Easter Sunday

The Easter Bunny came last night!!!
Great excitement as the kids discovered their Easter baskets this morning and remarked on how good the Easter Bunny's handwriting is "for being a bunny".... Thankfully, he left a generous pot for The Parents as well :-) Thank you, Easter Bunny!

We had been planning to go shopping at Target today but it was closed. In the end, we decided to give R & W a break from us and take the metro downtown to see the White House.

It was fun riding on the metro and exploring downtown DC on this rainy cold day.
We took the metro back and had another delicious meal with the NGans family!

Touring in the sunshine

Today we toured around Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights part of DC.

Will pushing Phoebe in the stroller while Rhiannon eagerly follows

We went to an Easter Egg Hunt at a local park (which was free) and then Will and I slipped in a quick trip to Target before meeting up with the rest of the gang and Don Juan's Salvadorean food for a leisurely lunch.

Easter Egg Hunt waiting at a park

Lots of plastic eggs filled with surprises!

Outside Don Juan's with nachos and cervezas in the afternoon

Rebecca and Phoebe

 We got back home and decided to color Easter Eggs and hang out on the front porch

Front porch hanging

Easter Egg decorating on the sidewalk

More front porch hanging (and heckling of passers-by!)

Even after a long travel day yesterday and a full day today, these kids were still full of beans! So we decided to take a late afternoon walk down to the zoo on this gorgeous sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm so glad that we did!

Golden Poison Dart Frog - so cool to see!

Spectacled Bear - he was just about to stand up and look really menacing and fierce!

These were 3 of the 4 lion cubs born last year - they were so regal standing together in the evening sun

Watching the lions from shoulder tops - always the best view!

It was great to visit the zoo at the end of the day and we loved hanging out with Will. We got back to their house and had a delicious meal to end the Saturday evening.

DC!

We had a fabulous trip over here from England.

It makes a big difference to leave plenty of time so as to not feel rushed or stressed when traveling! We had a very leisurely trip to Heathrow and then a great lunch before making our way to the gate to board the flight to Washington DC. On the plane, we just sat back and watched loads of movies and tried (in vain) to get some rest before landing. Will picked us up at the airport and we made our way to his and Rebecca's very nice house in Mt Pleasant. We'll be staying all week and it is so great to be here.

Easter Service at school

Today was the last day of school before the Easter Holidays.
First was the Easter Bonnet parade, which we were slightly late for.... never a good start!
It was bitterly cold (in contrast to last Easter when it was 25 C!)

And then during the service, Tryfan was chosen to read part of the prayer for his class. He had been really practicing hard to read his lines in the days previous to today. It was so sweet to watch.

Now we are flying off to visit Will and Rebecca (and new baby cousin Phoebe of course) in Washington DC for the first half on the Easter break! Woohoo!

Nain and Taid visit

We didn't do much "of note" together, but during the day when we were all in our normal weekday routine, they went out on day trip adventures. And we did have some really nice meals altogether. Hope they come back soon!

We were so happy to have Nain and Taid come and stay with us for a handful of days. It was fun to have them around and relaxing at the same time. They arrived Friday midday (22nd March) and left today. 

80's Rockers

.. not really, actually, but we tried!

We were invited to a Fancy Dress Party (aka Costume Party) which was also a surprise birthday party for a friend of ours last night. Everyone had to dress like 1980's Rocker and our friend was genuinely very surprised! It was a fun night.

Nain and Taid came down on Friday so we had babysitters already for the night. Luxury!

Meeting Elvis

I went to Paris today (Sunday Mar 17) because I have a course for work which starts tomorrow for 2 days. Just a little trip, and I'm so glad that I get to stay with my long lost friend Flo!  I got to meet Elvis, her new scooter!

Flo and Elvis

She drove me around Paris and I held on for dear life! It was terrifying and beautiful and exhilarating all at the same time, and this afternoon's memories will stay with me forever. A big thunderstorm swept across the city around 5-6 pm and brought with it all the usual ingredients - pouring rain, enormous clouds, thunder, lightning, and then the most amazing evening sunlight.

Shelter from the rain

A poor attempt to capture the amazing light after the storm passed

Flo and me ready to ride!

