Happy Spring!

For the last two summers, Ava and I have started the "not too cold" season by building a fairy house for Buttercup, Ava's fairy. The last two days have been over 60 degrees (which is July weather!) so up went the best fairy house yet! Ava makes a pretty cute fairy doesn't she?

Eli came in while I was making dinner last night to inform me that his sister was on the roof. Nah, I thought...
Oh yeah. And because she looked in no danger of falling, I went ahead and took some pictures before ordering her to carefully climb back down...which she did with the speed of a spider monkey.
So, because I lay claim to more curiosity than common sense, I told her to do it again so I could video it. She scaled the fence, shimmed down to the shed, jumped on the roof of that and scaled the garage roof... ground to rooftop in just over 2 minutes. By then half the neighborhood had turned out to watch this crazy mother videoing her 5 year old climb a garage roof. Ava, enjoying the attention, sits up, waves, and starts to blow kisses. That was it. I told her to quit showboating and get off the roof before someone calls the cops or CPS.
So, she now has to settle for fence tops. At least that limits the audience...

St Paddy's Day!!!

I was lucky enough to get to go to Dublin with a girl friend from work for St Paddy's day...and wow, we had a blast!
Here's Temple Bar on St Patrick's Day night...crazy busy! Crazy fun! Funny enough, there weren't a lot of Irish people running around. It was mostly tourists...but it was still a great time!
Having a pint in the glass tower at the Guinness factory.
Somewhere in all that chaos, there was a parade going on... no way was my five foot tall self gonna see it!
Rachael (on the right) and I met up with a couple other people from Lakenheath while we were there!
Nothing says happy St Paddy's day like a dude dressed as an Irish chick...rock on man...
This is Trinity college where the Book of Kells is kept.
Me and Rachael LOVE cotton candy. I think we waited in line for almost 30 minutes...yummy...it was worth it!
I thought this was Dublin Castle...it isn't. I don't really know what it is. Funny enough though, while I was out running one of the days we were there, I got lost and kept finding this place. It took me an hour to find my way back to the hotel. That was some run!
St Stephen's Green...isn't it pretty?
This little girl was no older than Ava and she could dance this amazing Irish jig...it was incredible!
Shopping on Grafton Street...not that we could afford anything!
The view off the O'Connell Bridge at sunset.
On our last day, we took a day tour up to Belfast. The city was just like any other charming European city... except for the crazy political unrest...
Here I am writing on the 20 foot high "hate fence" separating the Protestants from the Catholics.
This is a mural in the Protestant projects. Here, the police just let the people rule themselves... kinda like Marshall law (by the people). Our guide said that every person in these homes gets their money illegally. Funny, there were bikes and kid toys and flower boxes at almost every house... but I guess thugs and dealers have families too...
Downtown Belfast. What an awesome trip!!!

My little auction buddy

Last weekend, Eli stayed home with Daddy while Ava went with me to an antiques auction. I showed her how to bid by holding up the paper as we weaved between people and furniture looking for things we might want. I have wanted a glass front book case secretary for ages, but they are usually so expensive in stores!
But, there it was. The perfect one at the auction house, just begging me to bid on it. So I did. And won! Ava was so impressed that she wanted to start bidding on everything. A life size (and I do mean life sized!) Buddha statue, an antique bed pan, a naked nymph garden statue... we settled on some pretty Egyptian plates that she bid on and won! And, in winning those plates, my girl was hooked! We talked about artwork, how to tell Victorian from Jacobean furniture, and dovetailing. I'm pretty sure I lost her somewhere around the wood oxidization talk...but no matter. Ava spotted a set of 6 porcelain dolls that she wanted, so I told her to bid. She did...and...
...now I have a troop of creepy little dolls that like to turn up in strange places in my house. A couple of days ago, I came upon her scolding Eli's dinosaur for scaring her babies. Dinosaur spent much of his day with his nose pressed into the corner in time out. Eric and I finally got tired of the dollies running free through the house so they have been banished to Ava's room where they usually are suffering from various and horrific ailments that Drs Ava and Eli treat by giving them medicine, sticking socks on their hands and feet (bandages?), and hanging them from the blinds (traction maybe?). Just as long as they don't start practicing obstetrics... I don't think I can handle too many more dollies sharing our house!

