Rugby Game

On Saturday, Dan and I went to London with a couple from our village and another from Leicester to watch the England v New Zealand rugby game. I have watched a little bit of rugby on tv, but never sat through an entire game because I have no idea what is going on...and really don't care to understand it. Dan is a lot more familiar and interested than me, but had never been to a "big" game. The New Zealand team are the world champions this year so it ended up being quite a beating for the England team. It was a fun day, but extremely cold.

There were almost 82,000 people at the game and we were being herded through the streets to Twickenham stadium with police on horses directing us. I felt like we were in a parade as the streets were closed and people had set up stands in front of their houses selling all sorts of food and drinks.

We made it!

The St. George's flag being displayed by the fans during England's national anthem. I think Dan and I were the only ones that didn't know the words. Everyone was belting it out!

Our view for the game. It is quite different than attending an American football game or any major sporting event in the states. They sell beer but the bars are closed 30 mins before the game. You can go back and purchase (a limit of 4 at a time) throughout the game, but there are no vendors coming to your seats selling anything. I was really hoping to get something to eat, like peanuts or popcorn, during the game, but they just sell beer and you have to get up to get it! The man sitting next to us said that the rugby fans are a lot more classy than the soccer fans and the announcer kept reminding us all to show respect to both teams whenever the fans booed. Dan forgot his stocking hat and wanted to get one of those, but they don't sell those at the stadium either. After the game he walked across the street to The Rugby Store and bought the only hat they had...which was for kids.

This was after the game. We have no idea who those guys are behind us, but they were having a great time!

Jane, Nick, Pam, Roger, Dan and I hanging out after the game. We stayed around the stadium for a couple hours hoping that the crowds back to the bus wouldn't be too horrible. There were still plenty of people when we left, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was getting there. We did have a great time and enjoyed spending the day with some new friends. They talked about going back in March to another game, but I'm afraid I might just have to sit that one out!

While we were away...

Dan and I went to the England v New Zealand rugby game yesterday in London (I will post those pictures next) and Kelly was with the boys all day. I truly do not know what we would do without her! She just lives down the street and adores Max and Blake. Lucky for us she comes home from school about every other weekend and lets me know when she is available to babysit. Kelly is going to school to become a teacher so brings all of her new ideas with her to try with the boys. Yesterday, they first visited both of Kelly's grandmas and grandpa. They love seeing the boys and always give them some special "sweets". After having lunch, this is what happened for the rest of the afternoon.

Do you think they missed us at all?! Thanks to Kelly you will all be receiving a beautiful handmade dough ornament! My Christmas shopping is done now. We love you Kelly! Thanks for taking such great care of our boys.

Happy Thanksgiving!

If you know the story of Thanksgiving, it is obvious that it is not celebrated in the UK. Everyone still goes to work as usual and there is no Black Friday shopping. That is the most disappointing thing for me! I am really missing my mom right now as she is off to Peoria to fight the crowds and find the deals. For the past couple of years, I have been asked to come to school and talk to the boys' classes about the holiday and what we do to celebrate. Last year, I found this great book (thanks Ahdonna!) that very simply tells the story about the Pilgrims leaving England to find a new land, the Native Americans helping them with their crops and then celebrating the harvest. Each year, I bring in some kind of treat for the kids. This year, I decided to make turkey sugar cookies. I needed about 70 of them for school and then made another 50 for our Thanksgiving celebration last Sunday. Max and Blake both did great helping with different parts of the baking...although it took twice as long. Blake got a little tired of the cutting out part but enjoyed helping to mix the ingredients. Max loved to cut out the turkeys and help decorate. Thanks Tina for giving me your wonderful recipe and tips that made this chore not so overwhelming...although I won't be doing again anytime soon.

This was only half of them! The kids and teachers loved them and are already looking forward to next year. I'm hoping that we are back in the states by then so I don't have to come up with another idea! They did take a few pictures of the day so hopefully they'll send me a couple.

Last Sunday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with 130 other "family" members. We are all in England with Caterpillar for a few years and always have a Thanksgiving and 4th of July get together. It really is a wonderful time and I'm so thankful that we have people that volunteer to organize these events. Thanks Pam and Miranda! And also thanks to Laurie for organizing the picture. It wasn't an easy task! If you click on it and make it bigger, you will notice that one of our family members was not there. Dan was home sick and was truly missed!

For Thanksgiving day, I decided to fix a turkey and invite a few friends over to help celebrate. Unfortunately, some of them that were planning to come were sick or traveling and couldn't make it. We had so much turkey left over but it turned out great.

We are really missing our family and friends in the states this time of year but are thankful that we have made some wonderful friends here. We have so much to be thankful for and feel truly blessed for all that we have been given. The boys were able to tell Austin, David and Kara, "Happy Thanksgiving and We love you" before heading to bed very late! We can't wait to be back home to celebrate with you again! I can actually cook the turkey now!