Me and Elvis, ready to go

We left her flat, rode down to the Saint Germain part of Paris, parked Elvis in a safe spot and then walked around the streets. We had tea at Ladurée, then went back to Elvis and took the very scenic and gorgeous route back to her flat, passing the Eiffel Tower and along the banks of the Seine. I sat very very still and hung on as tight as I could, trying to enjoy the moment and trust the scooter skills of my dear friend!

[gap in time for 3 days]

The next couple of days I was at my course in La Defense part of Paris, and I commuted by Tram which was so easy and cheap. I took the Eurostar back to London this morning and spent a few hours at work before getting a lift home.

Mother's Day 2013

I forgot to write about Mother's Day, which in this country was last weekend on March 10th this year.
Rhodri usually goes for a bike ride at 8am on Sundays and he acted like he was still going to go on this day. But then he didn't actually go, and instead we had a little breakfast party in our bed with croissants and pain au chocolate and some lovely cards. Perfect! It was such a nice surprise. We got crumbs all over the bed, but vowed to change the sheets later that day so it was no problem.

I got some really nice cards from the kids, and Rhiannon had written a poem which I will take a photo of and upload later...

We just had a leisurely day with not too much happening except that we had dinner reservations at a pub that we had never been to but had passed by a few times, always noting that it looked like a really nice pub. Our reservations were for 5pm and most of the day was leisurely and cold. In fact it was snowing when we got to the Crow and Gate pub.  It was very busy but we had a nice meal together. Actually the actual dining experience was probably a 5 out of 10, but most of that was down to the arrogant, surly waiter we had. We'll probably give it another try someday. Overall, a really really nice Mother's Day.

Red Nose Day

And it was a fun day to be invited to the School Assembly for Tryfan to receive an award!
Red Nose Day is a big charity event in this country and everyone does different things to raise money for charity.

Tryfan got an award for making a really good basket for Baby Moses and then writing a few sentences on his own about the story of Moses. It was really fun to see everyone in superhero costumes! 

Return to winter

We had a gorgeous sunny and warm day on Tues 5 March, but then the cold wet gray returned. We had a surprise yesterday and today though, because it dumped about 6 inches of snow over a short period of time! Yesterday it snowed all day but didn't stick to the ground until about 4:30 pm when all of a sudden the snow got much heavier and DID stick to the ground just in time for the afternoon rush hour! Many of our friends got stuck on the roads and had horror stories of taking 5-8 hours to drive 5-10 miles. I had already decided to not go into work this day because of a few different things, and I'm really glad I wasn't one of the ones stuck.

Eating icicles in the sunny and snowy back garden

On Tuesday most of the schools in our area were closed so it was a proper snow day. In fact, it had continued snowing all night last night and this morning was windy and blizzardy! But then the sun came out just after lunch.  By then, the usual sledding slope was already slushed out into mud so we didn't bother going there. Instead, a couple of kids came over to our driveway to play on that and then we all went round into the back where the sunshine was!

We sat outside drinking Irish Coffee while the kids all played somewhere else

Rhodri was sitting on a reindeer skin and from where I sat, it looked like he had wings!

 It was a real treat to have a snow day (although I was working furiously for most of the day until about 3 pm when these photos were taken) which turned into a sunny afternoon spent with friends. 

Social weekend at home

We had a busy weekend after this week back from our adventure. It was good busy though, because we had different friends dropping by to play, have tea and cakes, go for walks in the forest, and so on. On Saturday night we had dinner at Ava, Paula and Shawn's house and didn't get home till 10:30 pm, so that was a late night.  Sunday we had Mark and Toby around at 9 am so their Dad could go on a bike ride with Rhodri, then just as they were leaving Agnes arrived, and then we met up with the Barker family but Rhiannon invited Ava to come along at the last minute also.

There was a herd of us - 4 adults and 7 kids out visiting the Nest and beyond

Out at the Fallen Down Tree

Actually it was a little bit tricky because there were 3 girls aged 7 and one was always being slightly left out. Painful to watch, but we tried to just give them space to get stuck and then work through the social situations. Anyway, it was a fun weekend.