Happy Birthday, Stace!

Lucky Stace got to celebrate twice this year! First, with our family in England over the weekend, with candle-blowing help from Euan, Violet and Cora...

...and then on his actual birthday, back at home. Before enjoying our cake, we went to Stonefire for dinner.

Stace's gifts from us this year were the soccer ball, pop-up goal and the new Jack White CD.

We love you, Stace! You are such a blessing in our lives.

Trip Home

When the calendar dictated that our Somerset visit end on Father's Day, we decided to stay the night and fly out Monday. That way we could enjoy the day a little, with a more leisurely trip to London, without the stress of an early-morning drive. And, we enjoyed a nice Father's Day lunch midday with Dean and Jenny. Here, Gord and his boys, who now are both great dads themselves. 

Our airport hotel was close enough to the airport for the girls to do some great plane-spotting. Though we stayed at a budget-friendly place (no in-room fridge or microwave), the Premier Inn really impressed us with its outstanding customer service and generous (and yummy) kids-eat-free breakfast. We'll definitely stay there again in the future.

Violet again was a joy to travel with. I can't get over what a difference this trip was from our Christmas trip. She again only slept for an hour or two at the end of the flight, but she was happy to quietly watch the television for hours on end. I guess that's one advantage to making TV-watching more of a privilege than a right in our normal life! Above, she lets Seahorse listen to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Our travel home went so well, with a good night's sleep at the hotel and the whole day feeling like a fun adventure rather than a stressful nightmare. Thank you, Lord, for that answer to prayer!

Visiting

 We had a lovely evening with Andy and Jenny at Ham Hill. Here, they play around at the hamstone quarry.











Then, after a nice walk enjoying the gorgeous views, a drink at the Prince of Wales pub. Stace and I also had a little date at this pub during our first week this time around. I suppose that makes the Prince of Wales our pub of choice.

 No visit to England is complete with a trip to Uncle Pete and Auntie Doreen's farm. Violet, our animal lover, had a lot of fun checking out the chickens and rooster.











And after our time at the Tractor Ted show, she was super excited to sit in Uncle Pete's own tractor. She didn't want to get out. (She really, really didn't want to. Those of you familiar with 2-year-olds can envision this scene.)











 Eating Auntie Doreen's jam-and-cream cake made it all better, however. Violet polished off an adult-sized piece in the lap of her other Great-Gran, Gord's mum.














 Pete and Doreen had enough Duplo bricks to keep four children quiet and happy, with no screaming or "mine"ing. Amazing. As always, Cora and Violet loved seeing Ben and Chloe.


We also caught up with Dunc and Lindsey, and Cora spent a fun evening with their children one day. Photos to come! (Hint, hint! Ha!)

Time together

What do you do when the weather isn't great? You take the kids to an indoor play center!

Euan and Dean came with us, and it was a lot of fun. We stopped at Morrison's for lunch on our way home.

Most days, we did little things... like on Wednesday, when we took Sue to the hospital for a doctor's appointment, and then ran an errand in Sherborne, Here, we're eating our bakery lunch in front of Sherborne Abbey.

 We took an evening for climbing around Ham Hill - luckily the weather cooperated! Here Cora poses in front of the War Memorial atop the hill.

 Cora also loved her time at the Martock Recreation Ground, where she rode on her bigger bike one day before she and Stace visited Big Nan.

These two!
Put two two-year-olds together, and you get a lot of yelling, a lot of grabbing, a lot of "Mine!" What a difference from our Christmas visit.

Still, Euan and Violet had fun together, sharing lots of hugs and kisses.







We also spent time at Big Nan's flat. Here, the three little ones are playing in the cage they made from the drying rack. Again, the old point made again - who needs store-bought toys?
















It was wonderful spending time with Mary in her home again, as she had spent some time in the hospital in recent months.

Day with Tractor Ted

 Our weather hasn't been great this trip, but in England, you don't let the weather keep you inside.

On Sunday, we took a big ol' family trip to the Bowood Dog and Country Fair featuring Tractor Ted, an educational farm life DVD series for children.

Euan is a big Tractor Ted fan, so he was very excited about the whole day. There were lots of other fun activities for the non-Ted heads.

On top, we have the girls after the combine harvester demonstration.

Cora, Violet and Euan were all excited to ride  the donkeys.

And Cora really liked her first time doing archery. She really wasn't bad, either, hitting the blue circle twice and the outside rim a couple of times too. The ones she missed were "straight as an arrow" and just short.

 The weather was off and on drizzly, but thankfully it was dry for our picnic lunch.












These pigs here were resting in preparation for their races.










And the sheep-shearing demonstration was impressive. Wow, he could shear a sheep fast and cleanly.

 Cora also loved her ride on the Helter Skelter slide, one of the many carnival rides.

