Interruption - "The Rest of Summer" and "School Started!"

Summer, why do you pass so quickly?!?

I don't think anyone was real excited to start school this year (maybe Sean?).  We had our great adventure to England, and then it felt like it took the rest of summer to recover.  I also had to work, which was extremely strange to me.  Hoping that I have another job by next summer, so that I don't have to work summers.

Sean got to celebrate his 12th birthday while we were in England.  While that might have been exciting to most people, he still wanted to have a party with his friends when we returned home.  So they went swimming, and then played video games - super easy for me!

Happy #12 Sean!

Making his wish.

Having way too much fun.

Crazy boys!  (Sean, Zane, Christian, and Braydon)

Sean was only able to fit one play in this summer.  "Twelfth Night" and he got to play the part of Orsino.

Clara and Sean.

Sean is a complete natural at acting.

Sean and Katelyn.

Then Chad decided to have a birthday and grow older too.  He is now 16!!!!!!  He was able to get his driver's license and a car!!!!  How is that for one lucky kid?!  The car was a complete surprise.  I was able to get a good deal on a car from work (it still needs a little TLC on the outside but runs great).  We took Chad down to my work to "look" at cars.  When we came to this one I asked him if he wanted to try it out. Of course he did.  And then I told him, "Why don't you just drive it home, it's yours!"  He was in total shock and just sat in the car for a minute with his mouth wide open.  So his first solo ride with his new license was in his new car (well, technically, it is the "kid" car, but he is the only one that can drive at the moment).

Chad and the new car.  Happy 16th bud.

Showing us what he will not be doing while driving.

Tradition:  Read Grandma's writing in the birthday card.

16 and able to date now too!  "Dating 101" from mom.

One happy birthday boy/man.

Chad's party - playing "4 Square in the Air."

Then all of a sudden school started!  Why does it always come so quickly?  I want another summer!!!

Chad's ready for 10th grade.  He has this high school thing down now.

Looking pretty stylish.

 Chad is taking Chamber Orchestra (elite group), Chemistry, Honors English, German 1, Bio-Med 2, Algebra 2 and World History (online).  He is running varsity for Cross-Country.

Halle - going into 9th grade and high school.  How did that happen?

So cute.

Halle is taking Jazz Orchestra (elite group), Geometry, Honors English, French 1, Foods and Nutrition, Wind Ensemble (elite group), Biology, and P.E/Health (online).  She just had her first cross-country meet Saturday and made it onto the varsity team.

Brother and sister together.

Chad is now the new bus driver for the Caviness high schoolers and seminary.

By kiddos!  Can't believe they can just take off without me now.

Sean is ready to begin his adventures in middle school!

Looking good.

A Sean pose.

Ready to walk to school with best friend, Christian.

Bragging moment!  After just two weeks into school I got a call from Sean's math teacher.  She said he seemed to be bored, raised his hand to answer every question and aced the pre-test on math the kids had never learned before.  She thought he needed to be bumped up to Algebra (9th grade math). So basically he just skipped two grades in math.

So Sean is taking Literacy, Accelerated English, Washington History, P.E.,  Algebra, and 7th Grade Science.

Totally Tubular!

Saturday - June 25, 2016

Saturday was the big day to go into London.  My Uncle Richard lives north and just a bit East of Central London just inside the M25 ring.  The M25 is a huge motorway (freeway) that circles around London. He lives just a mile away from the Buckhurst Tube Station which made it very easy to walk to and catch a tube right into the heart of London.

Click the link below to see the google map of the M25 and London.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/69+Loughton+Way,+Buckhurst+Hill+IG9+6AS,+UK/@51.4580066,-0.3271602,10z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x47d8a10348a728ef:0x7efc7242373ea03f!8m2!3d51.6313762!4d0.0518681

The tubes are an awesome and fun way to get around London.  You can get a daily pass that allows you to get on and off at what ever stops and also to use the buses around London.  The kids became excellent tube map readers and helped us figure out the routes.

Chad looking at the map.  Halle happy to go.  Sean approves of this method of transportation.

All set for their London adventure.

A map of the tubes in London.

We started at Buckhurst Hill and ended our ride at Victoria Station.  We then headed along Victoria Street.  The first big thing we noticed was Westminster Cathedral.  It is an interesting Catholic Cathedral. "Red-and-white striped Victorian cathedral in Byzantine style with gold, mosaics and marble interior. "  http://www.westminstercathedral.org.uk/  

It was open to the public and free, so we went inside.  It is amazing how much detail there is!

The inside of the cathedral.

Outside of the cathedral.

As we continued down Victoria road we found a couple of red telephone boxes.  They are a total English icon!  I was worried they might not have them around anymore - so when we found two I was so excited.  It was down a smelly alley, but I made the kids get their picture taken there any way in case we didn't find any more. (Soon after, we found many, many more telephone boxes that were not quite so stinky, but oh well.)

Trying to smile while not trying to smell!

Our next stop was the famous Westminster Abbey.  This one did cost money - so we just enjoyed the outside view and caught a little bit of information from a tour guide near by.

Our first view of Westminster Abbey and all the tourists.

Another church, the Methodist Central Hall, was right across the street.  The column is a memorial to the Crimea and Indian Mutiny.

I loved the cool architecture of this building that adjoins to Westminster Abbey.

