Summer Time Adventures

It has been such an amazing week in our house. ((And I hope yours has been the same.)) We've been on the go pretty much non-stop but we have loved every single second of it. It was one of those weeks that come around every so often, where everything just lines up perfectly. Brian's family is visiting us right now so we have been trying to take them around as much as possible to show them everything we can. 

There's been a lot of that whole sightseeing where we live, but we are totally cool with that. We live in a beautiful place and try to soak up as much of that as we can. Showing it off to others is just icing on the cake of life. Last weekend we took them to do market day and see the Ely Cathedral, which you already know that I absolutely love. 

No matter how many times I see it, I am always amazed by this cathedral

Sidenote: If you've seen Jupiter Ascending, this might look a little familiar to you

This is a Russian cannon captured during the Crimean War...that my kids needed to climb on. They're cute so it's ok, right?

We did some shopping...ate some tacos (eeek!!)...and walked around inside that beautiful church. 

And(!!) last Sunday, Kierstin went with some people from her school to run in the 5k Race for Life in Cambridge which gave us the opportunity to show them Cambridge as well. Double fun!!

We were so proud of her! She wanted to run the 5k for two reasons: a) it's for cancer and she couldn't imagine a better race to be involved in, and b) she wanted to challenge herself to run the entire 5k. 

And she did. She ran it in 31 minutes and didn't have to stop running once. And afterwards we walked through Cambridge to show our family the older city center -- always an amazing thing. Cambridge is a beautiful place! Showing you pictures doesn't really do it justice, but it is one of the places I will really miss once we're gone.

Punting on the River Cam

St. Johns College (part of Cambridge University I think)

Yesterday though was probably the most exciting, yet sad, days of the entire week. We got up, sent the girls off to school and then a little later walked over for a school assembly for the Year 6 children. With handfuls of tissues we watched the Year 6's say goodbye to primary (a.k.a. elementary) school. They sang and talked about everything they will remember, and there was even a slideshow that showed each of the kids growing up from babies til now. ((This mama did not have dry eyes once.))

She is officially in middle school. (Sad, sad mama!)

((Makenzie has also moved up to Year 5, though apparently she's too cool for pictures. Lol)) 

I think the hardest part for both of them is that it's finally hitting them that our time here is counting down. They have both made so many friends here and they are not ready to leave. Knowing that we will in fact leave, and will be so far away from their friends when we do, has made the end of this school year much harder than others.

Even with all the tears...it has been a great week! And if all goes as planned I will have some super awesome adventures to tell you about soon. ((Keep your fingers crossed for us!)) 

Until then...much love!

St. James Church, Stretham

Celebratory Fun!

Happy post 4th of July!

Was yours amazing? I really hope so! Whether you chose to party it up or opted for the more quiet route, I hope you had an awesome day.

Thankfully ours was not nearly as eventful as last year. No boiling hot water coming out of the shower. No butterflies plotting the demise of my sweet son, which is always nice. I do enjoy the catastrophe-free holidays around here.

It's always a little weird to celebrate American holidays when you're in another country. But celebrate we do! We had some amazing friends over. There was tons of food! And we shot off fireworks...of course. Because what self-respecting American, living in another country, wouldn't drive everyone crazy with that. It is our nation's (& my daughter's) birthday after all!

Celebrating Miss M's birthday was wonderful. Brian and I were lucky enough to find her a minion cake that she was ecstatic about! And her presents? Well, yet again, I wish I had video'd her opening the last one. That was really fun to watch. (Some day I'll remember to do that....take video instead of just pictures.) 

Can you believe she's 9?! I can't!! It seems like just yesterday she was a teensy tiny baby.

Where did the time go?? And can I get it back??

That face was priceless! But she was uber excited to get her new tablet! 

Which, by the way, is fair warning for anyone she knows. She is now learning to email...

As always, she will tell you that this was her best birthday ever. But like at Christmas, she and brother and sister say this every year. So really, I'm not sure you should believe her. Lol

Our 4th of July (aka America's birthday) celebrations were just as awesome. First off, I should go ahead and tell you that Brian and I bought our fireworks a few days ago with absolutely zero idea about what to get aside from sparklers. They have different names here so we were clueless. We ended up picking out a few different things that had really fun names like Night Bugs and Mutant Space Cherries. ((I don't know who could resist anything with a name like mutant space cherries!))

Thanks to that weird daylight thing we the kids had to wait forever to do fireworks because the sun takes forever to go down enough to see them. But once it did we were outside in a heartbeat! And it was awesome!! Ok, really, the night bugs were not so awesome. They would be awesome at a fireworks show, but not in your driveway. In your driveway they're just really really loud! (How any of us can still hear is a miracle.) And there are no pretty lights to go with it. Just loud noise. (In hindsight, that one was not a great choice.)

Writing with sparklers is so much fun!

I don't remember what these were called...but they were really pretty!

The Mutant Space Cherries!!

I don't think we were supposed to set those off at our house...in the driveway.

But we did. And it was so worth it!

Our final 4th of July here in the UK and it was done right. I can't wait to celebrate back home next year!!

And dear crabby neighbor guy...I hope your cats have calmed down. You might want to invest in some kitty xanax around Guy Fawkes Day. 

Lesson Learned

Do you have moments when you say something that you wish you could take back?  Like, you're standing in your bedroom, staring at the ceiling thinking "ok, I was kidding. Can't we just pretend that never happened??" Or am I the only one that does that? I had that moment today in a big way. Like huge! 

Last week I was talking a lot about how it just doesn't feel like summer to me. No matter what I did, I never had that *summer* feeling. ((And I still think it's because the girls are in school, but that's really neither here nor there now.)) Yeah, me & my not-feeling-the summer-love should have kept my mouth shut. 

I knew the weatherman was predicting a really warm week this week. But I also knew that the weatherman is wrong a lot. He likes to throw out the "30% chance of rain" every day just in case. That's his way of saying that he has no idea if it's going to rain or not. Because anything other than 30% is going to be wrong. If he says no chance of rain...it's going to pour. If he says 80%...it'll be a beautiful day. So when he predicted 90 degree temperatures I just rolled my eyes. 

Mother Nature did not take kindly to any of this. My eye rolling, or my lack of love for the summer.

See. She sat there and thought to herself that maybe I needed to be reminded of what summer really feels like. Like really. What I was missing out on in other places so that I'll be a little more grateful about what we have here. And today was hot. Oh for the love of all that is good in the world -- it was hot. 94 degrees of hot. (And I will remind you that we don't have central air conditioning.) 

Interestingly, I keep seeing these articles online about how to cool down your house when you want to avoid using the air conditioner. Well. I'll go ahead & let you know that whoever is writing these has never suffered through 90+ degrees with no air conditioner. So if you ever come across one...they're liars. All of them. Closing your curtains will not lower the temperature 20 degrees...unless the sun went down at the same time. Bowls of ice next to your fan might cool off the air it's blowing on you....IF you have magic ice  that stays frozen when your house is almost 100 degrees. (Same goes for the cold cloth on your neck.) You know what keeps you cool when you don't have or use air conditioning and it's 90-something degrees outside? Nothing. Because 90-something degrees is hot. 

I'm digressing. Lol 

This new wave of heat had me standing in my bedroom...one of the hottest rooms in the house for some weird reason...and staring up at the ceiling going 'ok. I'm sorry. I take it back. Summer is wonderful and I love it just the way it was.' 

Lesson learned. Don't roll your eyes at Mother Nature, or the weatherman.