Toward the end of the day, the weather got worse, but we were prepared with wellies for the kids and raincoats all around. True Brits, we were.

Thanks for a fun day out, Nan and Pop! And thanks to Jen for planning the trip.

Proud to be British

Our trip home this year coincides with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a celebration of her sixty years on the throne.

It's great to be back in England to watch all the celebrations and see all the towns and villages decked out with flags and bunting. It's very nice to see such patriotism and people proud to be British.

We didn't arrive in time to take part in the day and night festivities that Martock put on to mark the occasion, but we watched all the big London events on the TV. The Royal Pageant down the River Thames, the music concert outside Buckingham Palac,e and Tuesday's celebration service at St. Paul's Cathedral, complete with a Battle of Britain and Red Arrows fly-over.

"Flaming June" it is not at the moment. The whole time we have been here it has hardly stopped raining. There was a break in the clouds for all the children, Cora, Euan and Violet, to play outside last night when Dean and Jenny came over to Martock.



 
We had Euan here Thursday while Jen went to work, and had an indoor picnic since it was raining too much to venture outdoors.

Thankfully, the girls have both been sleeping very well. Violet's first two nights in Martock have been brilliant, with her sleeping through the night without a stir. We might try her without the melatonin tonight and see if our luck holds up.

Now that's more like it!

We are safely and soundly back in England, and we are oh-so-thankful for the "soundly" part.                  After our Christmas trip near-nightmare, with Violet overtired and crying much of the flights (before throwing up all over the pair of us), I was a bit nervous about Saturday's plane trip.

But, in five-plus months since Christmas, Violet has grown up enough to really enjoy watching television. And, she was happy to sit in what she called her "big girl seat," a child safety device akin to a car seat. These two things combined to make for a much easier flight. Also, on the advice of a sympathetic fellow traveler on our Christmas flight (and with the doc's OK), I gave Violet a children's formulation of melatonin.

I can't say that Violet slept much on the plane - only 90 minutes or 2 hours toward the end, after it hit 1 a.m. California time. But she was happy as long as I kept Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playing.

Cora was a fantastic traveler, once again. She slept for about five hours, and caused not even a hint of a problem. She was very excited to see Nan and Pop again, and in the days leading up to the trip, she kept asking when we would be finally on our way.

Also on hand at Heathrow to greet us (and drive us) was JT. We were a little too exhausted to think of posing for a photo, but it was great to see her and catch up on the car journey home Sunday afternoon.

Home, in our case, was Dean and Jenny's for two nights. They were on a little holiday, and we were more than happy to take over their three bedrooms, playroom, child-oriented back garden and nearby playground.

 With the help of those little melatonin tablets, both girls did remarkably well on our first night. Cora woke with leg pains and spent some hours in our bed, and Violet woke twice, but both times could be settled back to sleep. (At Christmas, she never settled in to the time change and was up for hours each night.) The jet lag wasn't too bad for me and Stace, either, and we all slept (off and on) until 7.

We spent most of Monday around Dean and Jen's home, with Nan and Pop coming to visit for the afternoon. We took a walk around the village, and admired the decorations up in honor of the Queen's Jubilee celebrations.

Later, after visiting Big Nan, we picked up fish cakes and chips for dinner. On Monday night, the girls slept fine again. Cora was up once with leg cramps again, but stayed in her own bed. Violet also woke, but only once, and again she was able to settle relatively quickly. We all slept until 8:30! What a great start to our trip though! We'll see how tonight goes, now that we're all sharing a bedroom at Nan and Pop's house.

May fun with friends

We've had a lot of fun with friends this month!

Jaimie organized a playdate for those of us who did Stroller Strides together when our big girls were babies. I hadn't seen some of the moms for a couple of years, so it was nice to catch up. From left, Cora, Mackenzie, Gabriella, Natalie, Ava and Ella.

Violet loved the bouncy thingy, while Cora played queen of the mountain.

We also went to a birthday playdate for "Baby Brooke," who is now 4. Cora loved dancing on Brooke's bed to the Tangled soundtrack...


...while Violet loved eating cupcakes. Hey, at least she isn't hard to please, right???

Also in May, we had a sleepover with Ave one night. The girls had fun with popcorn and a movie - the Great Fairy Rescue, of course - and some actual sleeping occurred, so I was pleased with how this went.

I don't know who was more excited about having Ave over, Violet or Cora. They were both pretty giddy.

Last week, we met Juliana and her girls at the zoo.
My girls' favorite part of the day was the sugar snack of churros and cotton candy, and getting wet in the fountains. I think there were some animals there, too.

And we also went to a birthday party for the little brother of Cora's Mom2Mom friend, Talitha.
A clown provided entertainment and balloon friends, like Cora's long-tailed kitty and Violet's flower you see here.

What a month, huh? We are blessed to have such great friendships!