Visions of England

As many of you already know, our time in Jolly Ol' England is done. It came as a bit of a surprise when we first found out in the spring. I felt sad at first, for 2 reasons:

1. We worked so hard to get Logan into the American School. It would have been nice if he could have had one year there.
2. I had travel plans thru Thanksgiving already in place. With another year, I think we could have seen almost all of the countries in Europe.

(At this point my girlfriend Khalen is thinking "you'll get no sympathy from me on this" : ) )

And she is right. I am grateful for all we got to see and very aware that few families get this chance. However, I still mourn the second year in London I thought we would have.

It has been stressful on everyone to move twice within a year and transitioning to another school is not easy... poor Izzy has been in a different school every year so far, hopefully she will be in the latest one for the rest of her time in elementary school!

With that being said, I don't regret it. It was an incredible experience and one that I hope my children will remember for the rest of their lives (even if it's through me making them relive every minute with an annual slideshow)!!! They got to see things they may soon learn about in school. They became so accustomed to the variety of people and languages that the idea of the world being made up of many different types, sizes, colors, religions, etc.. isn't foreign to them, and I truly hope that stays with them forever.

Strangely, I miss London way more than I thought I would! I thought that since we were only there a year it would be an easy transition for me but I have not found that to be the case.

I guess every place and the people there leave their mark on you!!

Thanks to everyone for listening to me complain and stress about (and somehow come to love) living in London!



Here some pictures from our last month in England...


Tony being artzy-

For Logan's birthday, we went to Legoland in Windsor. We all had a great time!

A day trip to The Cotswold -

A day trip to Oxford -

For all the Harry Potter Fans this should look familiar -

We have pictures of Big Ben, The Queen and Double Decker Red Buses but it wouldn't be prudent to leave London without a picture of...

Sherlock Holmes

The zebra crossing on Abbey Road (yes, I am aware that I am going in the wrong direction but it's a busy car and tourist street so you take what you can get.... and this was it after several attempts).



The 2012 Olympic Countdown clock -

The Bearskin cap -



Kings Cross Station -

Wimbledon-

Visitors

We had a few visitors during our last few weeks in London.

First, my Aunt Mary came over for 2 weeks to hang out with us. The kids were so excited to show her around, especially their favorite place... the London Zoo. We all really enjoyed getting to show England to Aunt Mary and I'm pretty sure she got a kick out of exploring England.

Our second visitors were our neighbors from Charlotte, Christina and Isabella (aka Isabelle's BFF). These girls really dig each other. They have so much fun together. You would never know that they don't see each other all that often.











We took the girls to Afternoon Tea at the Grosvenor House in Mayfair. It was a very proper English thing to do. We had a splendid time!!!

Final Trips

For our summer family vacation we went back to Italy. It is a favorite!! We flew into Pisa so, of course, we had to show Izzy and Logan the Leaning Tower of Pisa... which they have heard of thanks to Disney's Little Einsteins.




While in Tuscany we visited San Gimignano, Volterra, Sienna, and Chianti.






The swimming pool allowed us to do quite a bit of exploring in Tuscany during the morning hours. By early afternoon, we were in the pool!






We stayed in a wonderful Agriturismo near San Gimignano...

Florence, Italy - This city would have been a totally different experience without children or with much older children. We were not able to go to the Uffizi or the Galleria dell Accademia to see "The David" because by this point our children had no patience on being cultured!!

Duomo, Piazza del Duomo

These pictures are for my friend Sara who used to live in Fiesole. Your recommendations were awesome!!

Greece & Turkey - the last trip of our year long adventure living abroad

Athens, Greece - this vacation didn't start out too well. We were stuck at the Athens airport due to ALL taxi drivers being on strike. We finally figured out which public bus would get us close to our hotel. For the rest of the weekend here it was strangely quite. When you take taxis off the road in a busy city there isn't a lot of noise!

The Acropolis at night -

The Parthenon -

Santorini - it's everything you may have imagined.

Yes, that is Tony on a Donkey!!

Istanbul!!! One of the most fabulous cities we have visited. We only spent 2 days which was definitely not enough time to enjoy this lively city!

Taksim Square -

Crazy, busy shopping district.

In the background of this picture is a bridge crossing the Bophorus which links the European side of Turkey to the Asian side.

Blue Mosque -

Aya Sofya - the cathedral of Constantinople, completed in 537; turned into a Mosque in 1453; Museum since 1936

It's amazing to think about how old this incredible building is!!!

When in Turkey....

Tony and I at a Turkish Bath.

Updates

Wow! The time is really flying these days. It's June 7th already and my last post was April 22... it doesn't feel that long but when I look at all the updates it feels longer : )

Easter was very festive! We tried to colour eggs but the finished product wasn't quite the same. First, it is nearly impossible to find white eggs. Second, they don't have the same egg colouring kits here so we used crayons.... crayons + brown eggs does not = bright, pretty Easter Eggs. We went to a few Easter egg hunts. A tradition here is to decorate and wear an Easter Bonnet. It was funny because my kids had no idea what a bonnet was!! However, Isabelle joined in and created her own masterpiece!!

Then came "The Wedding"!!! Isabelle and I joined the legions of people in Green Park to celebrate the day....

In the afternoon, we all went to a street party....

I went with my friend Dawson to The Globe Theater to see Hamlet. It was an amazing venue looking much like it did in Shakespeare's time. It's an open theater so I watched the play through bouncy eyes due to chattering teeth!

This is a picture of Logan's school...

Isabelle turned 7 on May 7... her Golden Birthday as she likes to say! She wanted a Stuffie (stuffed animals) party at home. It evolved into a Teddy Bear Tea Party. We had lots of fun. Tony and I made her cake... didn't realize we had misspelled Birthday until the next day when loading the pictures : )

Isabelle and I went to Denmark to visit our friends from Charlotte. As you can see, time/distance didn't seem to change the their friendship!!!

Tony went to a Bullfight in Madrid. At first, I was disappointed because I didn't get to go. However, when he described, in detail, the events I decided it was better to just know what goes on in a bullfight than to actually see it.

On our next long weekend we jumped on the train to Belgium. In Brussels, we ate lots and lots of chocolate and waffles and saw the famous Manneken Pis, literally Little Man Pee, sculpture. We also went to a place called Mini Europe, miniature model park of European sites.

We also went to Bruges. Here we ate more chocolate and climbed 366 steps up to the top of the Belfry, a medieval bell tower. While we were at the top the bells were ringing, hence the second picture with Logan holding onto his ears!!

Logan celebrated his 5th birthday at home and at school. Once again, Tony and I decided to be bakers and made the cupcakes for his party and cake for school. It was a little easier than Isabelle's!

We took a day trip to Leeds Castle. It was beautiful. There were peacocks walking around everywhere. There was a another maze which took us 9 minutes to find the center which lead to a dungeon. We also got to see Jousting!!

And how do we manage to do all this traveling with the kids....

The iPods!!!!

On the second Saturday in June, the Queen's birthday is celebrated with a parade down the Mall. We were able to see Prince Harry, Duchess of Cambridge Kate and the Queen with Prince Philip really close up. The fourth picture down is Princess Anne, Prince Charles and Prince William but you can't tell because of their funny hats!!