I often go walking in meadows of ...bluebells

There is a bluebell "reserve" (yes, it is a cared for and protected reserve-- it's an English thing).. near our house-- what a fantastic find!

Cadbury

I have to say, fresh Cadbury chocolate-- fabulous--
they gave us a cup of liquid chocolate and 15 chocolate bars as we went on our tour... a good day!

Peacocks

We have about 12 peacocks that live on our property. Having a peacock greet you when you come home by fanning out their fantastic feathers thrills us every time. Their favorite place is the garden wall just outside the kitchen window. It’s much easier to enjoy washing dishes when you can gaze at a peacock.

Antwerp

In Antwerp, we were most interested in the diamond district so, we spent most of our time exploring it. We always get caught up in where ever we are—we went into a diamond store and, before you know it, we were just about talked into buying some diamond earrings…luckily we shot each other (don’t think we budgeted for that) glances and pulled ourselves out of the store…

We went to the diamond museum. They have a scavenger hunt for children. It involves finding specific displays and determining the shape of the diamond in the display. A complete and correct sheet earns one a prize…a real diamond. Imagine the thrill for the Brock children, each leaving with their very own diamond. It was great fun.

Belgium

Lille is less than 10 miles from Belgium. We visited Brussels one day and Antwerp the next day. We took a tour bus trip around Brussels—it is such a large city, we would have missed much of it if we tried to explore it ourselves. The chocolate, the waffles, the lace…oh my! The chocolate stores were so pretty, we even took pictures.

The architecture in Belgium is amazing. We found a little square in the middle of town that was just stunning. There was also a section of the original city that is now underground the current city—the history in Europe provides such an interesting story.

France

Alan had 5 days off and the kids had spring break, so, we got in our car and headed south to Dover. We took the ferry and headed to Lille. I had been told that Lille was a great little town in France, much more like a French country-side experience…not so. Lille is a substantial city in France. We used it as our “home-base” for the trip and traveled to Belgium from there.

St. Maurice Cathedral is a large, beautiful church very close to where we were staying. We started the day by exploring the cathedral. I just can’t get enough of the architecture and stained glass!!

While we were in Lille, we found great crepes and fantastic ice cream, but, we are still oh, so very American—the kids honed in on a McD’s and that was their choice for lunch…I love the French sweet shops. Their displays are so pretty, it is almost a shame to eat the sweets (but we managed!!)

We also found a shop full of cheeses. It looked amazing from the outside, but, oh my, the smell inside of hundreds of aged cheeses, let’s just say, it’s a good thing that the pictures aren’t the scratch and sniff kind!!

Bumper Bowling

The Brocks are bumper bowlers now! Bowling is ½ price on Friday afternoons and so Seth has determined that we should only rarely miss a Friday Bowling opportunity. Alan and I have found that our score is decent if we use the bumpers. I have won every week, so last week, Alan decided to change it up and put his name on the roster as “killer” he beat me by 3 points—I imagine that “killer” is his new Bumper Bowling persona 

Kindergarten Movie Night

Jordan’s teacher has been filming the students doing the different things they have learned this last term. A high school student made it into a movie. We were instructed to drop our children off 45 minutes before movie night started in their “uniform” which consisted of a white collared shirt and jeans. The teacher supplied the rest. All the children had hats and aprons and these great baskets around their necks. It was too cute. Jordan sold popcorn. The children had a chart showing how much $ it was to buy multiples of their item and they would dutifully refer to their chart—
Movie night was a fund raiser for the children to send $ to a school in Africa.

Spies

Seth got a spy kit at the school book fair and has eagerly POURED over every detail of it. He is breaking codes, teaching the girls the “strategies” needed for being a true spy, conducting lots of “spy team” meetings. Yesterday, he knocked at the door in his “disguise” . We laughed and took pictures. Alan straightened his “moustache” for him and Seth said “Is that how you knew it was me, because I had my moustache crooked”…yes Seth…otherwise, we would have been completed hoodwinked by this “unknown man”. Jordan decided that she should dress up and see if she could fool us, unfortunately, her pony tail fell out of the hat and so, we recognized her too. Just in case you aren’t well versed in spy paraphanalia, the glasses are actually rear view glasses with mirrors on the side—a person can seek forward and backwards AT THE SAME TIME…now how cool is that?

Tea Party

Jordan’s class had a “proper” tea party. The girls wore dresses (the teacher supplied hats and gloves) and the boys wore shirts, slacks and ties. We learned to proper order of tea (muffins or scones, sandwiches and sweets—though a woman in Dover said that they actually do sandwiches first and muffins or scones second—she said it may be a regional thing…how are we Americans to learn proper tea rules if they are truly REGIONAL?? Urgh). After tea, the “authors” read their stories and signed their autograph book (the children stayed in their seats and the parents moved from child to child-- ) very sweet!

School Days

Kailey, Seth and Jordan are enrolled in the school on the base. I am so proud of them, they have each adapted well at their new school and made new friends. They still really miss their friends and cousins in Mount Vernon but they are making efforts to make new friends here.

A farm in England

Well, here we are in England. We are here for six months while Alan is doing a military assignment. We spent the first 3 weeks we were here in a hotel room and then found big farmhouse to rent. It has 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 staircases, and LOTS of hidden passageways! The kids are having so much fun exploring. The farmhouse is located on a six hundred acre farm, so there are lots of outbuildings, and roads and trails around and between the fields. There are three ponds on the property and LOTS of wild birds—geese, ducks, pheasants and peacocks. The birds tolerate having us around and don’t seem terribly bothered by us but, they truly are the residents here!

churches and graveyards

I am not sure there is a name for this (how does one look such things up?), but we love stopping at old churches and looking at the detail, checking out the stained glass and reading the grave markers. We are simply enchanted by the fabulous old churches and their graveyards. The kids are enthusiasts and are always happy to stop at little old churches and check out the history. The pictures of the church below is just a few miles from us. It is now in the middle of a large wheat field and seems a bit oddly placed where it is. It is thought to be a Normandy church-- probably 1000 years old. It not by any village anymore, so, it is used only occasionally. It is thought that that village that used to be surrounding the church was all but deserted after the black plague. There is a mound a few blocks away that is from the burried bodies from the plague. There was also an abbey a few yards away that was torn down as a result of Queen Mary and her quest to rid England of protostant churches.

The stained glass windows are from the "Round Church" in Cambridge. It is a round building that was modeled after the round church in Jerusalem and is also more than 1000 years old. The stained glass windows are only a few hundred years old. They tell the story of the ressurection.

A Saturday in Cambridge