LONDON

Day 1 and 1/2
Kali's first flight!

Boy's are ready to go.

Heathrow airport: Kids did fantastic on flight, it helped that each seat had it's own screen! (Kali is sitting on a piece of kids luggage called a trunki, it saved us. It had all of our snacky food and some coloring supplies and it has wheels so she could sit on it while we pulled her through the airport and crazy London streets, Riley had one as well.)

THE TUBE. Mind the Gap!

Walking the streets of London: 4 kids, lots of luggage and two extremely helpful grandparents in tow!

We got to the hotel at about 12:30 pm and then we were off! Our first stop HAD to be platform 9 3/4 of Harry Potter fame.

We took a lot of buses instead of the tube because I wanted the children to see the city while we were traveling around. It was a great option. This time we were just exploring the city and ended up in a suburb so we hopped off and found a neighborhood park and ate some lunch. The children had fun making friends with the locals. Added bonus was the fact that the kids thought we were on a carnival ride with how crazy the drivers are.

Off to Trafalgar's square. The National Gallery is right behind Lina(the photographer) and since I knew the children would revolt against looking at art after being up all night on the plane I took them across the street to Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields Church to do some brass rubbings. Tim and his parents thoroughly enjoyed their rushed trip through the National Gallery.

After and long night/day we headed home for a supermarket meal and lots of needed sleep.

London Day 2:
The Tower of London. Ok so as a homeschooling mother and the fact that we've been studying English history for the past two years I was giddy about visiting this place. And it did not disappoint! All of my hard work was fully realised here as they children were able to tell their grandparents all about William the Conqueror, the sad tale of the Two Princes and Sir Walter Raleigh. I almost skipped my way through this wonderful landmark.

Here King James' secretary in speaking with the children about the American colonies and "just what sort of crops are you colonists growing over there these days?"






Westminster Abbey: another homeschooling dream come true. Again the children were eager to tell their grandparents about all of the monarchs buried in those walls.


Parliament building, right across the street from Westminster Abbey

Big Ben (we took a detour from here to walk down some side streets and found some really fun little homes behind Westminster, the children were real troopers)

Buckingham Palace: we walked a lot this day.

The monument directly behind Buckingham palace, the kids need to climb, and climb they did!

Time for bed!

London Day 3: (well only 1/2 a day, we needed to catch our flight to Belfast)
Since the previous day had been quite full we decied to take it easy with breakfast at Portabello road. The children have been wanting to go there from watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks. They weren't too excited once we got there though, just lots of stall and shops.

We hopped on the bus to take us to Princess Diana Park where we ate lunch and found the most amazing kids park ever. It's called Peter Pan Park and they have a pirate ship and tee-pees for the children to play on. It was a beautiful day and they made lots of friends.


Off to Belfast!

Hey Guys

So to make a long story short, I've been locked out of my blogging account for the past two months. I had to change my google email to access it and then guess what? Yeah... I forgot my new address and password. Last night Tim, bless his little techy heart, came to my rescue and found my password out there in the cloud somewhere...over the rainbow. But i'm back, yipeeee. Will have some fun Ireland posts coming as promised. Thanks for chekcing in.

Clean Yo' house!!

How do you do it? Do you tackle the whole house on Saturday morning? Do you wait until the children go to bed and then run around and tidy up?

People often ask me how I can homeschool and still get everything else done. Well, the simple answer to that is I don't. Really. Come on over sometime, my house needs some love and attention and it isn't getting it from me. That said I have recently re-subscribed to a wonderful site that helps inspire me to do and expect more of my housekeeping ability.

Here it is: www.flylady.net

I joined this site about 7 years ago when we were living in a small apartment and had two less children. Then we moved and proceeded to add to our family and things got sidelined. Like keeping my house clean.

Another reason I quit flylady was that she would send out like a gazillion reminder emails a day and while I felt I needed them in the beginning it didn't take long for me to go into auto delete mode everytime I saw flylady pop up. (I later discovered the once a day email option.)

So this is how I am using the site right now. I have been slowly going through each room and gathering discard piles. I LOVE to throw things away, love it!! And taking lots of stuff to Goodwill. I've recently started to do the "Kelly missions" and they are making a big difference. I don't receive the emails though. I just visit the site once a day to see what mission is set up for that particular day. Last week I pulled EVERYTHING out from under my bed, swept and tossed a ton of stuff.
I really like the fact that someone else has thought up the mission and is telling me to do it, I can do anything if someone will just tell me what to do!!

Anyway, it's a random post I know. What are your house keeping tips?

What are you reading lately?

