Maggie's 12 - will we make it?

Having a 12 year old is an experience that the parenting books don't prepare you for. Maggie wanted us all to nip into London for her birthday. It started with lunch at the original Hard Rock Cafe. Quite cool. Especially since one of the founders was from Tennessee. She had to stand up in front of the whole restaurant on a chair while everyone sang to her. Being Hard Rock, it was especially loud.

From there we went to the West End to watch Wicked. Most excellent show. John spent the entire show asking when the wicked witch of the west was going to turn bad. She kept being good during the whole movie. It really was a well done show.

Of course we are still in the middle of the ice age over here so it was quite cold all day. We had to dash from place to place to keep warm. Underground is really not a bad way to get around town in times like this. We nipped down to Canary Wharf but it was so cold, we lasted about 30 seconds and decided to come back in May.

In the last picture, note that we had Flat Stanley come to visit us from our Cousin Macy in Tennessee. This is the third time we have participated in the Flat Stanley youth hostel program.

UK Christmas 2009

Santa came to visit and left us all some nice gifts... We built a fire and enjoyed spending the morning in our family room together.

That afternoon, we went next door to the Downings for a Christmas dinner. We had champagne and appetizers while we played the "Who Am I?" game. Marshall was Jimi Hendrix, MJ was Michael Jordan, Maggie was Hannah Montana, John was Dr. Who and Vivian was Bill Gates. You must ask everyone a question to figure out who you are. Your name is taped to your back so you can read everyone else's name but not your own. This was fun for everyone! Dad was the last to figure his out and his hints were that Uncle Lawton liked him and JJ's dad was a hint as well. Alison prepared a delicious meal for 14. We all had our Christmas crackers which are opened before the meal. They include a crown that must be worn throughout the meal, a joke that must be told during the dinner and a small gift. We came home with a snowflake ornament and a small silver photo frame. The meal included beef, roasted potatoes and gravy, brussel sprouts, broccoli, carrots, red cabbage, butternut squash, and yorkshire puddings. After dinner, we played another game called the Airport game. Each of us was assigned a starting place and we had to fly all over the world and land at Stansted Airport (our nearest airport). The first one who made it to Stansted won the game. The different airports were all over the house and we were all scurrying around trying to figure out our route...Most of us traveled to 13 different countries before arriving at our final destination...A few of us got mixed up and spent more time in the air than the rest of us. John was quite diligent in writing down names of places he'd never heard of and he wanted to play again but with partners next time. It was a fun game and a great way to work off our dinner before dessert...

Dessert consisted of chocolate mousse, amaretto cheesecake, Christmas cake, and Christmas pudding that is lit and you must sing "We wish you a Merry Christmas" while it is flaming.

Then we came home to pack for our trip.....

White Christmas 2009

We awoke to a snow-covered village on Friday, Dec. 17, the last school day before the holidays. Marshall & Maggie missed school that day but John had to walk to school and was NOT very happy about it. We were even tardy because we kept thinking it would be closed...we weren't the only ones and many children didn't come to school that day.

On Christmas Eve, the adults walked up Cheveley's High Street to our local pub, the Red Lion. We met other friends for a few drinks around lunch time. This is a tradition for many of them and we were thankful to be included. Our local pub has been remodeled and it just re-opened this week. Everyone is excited to have a pub serving real food in our village and not just a workman's pub.

Later that day, we gathered the children and walked back up the High Street to St. Mary's Church for the crib service. It is a family service and the children fill the crib throughout the service. John was asked to bring the angel to the crib (manger) and he was the first . The Christmas story was read and we sang a Hymn and then something was added to the crib. Many of John's friends participated in the service. Here is a picture of the crib at the end of the service. It was a beautiful service and a great way to spend Christmas Eve.

We all gathered around the tree and opened one present that evening....Maggie says "It's a tradition that we get to open one gift on Christmas Eve."

Brussels - New Years Eve 2009

Brussels was the last stop on our journey. We just planned one day and would then grab the Eurostar home for the 1st. The building behind us is the Town Hall and they had a spectacular music and light show with all the lights flashing and the colors changing. Dinner was comprised of Belgium waffles from the Christmas market just off the square. While they were not quite on the diet list, they were good.

We made our way towards one of the more famous tourist sites: the Manneken-Pis. It is quite funny the sense of humor here as you would imagine.

We walked past many restaurants and there were multiple displays like this one. Just teasing you to come inside and dig in. From there, we made our way to a festival area where there was a Ferris wheel, ice skating, and all the trappings of a proper Christmas Market.

The most unusual find was one particular street performer that is shown here mid-trick while MJ and John watch. John helped him with some tricks during the show and he struck up a conversation with us as the crowd broke. The funny part was that he was from all the way across the pond in Kentucky. He was an hour and a half from where we lived in Indiana. My how small the world was.

As we tend to be a family that rocks and rolls harder than most on New Years Eve, we figured we would stay up till breakfast and would dine on some most excellent Belgium Waffles. Instead, we were home by 10:00 and Maggie was the only one that actually saw a firework at midnight. She tried to get Vivian up to see them but mom decided she would just stay in her warm bed and could watch the lights reflect off the ceiling. This lasted about thirty seconds and she was back in dream land.

The waffles did get dominated by the Skelton family but it was not after a wild all-nighter in Brussels...

Delft: Vermeer and The Girl with a Pearl Earring

The plans for this side trip started years ago when Vivian read the Girl with the Pearl Earring. We then, of course watched the movie (one of those date moments when Marshall is willing to watch a girl movie). We capped the whole Vermeer thing off with a coffee table book of his work (that is somewhere packed away in the states). Delft is about an hour from Amsterdam by train and is a quiet little village. We had a nice lunch in the square. One nice lap around the canals, a quick visit to the Vermeer center and a stop by visitors information and we were just about ready for home. Unfortunately, most everything from Vermeer's history has been built over and his work is scattered all over the world. Amsterdam and The Hague have some nice pieces but the rest are scattered from Windsor Castle to Berlin to Washington DC to New York.

One of his works was drawn from this vantage point over the city. It didn't quite look the same in 1661 but is a nice shot of the tower.

En Brugge

One of our stops over the holidays was in Brugge. I must lead into this one by sharing that our neighbors loaned us the movie, En Brugge, just before the holidays. It is quite a dark comedy and is definitely not appropriate for kids. It does show the area off and it is a lovely little town. It poured freezing rain except for about 30 minutes of our whole stay. If you watch the movie, you will get the joke about what they say about Brugge. The picture is of the Christmas markets and also has the tower that is part of the movie.

Brugge is one of the most postcard moment places this side of Disney. The canals are quite awesome. We'll facebook the pictures as they are so many to blog. It is one of those places that that is much less about history and is much more about hanging out. We stayed in a really cool little hotel. The owners ran the place and the kids favorite part of the trip was hanging out in front of the fireplace in the dining room. We stopped in after a long cold day and played cards(Rook) at a table in front of the fire. We had the only family room in the hotel which meant one double bed and three singles in our room. It was quite the romantic experience for Mom and Dad. We did have a cool view out of our window (picture of Maggie sitting in the window) and the tower looked really cool all lit up at night.