Home At Last!

Well, we did, in fact, make it home...(we laughed that this is the first outdoor photo in four months WITHOUT the blue coats!! :)  We came home to blessing after blessing bestowed by friends...beautiful (and leafless) lawn and flower beds, fresh flowers inside and out, food for days (literally), oodles of visits, calls, and cups of tea. :)   How blessed and thankful we are for our friends!  The kindness shown to us was humbling...overwhelming...appreciated. A heartfelt thanks to all...

The kids were so happy to be reunited with Bullet, our dog!!  Another sweet surprise left for us, since Victoria's cat Snowball was hit and killed by a car while we were away, was this adorable calico kitten, which Victoria named Butterfinger.

London Memories...

Daniel, quite the budding photographer, snagged this shot of Big Ben...

Here it is again with the Parliament Building to the right, along with two dashing young men...

The London Eye...takes just under an hour to go around one time.  Do you see the way the pods are perched on the OUTSIDE/TOP of the wheel?!?!?!  GUARANTEE only 4 Greens will be headin' up...

River Thames...

So, for the record, just how long ARE the buses over here?

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre...hard to tell, but it does have a thatched roof.  This one, still used today, is an exact replica and in the original location as the one in Shakespeare's day.  Cool.

This one gives a little better view of the stage.  There was a trap door both above and below the stage, which the kids found immensely intriguing, and then where the people are standing was actually (in Shakespeare's day) where hundreds of people would stand throughout the entire performance.  If the people didn't like the play or the performing of it, they would throw fish and rotten vegetables at the actors.  The one benefit the boys said for standing thruout an entire play would have been for better aim with the veggies!  :)

Mmmmmmmm....

So, we went to the Museum of Natural Sciences, where we had heard that they had the last remaining dodo (bird), in stuffed form, of course.  So, ladies and gentlemen, may Victoria present...the dodo!

Also in this museum is an extensive dinosaur museum (note tail over our heads).  Note of interest here.  We went to this museum on a school holiday (BIG mistake)...any guesses how many people had been thru that day?  500?  1000?  Are you ready?  We were told (by the lady up front with the people-counter) that by 1pm, more that 20,000 people had been thru, and we decided that they were ALL still in there when we were there! 

The kids loved this silhouette of Sherlock Holmes.  The mystery of this photo is getting it to face the right direction on the blog.  Oh dear. :)

This ranks as one of the best things of our ENTIRE trip...

Winston Churchill's wartime bunker underground.

Group hug before the Vintzels headed home...

Paris, Part Trois

We loved the narrow alleyways of Paris...walked along this one in the Latin Quarter to find lunch, and were successful at the very end...

...where we found a Greek gyro stand...DELICIOUS!!

Note the hanging hunk of meat from which they cut the meat for our gyros...

 

For dessert we had French pancakes (by special request of Tori Vintzel), complete with Nutella (Is there a more perfect food on the planet?) and bananas.  Scrumptious!!

So, these are some of the fountains in the courtyard of the Louvre.  There is a distinction to be made here.  We went TO the Louvre, not IN the Louvre.  Here's the story:  After arriving at 2:20pm (it opened at 2pm), we learned that the four hour (!) line had been cut off at 11am FOR THE ENTIRE DAY.   So, anyone arriving after 11am was not allowed to enter the Louvre that day.  SERIOUSLY?!?!?!  Who knew...  But...

...we still had great fun playing around the courtyards, like when Caleb took his turn to touch the top of the famous glass pyramid, which serves as the main entrance to the museum.  Or when, out of nowhere, a torrential hail storm struck, sending folks scrambling for cover.  It came about so suddenly that it reminded me of one of those cartoons where thousands of people dash for cover in mere seconds.  Hilarious.  THAT (the hailstorm) is my kids favorite memory of Paris. :)

So, we headed to the vast and impressive Sacre-Coeur (Sacred Heart of Christ) basilica, one of France's most important Roman Catholic Churches.  It is set high on a hill (the kids counted 228 steps up to it), from which one could see the whole of Paris:

It's a very common sight in Paris to see street performers of all varieties.  This guy was truly amazing with a soccer ball.  He was just outside the church on a raised column about four feet by four feet.  The things he could do in such a small space were remarkable...almost mesmerizing...  In fact, this guys won a VERY close second (after the hailstorm) for the kids as favorite thing they saw in Paris! 

WHEW!!  We're in the train station (the boys gave up their seats for adults) tired but happy before catching the Chunnel (Channel tunnel) back to London, to arrive home safely sometime after 1am (!).  What an unforgettable weekend in Paris! :)

Museums, anyone?