Don't you love it when you get a recommendation for a great book? In that vein I asked Tim if he would pick 10 of his favorite books that I haven't read and I'd spend this next year (2011) reading them. I wanted to do this b/c he and I generally read different genres and I wanted to switch it up a bit. It has been a really good experience so far.
Here are the books he wants me to experience:


Read this one already. Tim LOVES Jewish literature. I complained about it for the first 1/4 of the book and then fell deeply and madly in love with it. (The History of Love by Nicole Krauss)


I'm reading this out loud to Tim right now in the evenings. Not THE most exciting fantasy novel but the writing is pretty sweet.Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Leguin)




Tim really likes Sherman Alexie when he doesn't get crass. I'm looking forward to diving into some short stories. Definitely not my usual fare. (The Lone ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven)



Ok so I'll admit I have never read any Balzac, ever. I was skeptical about enjoying a biography about someone I am completely unfamiliar with but I am pleased to announce that 1/4 of the way through I am thoroughly enjoying it. (Balzac by Stefan Zweig)



Haven't started this behemoth but Tim assures me there is a great romance to be found towards the end! (David Copperfield by Charles Dickens)



Ok, this was the first Tim suggested book I read. It was quite tedious. It follows six Strads from their creation to modern times. While some of the anecdote's were interesting the rest of the book was completely inaccessible. (It made me nervous about continuing my goal to read the rest of Tims books. We had a great discussion about it though.) (Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber)



Haven't started this one yet, but as a busy mom I can tell you that the Short story medium is looking better and better to me. Gabriel Garcia Marquez may just be the master.(Collection of Short stories.)


My name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Yes, another piece of Jewish literature. I bought Tim a signed copy of "The Chosen" by Potok for Christmas a couple of years ago. Looking forward to this one.



Another book of short stories. Tim said that the first story rocked his world it was so incredible. That means something to me. I read it. We are different people, he and I.( For the Relief of Unbearable Urges by Nathan Englander)

I know I said I had asked him for 10 books. He gave me ten and then took one back.
This one:


Apparently it was his favorite novel when he was 17 years old. He hasn't read it since though. He was/is a little nervous about recommending it now. Which is fine with me cause I gotta a lot to read before the year is through!

This has been an awesome experience for me because I have actually learned more about my husband and we have had some rockin discussions.

So what are you guys reading?

Man United vs. Barcelona

All the children in the neighborhood gathered round to watch the match.



Best quote of the day goes to the Buckets: "Van Der Sar is like the best!"
Now say that like a New Yorker and you've got our Riley! I love it when six year olds give us our sports commentary.

Man. United lost... but here is our reaction to their one and only goal.

Oh no you didn't...Oh yes we did!!

We've had an increase in our family size since yesterday afternoon.






Fudge, Bolt, Nettie, and Peach....they are well loved already.

Breaking my silence .....

It has been a long long long time.
We have been to Ireland and back but that's not what this post is about.
This post is about this guy.




He rocks.. and it was his birthday yesterday.





The cake... Tim and I stayed up far too late making this cake. It is all edible because we made the man united insignia with sugar sheets.






The end.

Looooooooooooong time.....

This is what our school room looks like RIGHT NOW!!!!




It is indicative of my life the past three months.




Who wants to clean it up???



Bueller?..... Bueller?.....

I needed this tonight....

Cute Kids and one Cute dad

Disorderly Knights... My second and, I promise, last plea

Ok you guys, I'm serious here. Stayed up way too late the other night finishing this book.

Third in the Lymond series by Dorothy Dunnett. My brother attempted to read the first one, The Game of Kings, and couldn't finish it. It is VERY involved but....the reward is oh so sweet. Truly. If you love well researched historical fiction, have a penchant for foreign languages, or just haven't read a really great book in a long time check her out. They are literary deliciousness (my writing, however, is not!)

Wipe-Out

If you guys aren't already watching this, you're missing out...

Mothers Day Weekend

Thanks to Tim's incredibly awesome parents we were able to take a long needed break from life over Mothers Day weekend. After dropping the kiddos off at Grandma/Grandpa's house we did a little birthday shopping, had lunch and then went to the cinema to watch the new documentary,"Babies"(it was awesome, lots of nursing mamas though so buyer beware!!)
Then we headed up to our Inn in Placerville, CA.

www.edenvaleinn.com

It was so beautiful up there.

This was right outside our room


The next morning, after breakfast (best breakfast I think on the planet, very gourmet) we bought a picnic lunch and headed out for some hiking. The day was perfect, not too hot or cold. Lots of trails. (view halfway though the hike)





And best of all no whining about "how much longer?!?" We hiked for most of the afternoon. What a treat.
Tim picked wildflowers along the way and presented my mothers day bouquet to me when we stopped for lunch.



Lazy Sunday morning, NEVER EVER HAPPENS, packed up and headed back to Sacramento to finish the weekend off by celebrating mothers day with the family.
It could not have been a better weekend.