Another view of Westminster Abbey

The entrance to Westminster Abbey.

I love the Gothic architecture!  How did they build like this so long ago?!

"Westminster Abbey is steeped in more than a thousand years of history. Benedictine monks first came to this site in the middle of the tenth century, establishing a tradition of daily worship which continues to this day.

The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs. The present church, begun by Henry III in 1245, is one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country, with the medieval shrine of an Anglo-Saxon saint still at its heart.

A treasure house of paintings, stained glass, pavements, textiles and other artefacts, Westminster Abbey is also the place where some of the most significant people in the nation's history are buried or commemorated. Taken as a whole the tombs and memorials comprise the most significant single collection of monumental sculpture anywhere in the United Kingdom."

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our-history

Just a little further up the street was a view of the Clock Tower, now renamed the Elizabeth Tower, but most commonly called "Big Ben" from the name of the bell inside of the tower.

Everything you want to know, plus a whole lot more about "Big Ben" can be found at the link below.
http://www.aboutbritain.com/BigBen.htm


We then cut across Parliament Square, which is a small park like area to head towards the government buildings.  There are 11 statues in Parliament Square.  I only took a picture of Winston Churchill but you can also find David Lloyd George, Jan Smuts, Henry John Temple, Edward Smith-Stanley, Benjamin Disraeli, Sir Robert Peel, George Canning, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi.  (More information on Parliament Square see Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_Square)

Winston Churchill

After Parliament Square, we continued on Parliament Street where many government buildings are located.

Just one of the amazing buildings all around London.  This was on Parliament Street and is the building used by HM Revenue and Customs.  I also captured a few black London taxis.

Continuing on Parliament Street lead us to #10 Downing Street where the Prime-minister lives.  When I was younger, you could walk down the street and even up to the door.  Just a few policemen would be guarding the door back then.  Now the whole street is closed off, so it was hard to actually see which door it was.

Downing Street - home to the English Prime-minister.

Trying to actually see #10.

To be continued . . . . . . . .

Jolly Old England

Wow, it happened.  Our whole family went to England.  It was a dream come true.  I love, love, love England.  I don't know if it is because of all the visits I made when I was a child or from living there a couple of different times, but it feels so much like home and there is such a feeling of love and comfort when I am over there.  I like to think it is my English blood and ancestors that draw me to England.  I hope that I can make it over there again some day.  It is just too depressing to think of this as possibly my last visit to England.

Friday - June 24, 2016

So with traveling and an 8 hour time difference it technically took us two days to get to England.  We left on Wednesday morning from Spokane, Washington and made it to London, England on Thursday evening.  It was quite an exhausting trip!

It was so nice to wake up (or at least lay in bed) as long as we wanted with no specific agenda for Friday.  My uncle Richard (with whom we stayed with most of our trip) had some time off of work early on in the day and so he took us just a few block away from his house to the large park.  The park is so green and typical of England.  On one far end there is a cricket club, then there are just fields and fields of green grass, a field with exercise equipment and then another end with a track and tennis courts.  Among all of this is a small river and pond where people can go fishing and where there are birds and ducks a plenty.

It just so happened that the week before we came it had rained and rained and rained.  What in England? you say?!!  Yes, but more than usual and a lot of flooding had occurred.  So instead of a nice leisurely walk around the park and a safe place for Chad and Halle to run, it turned into quite the adventure.  Some of the pathways were buried in muddy puddles and all the grass was boggy and soggy.  The river and pond had escaped their natural bank boundaries and there was water everywhere.

After coming home from our adventurous walk we had some lunch.  Then Chris and I took off for our next adventure.  When we picked up our rental car from Heathrow airport the day before it was supposed to be a van, but instead they provided us with a 7 passenger car (7 very small passengers).  So my dad arraigned for us to replace the rental at a smaller and closer airport (Stansted).  So Chris and I drove all the way to Stansted just to be offered another 7 passenger car, only this one was slightly smaller.  After being disappointed yet again we drove back to my Uncle's house.  So that took a couple of hours out of our afternoon.  (And we did this all without a navigation system.  Just advice from my uncle and Chris' awesome navigation skills with our English map.)

Towards evening we decided to go grocery shopping.  We went into Loughton's shopping center (just the town north of Buckhurst Hill where we were staying).  There we were able to find a "Car Phone Warehouse" where we purchased a cheap English cell phone for emergencies (as our new phones we just purchased for our trip ended up not working in England like they were supposed to).

Then we went into Morrison's.  It is a large grocery chain over there.  It was so fun to take the whole family and show them all the different foods and the price in pounds. We got some food for dinner and lots and lots of English treats and chocolate (I love English food!).  Then it was back to Richard's for dinner and to plan out our next day into London.

Sean giving the ducks a thumbs up.  The water should be back at least 6 feet.  The railing that the ducks are sitting on is part of an observation deck that has been flooded.

Richard leading the way through our soggy, boggy walk in the flooded fields.  Stepping down was a strange, springy, noisy experience.  We were trying to walk on the least flooded parts!

Halle's choice of exercise.  Getting those legs in shape for cross-country.

Richard and Sean choose to work on their upper body strength.

Chris works his quads.

Chad working his arms.  Trying to get them to move as quickly as his legs for running.

Our 7 passenger (but only if you use the trunk space) Mitshubishi Outlander.

A Morrison store.