We're coming to America!

I will be honest, Neil Diamond has been running through my head quite a bit these days! We are about 2.5 weeks from take off and landing in the good ole USA. We're getting a bit excited around here...

We leave on the 18th of July and will spend a descent amount of time between Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin & da U.P., eh!

As mentioned previously, Walter's birthday party was last Sunday. We hosted it with another family, Walter's best mate, Rudy's. The boys are 3 days apart and it just made sense to do it all at once. We found a woodcraft woman to run it for us in our own little private area of Stamner Park. The rain held off and some sunshine even shown through for a bit! There were boats, stick figures, necklaces and forts built. The boys were in charge of lighting the fire and there were sausages and marshmallows cooked over it. It was such a great party that in the end we gently nudged our guests good-bye as it was also a school night! Here are some photos of the event...

the birthday boys finding sticks for their boats

sweet O

silly O

lighting the fire 

chez cake 

I just like hanging out on my birthday!

Our sweet little Walter is six! Six! Not sure how it happened, but it has and he is such a wonderful six year old. He is a joyful, easy going, caring boy. His heart is so precious. He tells me all the time how much he loves me, how I'm the best mom ever, how he just loves helping people. Seriously, he is one amazing boy.

We let him take the reigns on what to do today and what we would eat. He started the day by opening his gifts, followed by daddy's famous (ala Grandpa Harala) potato hash, eggs & watermelon. He & Owen then played and played, he made a trip to the bait shop with Jer, we had sandwiches for lunch and then we headed out to the cinema to see a film, Despicable Me 2. After, we went out for pizza before coming home for a bit more play before cuddle time in bed. At dinner he told us 'I like just hanging out on my birthday!' with a big toothless grin. I'm pretty sure he had a great day.

Tomorrow is his birthday party...more on that to come...

Slug Attack.

We just had a wonderful visit from friends from my playgroup! Kristine, Tri, Felix & Oliver came to visit last weekend and stayed with us through Wednesday. How fun it was to see our children together again and how they connected so well with one another. It seems like just yesterday my week was focused on what day playgroup would be!

The boys had a great time playing all sorts of games together & loved having the kid table to eat at for meals. We often had to remind them to eat and play after the meal... Between making bows & arrows, finding snails, building legos & making one another laugh, it was non-stop fun. One game was quite popular however, Slug Attack. It had something to do with rolling down hills, using ninja moves and having apples on the side lines for power up snacks. Not sure how it really worked, but that's my understanding.

We had a great time showing them around our new home and were spoiled by Kristine's amazing cooking skills. We are a fairly new vegetarian household and were so happy to have her give us some great ideas for meals. A few highlights included stuffed squash and chickpea burgers...yum, yum!

Grandpa Monster

Jeremy's dad was recently diagnosed with bile duct cancer. We have had quite a few blows to our friends' and family's health while abroad, but this one is particularly hard to be away for. Thankfully, he will be treated at the renowned Mayo Clinic and today is his first appointment. While we wish we could be with him and help in everyway possible, today we have him particularly close to our hearts and in our minds and prayers. Perhaps you could keep him close, too.

Fancy smancy.

I received a gift certificate for Champagne High Tea at the Savoy in London for some work I did before we moved over here. Last week, Jer & I finally used it and felt quite fancy doing so. We had fancy sandwiches (including caviar), cakes, tea, champagne, and some crumpets that were really out of this world. We followed our high tea with a show, Wicked at the Victoria Theatre. It was really fun to go out on the town with Jer...I think my favorite part was having an entire train ride to and from London to talk. Normally we're playing games or reading to the boys, so it was sure a treat!

I just need a groovy song.

Walter wanted to show me a few new dance moves he'd been thinking of at school today. He then said 'I just need a groovy song.' He choose the Black Eyed Peas and proceeded to give me a show. He's got some moves for sure.

We had a beautiful sunny weekend. Dare I say summer has arrived?! Funny on a sunny weekend we finally broke down and bought a dryer for our house. Its a little slice of heaven. I'm now seeking clothes to wash and its so darn nice to put on fluffy, fully dry clothes! Awe.

We went up near Jer's golf club for a beautiful walk on Sunday. I've been anxious to walk in the fields of yellow that are all around this country right now...and take a few photos along the way. We learned it is rapeseed, used for making vegetable oil.

Jer's clubhouse

I'm going to try sleeping like a horse tonight.

Owen told me this the other day. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it was definitely memorable.

The boys and I went to London yesterday. We decided it was time to go see Platform 9 3/4 for ourselves. We also have season passes to the aquarium so thought it'd be fun to go through it again. London is always a fun day out, but I think yesterday was particularly fun for all of us. Harry Potter certainly has our hearts and imagination these days.

Off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Expelliarmus

Chocolate Frogs!

What if the brooms really fly?

As mentioned before, the boys are huge Harry Potter fans. We are in the middle of the fourth book and I can't seem to read enough in a day for them. We've been making plans to go to the Harry Potter experience north of London. The boys are saving their pocket money for the big trip...which we are thinking will be this fall. They have discussions on what they will see and purchase all the time. Today, they are hoping the broomsticks will actually fly so they can play Quidditch.

After our time in Dorset, we set off for Cornwall to enjoy more sea and time together. We happened to stay in Newquay...the surfing capitol of the UK. It had a really relaxed vibe and we had a cab driver with a surfer dude English accent, blaring techno music throughout our ride, which still makes me giggle, dude. Many people told us we had to go surfing when we told them we were heading to Newquay. We both thought to ourselves, we'll save that for our next trip to Hawaii... I did, however, have this vision that we would explore a number of quaint seaside villages and see a variety of National Trust sites, however, we aren't in the US and traveling in a car isn't quite as easy, so we stayed most of our time in Newquay and enjoyed the beach and the surfer dudes. The scenery was quite stunning, we found some cheesy mini golf & go karts, which always is a hit with the boys, we read our books, played catch, and the boys ran and explored the countryside.

On our way home we stopped in the fishing village of Fowey and enjoyed the scenery and shops. The weather turned from beautiful and sunny to rainy and blustery in a matter of hours, but luckily we are learning to always have extra layers close by.

We're underground!

We just returned from what appears to be our last road trip in the UK. Jer says any more traveling done in this country will be done via the rail. I'm quite a fan of the road trip, so we'll see if I can't talk him into it again before our time here is up. We travelled to Devon and Cornwall, the SW coast of England. As we travelled through the country roads, anytime the land went above the boys windows, Walter would say "Hey, we're actually underground!"

We spent Friday evening in the tiny country village of Broadwindsor at a beautiful B&B. After exploring (and flipping through) the quaint streets a while, we found ourselves a gem of a pub with its own Skittles alley that they opened up just for us. (Grandpa Harala be warned, the boys have plans to build one with you one day.)

Saturday we spent the day on the Jurassic Coast in Lyme Regis looking for fossils. Lyme Regis is where the first (scientifically researched) dinosaur was found. We've seen the ichthyosaur at the Natural History Museum in London, so it was fun to now see the place where it was found...by a 12 year old girl! We found quite a few ammonites and belemnites and a few others that I don't really remember. The walk I signed us up for was meant to last two hours, however we didn't leave the beach for at least five and only because I was parched and hungry...the boys would have kept going! We learned what to look for, bought ourselves our own geological hammer, and plan to see what we can find a bit closer to Hove.

Full of Ammonite fossils

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!