Meet Sedgwick.  We guessed that must be this planteating Iguanodon's name, as he greets all visitors to the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences here in Cambridge.  Also in this museum we were fascinated by a monstrosity of a hippo found a few thousand years ago here in Cambridgeshire.  We decided hippos have just always been...well...big.

This "supposed to be swimming" Plesiosaur is not supposed to be headless. (I'm in discussions now with our photographer to ensure there'll be no more headless plesiosaurs in this blog.)  He lived during the Jurassic Period, along with his other friends from Jurassic Park.

The museums here are intentionally kid friendly.   They are very interactive and have dectective-type activities specific for each museum.  In fact, in Westminster Abbey in London, I found myself following along with the kids kit, as opposed to the adult one, but that's a story for another day...  The bust above Caleb here is Charles Darwin.  Since he is a graduate of the University, there are many of his collections around town.

So many things seem grand here.  For example, this entrance to the Sedgwick Museum...really, concrete sculpted into animal shapes?!?

The pull was just too great...in between the Science Museum and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Fitzbillies Bakery just called my name so longingly...aren't these adorable frog cupcakes?  Makes me think of Kermie. :)

Our friend Janine, from the Netherlands, joined us for this part of our Museum Tour.  She'd never been to Mr. Simm's Olde Candy Shoppe, so we popped in and bought a round of giant bubble gum balls for all.  We decided that no one must have bought any of their giant bubble gum balls in YEARS. :)

One of the highlights of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology included materials collected on Captain Cook's voyages of exploration, like this 14-metre-high totem pole from Canada.  (He brought this back ON HIS SHIP?!?!)  We smiled at this, as Brad's sister Kristie and family live near Cook Inlet (named after Captain Cook's exploration) in Alaska.  Ahhh....a sweet reference to home...

We just giggle and giggle that everything over here stops for tea time.  I'm growing quite accustomed to this tradition, actually.  So, never mind that we'd already hit a bakery and a candy store...it was tea time! :)

Bury St. Edmunds, Here We Come!

So, we visited this village nearby called Bury St. Edmunds with our friends the Leonards.  It has all these ruins that folks are allowed to climb on, play hide and seek in, and jump off of.  GREAT FUN!! 

Our day began in a red, double-decker bus, and we were, of course, on the top "decker".  This is Victoria's friend Ginny Leonard.  She is as American as they come and her accent (after living here about 3 years) is as British as they come...cute, she is...

Travelling to Bury St. Edmunds, we went thru Newmarket, which has been the headquarters of British horse racing since James I days (early 1600's).  The first recorded horse race was held here in 1622.  There are today more than 2500 horses--BEAUTIFUL horses-- in training in and around the town.  (Sara Kathryn, you would LOVE it!!)

Our children's new favorite breakfast food is called a "Scotch egg".   Angie Leonard introduced them to us as we stopped in a butcher shop (which was in-and-of-itself a field trip for the kids) along this street in Bury.  They were warm--a boiled egg surrounded by sausage then bread crumbs then deep fried into this round, holdable, eatable shape...y-u-m-m-y!!

We next happened upon this book shop in which this 12-year-old (!)  author was reading her book to the kids.  At the end of the story, all the girls received crowns, which you'll see in some of the pictures.  Caleb and Daniel were very kind big brothers to indulge Victoria and Ginny by sitting thru the ENTIRE book--well done boys!

Time spent here was the highlight of our day.  Thru this entry (note the still-working port-cullis) lies the abbey ruins of what was the wealthiest abbey in the country, until it was razed by fire in 1347.  Here's the story:  St. Edmund, the last Saxon king of East Anglia, was decapitated by Danish raiders in 870.   Edmund was canonized in 900 and buried in Bury (hence the village name--Bury St. Edmunds), where in 1014 King Canute built this abbey in his honor.

Just inside the gate were these squirrels that would COME UP TO YOU AND EAT OUT OF YOUR HAND!! It was unbelievable.  (I DID ask about rabies.  They don't have it here.)

The ruins were impressive and extensive, providing hours of fun.  Get a load of the roots of the tree in the above photo!  They were a maze in and of themselves.

I just love these two shots...my boys...my girl...friends...England...adventure...memories...

We ended our day in St. James' Cathedral, built in the 15th century when the wool trade made the town wealthy.  I turned around and saw this sight in the choir section of the church.  The crowns just make it. :)