Fishing and friends

A couple weekends ago Blake had a birthday party to go to so Dan decided to take Max fishing. This was the second time this month and they haven't caught anything...not even a bite. Dan is a little worried that Max will get a little turned off if they don't catch something next time! The conditions just haven't been that great. Max is a natural fisherman...he only hooked Dan once! Blake is really wanting to go also, but Dan isn't quite ready to take them both by himself and Mommy would rather be cleaning house than fishing!

Dan had to stop at the pub after fishing to get warmed up. Max had his first cup of hot chocolate and wasn't too keen on the idea. (Holli - Am I a real Blogger now since I made Dan take the camera!?)

Last weekend I able to go with some friends to London for the day. It just takes an hour on the train so is an easy trip. We wanted to get a few things at Harrod's, but mostly to eat and enjoy the day. It was freezing and very crowded, but we had a great time.

Harrod's is an amazing place, but is extremely expensive. For some reason, it is always crowded though. The city is decorated for Christmas and looks wonderful.

Holli, Tina, Natascha and me inside Harrod's at the Christmas store.

After we shopped for awhile we needed to find a place to eat. Since Tina is expecting, we let her choose. She was craving Chinese so we walked for nearly a mile (probably not quite that long, but it felt like it!) looking for a place. We eventually decided on a Japanese restaurant. Yes, I did eat there and it wasn't too bad. Still wouldn't be my choice, but I can handle it. (Stacey - I am really out numbered now that you have left!) As soon as we left the restaurant, we walked about a half a block and ended up in Chinatown! The train back was really, really slow as they were doing some maintenance on the tracks. We were very tired when we finally arrived home, but it was a great day of being with the girls!

The last few Sundays we have been going to church and then hanging out with the Kiesers for lunch (ok, maybe the whole day!). They have been here for 2 years and Max and Drake quickly became best friends. Now that Blake is older, he also loves being with Drake (and Gwen, of course!). We took Drake home a couple weekends ago and took these pictures. They just have a great time together.

Various school activites

The past couple weeks we have had various activities at school and I just wanted to post a few pictures from the events. On the 14th, the boys school had a bonfire night along with fireworks. In England, normally the 5th of November is bonfire night to mark the day that a man named Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament and was caught and executed. So on bonfire night, they put a Guy Fawkes effigy on top of the bonfire and then have a fireworks display. Since the school party wasn't until the 14th, we really got lucky with the weather. The weekend before and after the 5th were horrible with rain and cold. The fireworks display was fantastic and the boys really enjoyed it. Last year, Blake did not like it at all.

We brought Max's best friend, William, with us as his Mum and Dad had to work. They own a couple Chinese restaurants and it is difficult for them to bring him to events. They are pretty strict about what he gets to eat so he LOVES coming to our house. We had pizza and sausages for dinner and he just kept eating...I think he just gets Chinese at home! We fixed him a s'more for dessert (with imported marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers - Thanks Grandma Naylon!) but he wasn't quite sure about those. When we got to the school, we bought them each a light saver sword and a bag of sweets...a very big bag! He was probably awake all night long because he was going to town on the sweets! At least my kids can handle their sugar! His mum may not let him ever come back!

You can see the bonfire in the back, but once again, another plea for a good camera!

Last year the picture was quite a bit different. Blake was buried into Daddy's coat trying not to hear the big bangs!

Blake is learning how to get himself ready all by himself, which is great when you aren't in a hurry! He is now wanting to help Max get dressed. I just thought this was adorable!

He is working so hard! Luckily he just wanted to do one of the buttons or we would still be waiting on him.

Next week is their school Christmas play. They are doing it for 3 mornings! Max is a knight (he was supposed to be Prince Charming but I don't think they had the right costume) and Blake is a Sheperd. I actually got his costume off of ebay...my first purchase! I needed to alter Max's costume and I really wish one of the grandmas was here! You all would have been laughing hysterically at me just trying to put safety pins in the right place. I wasn't even going to bother with a needle and thread but after an hour with the safety pins I should have just tried it or called on some friends! There will be more pics next week of the performance.

I really feel so blessed to be going to a school that allows prayer and talking about God in the classroom. They say prayers before snack time each day and have a Bible assembly each week. The schools in England are interested in making the children aware of all different religions, it isn't just our school. Last week Max was talking about Diwali which is celebrated by the Hindu religion. Most of the Christmas programs at the schools will focus on the birth of Jesus.

Max is home sick today. He was up coughing until about 2:00am and finally fell to sleep. Daddy has had a cough for over a week and finally went to the Dr with Max yesterday and both got antibiotics. It is almost time to go get Blake from school. I wasn't planning to take him either but he really wanted to go. Daddy didn't have an early meeting so he took Blake. That was so exciting for both of them! There is an Advent Fair at school that I was supposed to help with today. Santa is even coming! We might stop in for a bit just to see him.

