the Hipps family...

Like the Masters?

Jeremy took Friday off and played in a golf tournament. In the evening Owen asked where he was and I reminded him he was at the golf tournament. Owen smiled and said 'Like the Masters?' I said, 'yeah, sort of.' Jeremy turned up while Owen was at cricket, with two trophies, one for longest drive and the other for 2nd in the overall tournament. Both boys were quite impressed, however Owen could not stop asking about the trophies and tournament and you could see the fire lit in his eyes.

On Saturday we headed up to London to explore the British Museum. Owen had received a letter from Sunny Hollow mentioning the Rosetta Stone, so we were anxious to see it in person. We spent around 5 hours in the museum and saw one fifth of the museum at best. It is so vast. The visit has inspired our family to start a metal detector fund so we can do some exploring and excavating ourselves...hopefully we'll find an old sword or helmet or anything more than garbage!

I like climbing trees.

We went to Stamner Park on Sunday and I think Owen spent more time in trees than on the ground. Here is the proof:

Where's Owey?

About the cutest smile in the world.

Can you read Harry?

The boys are head over heals in love with Harry Potter these days. They ask me to read at all hours of the day. I'm thinking there will be a post related to a Harry Potter walking tour soon...

We enjoyed another beautiful day exploring Sussex on Monday. It was a 'bank holiday', meaning there was no school and no work and lots of family fun. We finally joined the National Trust and headed to Nymans for an afternoon of geocaching and admiring the gardens, followed by pizza at the pub across the road. It was a lovely day indeed.

Do you think you could climb a tree with me holding on to you?

Owen was trying to figure out if I was as strong as a koala bear tonight when I tucked him in.

We had an absolutely beautiful day today. We've all been taking turns being sick for the last week and today, we were all finally feeling like ourselves again. The one plus about being ill is remembering how amazing your body is when it is well again.

We started the day with a visit to the sea front to experience Audible Forces and a beautiful walk along the sea...which is never complete without a stop at the skate park. The boys lucked out and ended up visiting the ice cream truck, too!

Did I mention Walter is now missing BOTH front teeth?!

We ended the day with a bbq with some friends at a wood sculptor's home just north of Brighton. It was a magical field full of sculpture, giant handmade games, an outdoor kitchen, a super amazing rope swing surrounded by bluebells and lots of space to explore. The boys were in heaven.

W & his best mate, Rudy, eating homemade pizza from the outdoor pizza oven...delicious!

I think I even got burnt today! Where am I?!

Do you ever get so excited & you don't know why?

Another sweet quote from Walter. I think this was a question a few days before Easter.

Also, another post that was meant to happen a few weeks ago...

So dying Easter eggs is not a tradition of the United Kingdom. The boys & I found a recipe and did our best to make our own dye. Its pretty darn easy, except warm colors didn't seem to work. It might have been the brown eggs we were using! :) Regardless, we had a blast decorating and dying them.

The Easter Bunny found our home in Hove, too! Such an exciting morning hunting for baskets and eggs!

Or, are we ordering pizza?

A few weeks ago around dinner, Walter asked me "Mom, what are we having for dinner?" Then he paused for a few seconds and added "Or, are we ordering pizza?" I think that is so telling to my first term working! The most challenging piece of it all is keeping groceries in the fridge & planning dinner for sure!

I'm a bit behind with some posts from a very dear visitor we had. Jeremy's childhood friend, Eric Gerold, came to visit us over Easter. Eric recently lost his wife to cancer, so we felt blessed to have some time with him. Jer & Eric played many holes of golf, despite the uncooperative weather. Eric kept reminding us that the golf courses in Minnesota were covered in snow, however, so they didn't complain too hard.

While Jeremy was at work one day, the boys & I took Eric to Bodiam Castle. We all had fun with our pretend bow & arrows as we climbed through the castle on the look out for the enemy.

No, you just go upstairs, I'll get you water.

We were back to work and school this week as normal. It was an exciting week back to school as there were two changes to school while we were away on break. First, Owen's classroom, which was 3 small rooms, was opened up into one large beautiful room. Second, the garden area at school got a total overhaul, complete with new climbing structure, slide, and all sorts of new outdoor games. The boys were in heaven. It was nice for me having one term under my belt, as I felt more confident and comfortable with it all. Unfortunately, part of working with beautiful young children is lots of germs. I ended up getting quite feverish yesterday and pretty much sat on the couch and lied in bed. I did manage to pick the boys up from school and when we got home I told them I was going to lay down. I then said, I need to grab a glass of water first, to which Walter said "No, you just go upstairs, I'll get you water." We're clearly doing something right!

Walter had a pretty exciting day on Wednesday. He lost his 3rd tooth, the first of his front teeth. I'm a total sucker for that toothless smile so I imagine there will be ample kisses and spoiling happening for sometime.

We're learning to seize the sunshine and Thursday was an absolutely perfect opportunity for seizure. Owen conveniently had swimming for school, which means we pick him up right on the sea front (he swims in an indoor pool...not the sea!). I had ran home, loaded up with snacks, thinking it would be a perfect afternoon on the beach, collected Walter and we went to get Owey. We played in the water, found all sorts of starfish, did kart wheels, found a flounder, discovered sand worms, threw rocks into the sea and sunk into the 'quick sand'. Life by the sea is pretty amazing!

This is really weird.

After our lounging days in Estepona, we made our way back to Barcelona with two main pitstops along the way. The first was the city I studied in 17 years ago, Alicante. It was really strange and wonderful and weird...and I said it over and over as we walked around. It was quite surreal and really fun to tell the boys about different places and things I did. It was super fun to take them to a few places that Jer & I actually went to together when he visited me. It feels like a lifetime ago but yesterday at the same time.

Esplanada de España

Playa del Postiguet

Castillo de Santa Bárbara

I have this same photo of Jer from 17 years ago!

After many 'this is really weird's we made our way up the coast a bit more to Calp. This was another place I visited and distinctly remember. The only difference is that I stayed in much nicer accommodations and ate better food this time around!