It's closed, too.

We continue to have fun, fun, fun with my mom and dad here. Last week we went up to London and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on stage. We then went to Hyde Park for some time in children's park. Walter ended up chipping a tooth when he jumped from the ship and hit his chin to his knee...poor guy.



Where's Walter?
On Friday, we hopped the ferry and enjoyed a long weekend in France. We saw lots of beautiful country side, quaint villages and homes and gorgeous flowers everywhere. The one problem we encountered was our stomachs never seemed to mesh with the French restaurant's serving times. It seemed the only thing opened when we were hungry was the patisserie...so we may have overdosed on bread and pastries. (I'm not complaining...) (warning: lots of photos ahead!)


Les Andelys


celebrating my birthday in Rouen


Le Manoir des Deux Amants - thank you Grandma Donna & Bruce!


my artists in Monet's garden







Lyons-le-Foret




in the rapeseed fields

sometimes the self timers just don't quite work!

Pokies

We are having a great time with my parents here. They've already had much better weather than their first trip here at Christmas of 2012. We've had some periods of grey skies, a solid rainy day, but the majority of the time has been sunny, sunny, sunny! How lovely.

We've gone on a couple family walks with them here and discovered that the combination of my mom and Walter is kind of lethal. They are two pokey pokes and really put the saying "stop and smell the flowers" literally...and I love it!




We also enjoyed some time at school, returning Crackers the guinea pig, who was holidaying at our house for a week, and cleaning out the chicken coop.


After discovering a beautiful garden in Lewes with my friends, we had to show Grandma and Grandpa it, too.



72 & Sunny!

As Jer alluded, my dear friends from Augsburg, Tracy & Lindsay, were here! We had so much fun together. Its amazing what good friends can do for the soul.

We spent a long weekend away, visiting Dover, Calais & Rye, with many pit stops along the way. Seeing the cliffs of Dover from the ferry was really beautiful. Exploring the picture-book village of Rye was so relaxing. But tops was definitely the company.










After our time away, we returned to Brighton where I enjoyed showing them around our adopted city. The boys loved having new sets of eyes to show their magic tricks to and share stories and laughs with.






After such a harsh winter in Minnesota, Lindsay & Tracy were so excited to see green grass, daffodils, tulips and other wild flowers blooming, and the beautiful budding trees. As we prepared for a day trip to London, we saw it was meant to be 72 & sunny, which of course was very welcome. We all dressed in light layers, anticipating getting down to our t-shirts. However, true to unpredictable English weather, it didn't ever quite get to 72 or sunny...it stayed more around 62 and cloudy. We were all a bit chilly needless to say, particularly Lindsay who got talked into just wearing a t-shirt and light scarf. We laughed the rest of the trip about it being 72 & sunny.




We brought them to Heathrow on Friday...with a little time to stop in Windsor for the changing of the guards before my mom and dad arrived...let the fun continue!




Happy Birthday Grandpa Monster!

Today's flashback comes from 5 years ago when we celebrated Al's 60th birthday. Today is the big 6-5 and we wish ever so much we could be helping light the candles on this year's cake with him! A huge Happy Birthday to you, Al! We sure love you and miss you!



 

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