The Germany excursion!

The last four days of my family's visit, we piled everyone in the car to go to Germany and Luxembourg. Of course these are in reverse order (as usual!) but this is the inside of the cathedral in Trier Germany. It was very beautiful and the kids and I played our usual game of ghost hunting in all the the nooks and crannies. At least it keeps them from disturbing too much of the peace!
Grammy braves the cold!
One of the buildings in the town center. My camera died at this point... so I didn't get pictures of Kelly and her family (my friends from DC that are stationed in Germany now)... but they were here and we had a great time with them! Ava bonded with their daughter over pink highlights they had put in their hair. Yes my daughter is a little punk rock chick!
The outside of the cathedral in Trier.
Trier is one of the oldest cities in Germany and one of the few that was taken over by the Romans... who left this lovely ruin for us to ohh and ahh over!
We visited the American cemetery in Luxembourg... which believe it or not is not so easy to find! Luxembourg is probably the only place in Europe that I have been to that speaks pretty much zero English. And my French is sketchy at best. (Eric says it sounds like I have made up a new language when ever I try to speak it. And wild gestures, foot stomping and speaking English with a bad French accident does not help the bridge the language barrier... just for the record.)
Behaving ourselves at the cemetery.
It was pretty awe inspiring...
So, one of the themes of our trip was me parking, putting us on a bus to the town center, we miss the stop, and wind up in the middle of nowhere, where we are kicked off the bus (in french) and left to hope that a new bus would come for us. This happened twice. My family were very good sports about it... bless em! Luxembourg was one of the most clean and beautiful cities I have seen. If only I could have figured out the transportation system..
Here we are stuck in the middle of a pretty little town hoping a bus will come back for us! It did...eventually!
Me and my boy!
Pictures of lovely Luxembourg!
The boat ride across the channel has a great play area for kids... it offered Eli endless opportunities to creatively torture his sister. She is pretty far south of pleased in this picture!
And oh yeah, i turned 29 in Germany... at least that's what I have the kids trained to say!

The Grammys come to visit!!

For the last couple weeks, my mom and Grammy have been here (and we've been busy traveling thus the lack of blog entries!) I think we ran them nearly half to death but they were good sports about it! I have about 5 million pictures... but here's a few to get started! This one is the kids taking the Grammys to visit Bury St Edmonds. They are climbing on the Abbey ruins...and we are letting them...
Grammy Marilyn Rose, Grammy Rose, and Ava Rose!
Here we are celebrating Christmas in January with the Grammys. They went way overboard... of course! The kiddos are now thinking it is Christmas anytime anyone comes to visit!
Poor Grammy! In my mind, she is perpetually about 55 years old, so I forget that walking about 10 miles in the cold while a bouncy child hangs on you, might be less than her idea of fun! She was very patient with us though and we had a great time showing her around "our" England.
We went to the British museum and saw the Rosetta stone! Forgive me, but you know, I'm just a nurse. So I thought that the Rosetta stone was a computer program to help you learn foreign languages. You'll never believe it, but that was actually named after a REAL stone that helped people decipher hyrogliphics or latin or something. AND THIS IS IT! Pretty cool huh?
And here we are back to opening Christmas gifts. Eli was actually a heck of a lot more excited to get this than you would think by the look on his face. It just takes a LOT of photographic genius to capture it...
Opening gifts... my kids are maniacs with the wrapping paper... it's awesome!
And we are now back to London in the Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese having dinner. I so love this place and very few people seem to grasp how cool it is. This is the oldest pub in London and the fish and chips are amazing... well, at least above average! Anyway, the Grammys seemed to have fun!
Back in the British Museum... I really should have photo shopped myself out of this picture...yikes!
In front of the British museum. We had a great time in the Cotswalds and more than one adventure in Europe... I will try to have that up in the next few days! For now, I have a paper to write, a floor to mop, and an hour or two of sleep to grab!