Holiday to Austria (Part 3) - Salzburg

The next 3 days we just took it easy walking around the city and eating way too much. I told you I would show you the wonderful pretzels that were in abundance throughout the city. We walked through a outdoor market and this is what we found! This is only half of the stand.

There was an offer if you bought 3, so we (or I) couldn't buy just 1! A regular (that ended up being rye - yuck!), a chocolate nut, and a sugar donut.

Here is Max with his favorite sugar donut pretzel.

This is Blake's next project for Grandpa Shoemaker. What in the world does he have in his mouth! I'm not going to go into much detail about everything we saw because 1) I can't remember them without looking them up in the book and doing some research and 2) I just want to get this blog entry finished an move on! We visited some beautiful churches like the Salzburg Cathedral and St Peter's Church, but my camera is horrible with those types of pictures. I guess now that I have this blog going I better get a nicer camera!

Here are some of the sites we saw while touring the city. This is Mozart's birthplace where he was born in 1756 and composed many of his early works. He lived in Salzburg for the first 25 years of his life. His family moved from this house in the "old town" when he was 17 and moved across the river to the "new town".

The Hohensalzburg Fortress

View from the fortress.

Max wanted to take our picture, but look who just happened to get in the way! They had way too much energy on this trip. Probably didn't help with all the chocolate and sugared pretzels they ate, as well as lollies for bribes trying to get them to be quiet for a few minutes! Every time we heard sirens, we told Blake and Max to "duck" because they were being so crazy that the police were going to take them away! This is Blake ducking from the police. Max kinda figured it out by then! We did get to do a little shopping, but mostly window shopping. They do have some wonderful shops! If you can't tell, these are eggs decorated for Christmas. There were a few shops that literally had thousands and thousands of hand painted eggs for every season or occasion. Obviously, we couldn't let the boys loose in this store!

Max and Blake found a friend that was a goofy as them!

This was a horse bath - like a car wash - in the 18th century. It was built in 1732.

This is part of the "new" town. The "old" and "new" towns are separated by the Salzach River. Since some of you are Sound of Music fans, I must point out that this is the site where the kids all danced around the Pegasus statue before lining up on the stairs. Unfortunately, we didn't get to take the Sound of Music tour, but this area is filled with places where the scenes were shot. Pam - you will have to visit someday!

The Salach River that separates Salzburg.

Another new friend!

There - it is finally finished! This blogging is taking way too much time! What was I thinking! Our next planned trip is to Euro Disney for Christmas!

Holiday to Austria (Part 2) - Day trip to Germany

We arrived in Salzburg quite late on Saturday night, and there was a van waiting for us from our B&B. We found a place to stay through the Rick Steves' guide and it was fantastic! The mother/ daughter team that run this place were so helpful and our service was amazing. We ate in the restaurant for breakfast every morning and then a couple nights for dinner and were never once disappointed.

Can you see the joker behind the bars next to Blake? He was so scared of that guy and the next morning we came downstairs and he says, "Mommy, where is that loooser?" I had no idea what he was talking about until he pointed to that guy and said it was him. Max told him it was a joker, not a loooser. On Sunday, we scheduled an all day tour of the Eagle's Nest, the salt mines, and the Bavarian Mountains. We took a charter coach into Germany and made our way to the Eagle's Nest and the surrounding areas. The Eagle's Nest was Hitler's private mountain retreat. The stories of how it was built are amazing. There was a road 6.5k long and 4 meters wide that was carved out of the side of the mountains and up 800 meters of altitude. There are at least 5 tunnels and then a 124 meter high elevator shaft which was blasted out of the mountain. The elevator has green leather seats and brass mirrors on the walls. The road and the Eagle's Nest were built in 12 months in 1937/1938 by about 3000 men working 24/7 just in time to present to Hitler as a surprise on his 50th birthday. The actual building was used basically to hold meetings and dinners for Hitler and his guests. This is the only building left standing in the area after an air raid in 1945. The building still contains the original elevator, dining room, and a fireplace received as a gift from Mussolini, also for Hitler's 50th birthday.

The entrance into the Eagle's Nest. You walk through the tunnel and arrive at the beautiful elevator. The story is that Hitler's driver had to drive him through the tunnel to the elevator and reverse back out. When Hitler was ready to leave, the driver had to reverse into the tunnel to pick him up because Hitler always wanted to be facing forward.

The views were amazing and the weather was perfect!!

We made it to the top!!

Back on the bus

Our next stop was touring the salt mines. The boys loved dressing in the gear that the miners wore. We went down 2 steep slides in the mines and learned how they worked.

Does Dan look like he's having fun?! We then got back on the bus and were taken to a couple towns at the foot of the mountains to eat and to enjoy the views.

Poor Blake didn't even wake up the whole time. This began my favorite part of eating in Austria/Germany....having soft pretzels before the meal! Yummy...the boys and I had our share throughout the next few days in Salzburg. Pictures in the next post....

The best picture of Dee and JoAnn that I have ever seen!