Springtime Fun

Well, I'm pretty rotten at this blogging thing, aren't I? I know the posts are getting to be few and far between! We're still having a good time, but are more acclimated to being here. Daily life seems a little more normal now, instead of like a protracted vacation.

Spring here means gorgeous bulbs and flowering trees. We've loved driving the countryside and going to the display gardens but personally I haven't loved the allergies. There must be different flowering plants here to get used to because my throat was sore for about 4 straight weeks!

Spring also means a new uniform for Molly. Public schools run until the end of July, so she gets a lighter uniform for the warmer months. We had a good run of sun our first couple of months but lately the weather has been crazy. As we were expecting, it rains as much as it did in Seattle, but to our surprise a single day can provide a half dozen different weather patterns. We've seen days that range from a soft drizzle to still, hot, and sunny and then back to pouring rain. Once poor Aaron watched the weather all day from our couch - towards the evening he finally thought he'd have about an hour of clear weather so he went out to run. About 20 minutes later the skies opened up and big marble-sized hail streamed down. He was already on the river path with no shelter, and had to run home in freezing rain and hail.

In mid April, after we got back from France, Molly had another week of break before school started again. Aaron went back to work but Molly and I had a relaxing time exploring the neighboring attractions with some of our new friends. First we went to Odds Farm, which is a bit like Remingler Farms in Washington. Molly and her school chum Mia fed rabbits, goats, lambs, donkeys and chickens. Molly was disappointed by the lack of ponies, but I thought she had been pretty lucky with all the other animals! They were allowed to get into several of the pens to pick up and/or pet the animals which Molly thought was pretty amazing. Those goats sure were aggressive - a couple of them grabbed the entire feed bag from the girls, who had to wrestle the goats to get it back!

The next day Molly and I went to Bekonscot Model Village. Here we were reminded of the difference between kids and adults - I took her there hoping to fill a whole afternoon, but even with face painting and a decent playground we only managed to spend an hour. The lesson: model villages are charming, but a kid's capacity for appreciation of the attention to detail is pretty low.

Our favorite Spring Break outing was Cadbury World. This was a completely different story than Bekonscot -apparently a kid's capacity for all things chocolate is virtually limitless. We spent much longer at this attraction than I had anticipated, and we had a blast. We went with my new friend Heather, who I met at my American Women's club. She's only been here since August but her kids have English accents already - it was hilarious to hear them. Molly's promised me that she won't pick one up, but we'll have to wait and see...

We were also able to see some great family friends from St. Louis, the Freunds, who were in town on their way to Barcelona. We met them at their hotel right across from Hyde Park, where, despite another couple having a snog on the next couch over, we had a lovely tea.

To see all the pictures, go to our album at smugmug.