This is the one we took:

Pretty cool. 

2. The second scene they showed us is when they were first learning to fly:

                                                                       

 These are the pics we took:

This is I crash landing, and Tori doing her magic:

This is from the movie:

3. The whomping willow and the forbidden forest was filmed here, but the whomping willow isn't  a       real tree, so sad. And the forbidden forest is just a normal forrest. 

4. The quidditch field is also fake, but we got pictures where it was computerized:

                                                                   

                                                                    We took this pic:

The quidditch field is right in between the 2 buildings.

                  In conclusion, this castle was super awesome, and well, so long till next time:)

By: Caleb

Things I will always remember about CB3 Youth Camp in Wales...

         1. Just how many times I hit my head on the low ceiling and never remembered when it was there until I did it again.
         2. No shampoo, only a trash can and soap dispenser. So I will never forget dumping soap in the trash can and rubbing it in my head, then putting my dirty clothes in the soapy trash can and stomping on them till "clean."
         3. The sight of drying clothes sporadically scattered across the roof of the posh boarding house where we stayed...drying. They would dry during the day, we would forget to bring them in and it would rain that night. Over and Over again.  So by the last day we remembered and FINALLY had dry clothes.
         4. Yes Stevie (an America classmate) and I did suffer from the after smells ( From #3 above). From mildew and wet socks all week long...
         5. Last but not least, the renewing feeling of God-filled fun for a week.

THIS EDITION OF CAMBRIDGE CAPERS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE FOLLOWING:
VICTORIA, Duchess of Dwelling 8

HIYA! (That's what these here Brits say)
We have had an amazing week. One of my absolute fondest memories was when my family and I went to Felixstowe Beach with our friends the Jongkinds.

Here lies my exquisite mum and dad

I didn't know England had such waves! I had a glorious, revolutionizing experience when I looked over the sea and saw huge waves no smaller than THREE feet! Well, we wondered that since England was capable of waves of this stature, then could there possibly be even bigger waves around the bend? So, we trekked along the pebble beach and voila! the combination of the howling wind, big motorboats, and God's handiwork, made these waves gargantuan.  It was terrifying. And the complete epitome of fun. We dove under and through, surfed and floated on those waves, choking on salt water all the way, with Caleb roaring, imitating a wild beast of some sort. So worth it.

example A of us surfing the waves

After that we were pretty tired, so, for our amusement, we watched some wind surfers get twenty feet of air on the water.

It was also pretty entertaining watching a grown man, two feet in the water, holding a bright pink boogie board, trying in vain to get past the crests of the waves. Every time he would get just a ways out, he would get smacked. It would put him on his hands and knees, and the unkind waves would take advantage of this, and take him down again. It was a vicious cycle. Hilarious.

This is sort of how the man looked. In reality it is Caleb doing his beast imitation.

Our wonderful friends the Jongkinds, and...... um, it looks like Caleb is now imitating a bloated hipster.  For all you Augustinites, you may recognize Daniel's shirt...

                         This is a totally candid picture, despite me looking directly at the camera, and it ended up being a really good example of how strong the wind was.

And so ends the Duchess' dynamic daily diary...

Golfing in Cambridge

We recently had a great time going golfing outside Cambridge, in the village of Bourne.  The Green children actually seemed to take to golfing, and did super.  I engaged in several hours of a certain activity which might conceivably be called "golfing."  This was a great day with the Jongkind family (Posted by Brad, August, 2016).

Settling In...Grateful To Be Here

So, our first month here in England is a wrap. Literally every single day one (or more) of us in the family says, “I can’t believe we’re really here.”  We are so very grateful, and are loving every minute.

HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Week in Scotland. Our dear friends the Robars invited us to go with them to "The Borders", as they are called, in Scotland, as her parents had rented a manor house (complete with a fabulous cook) in the Scottish countryside. 

The view was stunning, with rolling hills, a winding river, enormous (climbable) trees, and bleating sheep.  Among many memories there, we watched for the first time the 5½ hour version of Pride and Prejudice.  It was such great fun watching it while in the UK with friends who could explain so many of the phrases and nuances. The kids (read that as the boys) were surprised that they actually enjoyed a movie that was MAINLY talking, as they described it, as opposed to, well, the latest Jason Bourne movie, which was not. 

One of the most memorable parts of the manor house where we stayed was that we took a hidden staircase up to our quarters, which once upon a time was where the servants lived.  (Incidentally this house had 4 stories, three of which can be seen in the photo.  Our family's rooms were in the triangular roof part, and it had windows cut out of the roof for sunlight and circulation.) I couldn’t help but hear the Downton Abbey theme song when I would go up and down the staircase.

CB3 Youth Camp.  Last week all 3 kiddos headed to youth camp in Wales with our church here, Eden Baptist Church.  When they returned, we sat around the kitchen table and laughed for over an hour at all their stories of playing sports they had never heard of, eating foods they didn’t know existed, and not remembering to call the clothing on the bottom half of their body “trousers”, because “pants” refers to underwear.  And folks around here don’t talk about such things.  At least they didn’t. 

Golfing.  Who knew the kids first golfing experience would be in England?  Well, they loved it, and are planning on going pro. Tomorrow.

                                     

C.S. Lewis’ chair/room. Yes, that there chair (in which Daniel sits) was the chair of the man himself when he was a fellow (think senior professor) here at Cambridge University.  We are in what was Lewis’ sitting room next to his office, and is still used today by the vicar (pastor in the Anglican church).  We were thrilled to have had the opportunity to see Lewis’ personal quarters here at Magdalene College (part of Cambridge University), as normally they only allow tourists to see the window to his office, and from the outside.

Visitors.  A definite highlight of this first month has been the visitors who have come to see us.  Here we present them with their awards.

The Right-Out-of-the-Shoot Award goes to Stevie Padgett, as he so easily rolled with us as we were just arriving.  He experienced our first grocery delivery of the season, which was a couple of days AFTER he arrived.  We are still not sure what we fed him until that point.

 






The Double Take Award goes to Patrick and Laura Lee Andre, as we were expecting them on one day, then on the day before, Brad was in the library studying and saw someone who favored Patrick—even with an American accent—being given a tour of the library.  On second glance, and to our complete delight, it WAS Patrick and Laura Lee. They were here over Brad’s birthday and we celebrated with a picnic and outdoor Shakespeare play in the King's College Gardens (which are part of Cambridge University). Great to see them! :)

The Flexible Family Award goes to the Dave Gobbett family, as all 6 of them slept here in Caleb and Daniel's room as they visited us from Cardiff, Wales. The Gobbett's used to live in Cambridge, where Dave was Assistant Pastor of our church, and we love them like family.

And lastly, the 90-Year-Old-Sick-Tortoise Award goes to Ben Gill, who was a vet student when we were here in 2014, and now has now graduated and is a veterinarian practicing in Wales, and his best story from being a first year vet in the Welsh countryside involved a 90-year-old sick tortoise.  Wait, what???

Well, that about wraps it up for now...until next time...

From Cambridge with love,

Brad, Dianne, Caleb, Daniel, and Victoria