Ever since Grandma Bucky passed away, we have been planning and looking forward to coming out to be with the rest of the family. We literally have been counting down the weeks, days, and hours until our flight today. It all went according to plan and we landed at LAX at 4pm, rented a car, and drove up through Malibu to Oxnard and then on to Goleta. We found an In-N-Out in Oxnard for dinner. SO stoked!
We got to Goleta around 8:30 pm and had a happy reunion with Grandma Debi, Eric and Kristin (the boys were already in bed).
We have had some special visitors these past few days: Bob and Tammy from Stehekin!
They arrived on Monday morning into Gatwick and I took them home with me, then Tammy came to yoga with me on Monday night, then we all had dinner together afterwards. On Tuesday morning we took the train to London together, then I peeled off to work in the office there all day while they explored the city, then we all took the train home again. But then today I took the whole day off and we went into Lewes and on to the beach at Birling Gap together.
We had lunch at the Plough in Litlington and later in the eve we had dinner at the Coach near us. We had a really great time together and it was so special to be with them outside of Stehekin. I still can't believe they actually made it over to be with us.
All these years of referendums and hoohaw and debates, campaigns, all of that ad absolute nauseum... and now Britain is out of the European Union and its all a bit weird.
On top of that, this Coronavirus thing broke out today. Normally I wouldn't tune into this sort of thing at all, but it has impacted my work quite significantly. Since I'm working with our learning centers around the world, this corona-thing has led to class cancellations and a re-planning exercise that has been interesting and challenging.
Phew Nelly! This has been a mega weekend of celebrations.
First it was Sharon's Hen Party on Friday night, then Cormac's 50th birthday on Saturday night. Both events were local but not quite local enough to walk so we took turns driving.
Sharon and Vicky
There were a lot of the same people at both events so it was a good social weekend, though not very restful!
After our loud singing last night, today we had the normal Saturday morning football cafe run by Sophie and Rhiannon. They are so cute together!
In the afternoon, Rhiannon went to work at a neighbor's house as part of her fundraising campaign to go to Ecuador. I took the opportunity to get Tryfs off of his butt and to do some really fun raking in the back garden while I tackled the big monster pile of branches and weeds. At least it was a gorgeous but chilly afternoon.
Tonight was the inaugural session of the neighborhood Singalong Club, which we hosted at our house!
There were 15 of us here today, singing nonstop for 2+ hours and dancing along at times as well. It was sooooooo fun. This first session included Naresh, Jules, Leigh, Stuart, Cat, Emma, Sharon, Ninni, Maddy, Tracy, Anna, Anne Marie, Heather, Rhodri and me. We look forward to the next one in early February!
I wasn't sure if this was going to go ahead with all the uncertainty of this week with Grandma Bucky, but in the end we had this singing session and I'm so glad we did.
Our dear legendary Grandma Bucky passed away today - Jan 7th at 10 pm local time in California (6 am on Jan 8th over here in England)
She had an epic life and was very dear to a lot of people.
She had as the best possible passing one could hope for: she was in good physical and mental health until the final few days when her body decided that it was time to shut down, and in those final days she was comfortable in her own home, no pain, surrounded by family, and passed in her sleep.
During those final days, I was able to join the family via video and phone calls. I got to share what would be her final meal with her, laughing together as she enjoyed her final hot dog and tangerine.
In coming days I will post her obituary. For now I am just mourning her absence but feeling grateful for her smooth passing.
Happy New Year 2020!
We arrived home yesterday and didn't do much of note, opting to lounge around the house catching up on newspaper and laundry, and watching movies rather than going to our friends' NYE party.
New Years Day is normally a favorite day of mine of the year, but this year we got off to a bit of a rocky start after having an argument about photos from Mexico. I went stomping off in a huff and ended up going on a long run in the forest for a couple of hours. That felt good.
I came home and we all went for a walk to make peace, then ended up at the Red Lion for a swifty (one of my favorite things to do). On our walk home, we spontaneously called in with the DFs (another one of my favorite things to do) and that was lovely too! So all in all, it was actually quite a nice way to start the year.
On our last full day, we did some sailing finally, which we had been trying to make happen all week.
We had pretty strong winds and it was very exciting to be out there! We rented 2 Hobie cats for 90 minutes and took turns going out there with all the kids and each other.
Heidi and John spent part of the time up in the sky on a parasail - that is them in the distance in the photo below! Meanwhile those of us who were not out sailing were busy on the beach playing in the sand.
In the late afternoon we had a photo session and then went for final dinner together. It has been so wonderful to spend quality time with each other, although having young kids like my siblings do definitely makes this challenging! We also were able to have a dinner out just the 8 of us with Grandma, Rhiannon and Tryfan all babysitting.
Soon enough we will be back to reality, but we are so grateful for the chance to see each other in person for this week.
We all (except Grandma) spent the day at the quite incredible Xel-ha water wonderland. What a place!
The way it works is that you pay a [quite large] entrance fee, but then all food, drink, lockers, and snorkeling equipment is free. So you are free to explore the park and swim, snorkel, zip line, float, and play in this natural lagoon. There are lots of fish and manta rays to see, and it is just really cool! The big tower in the photo is a waterslide that is pretty fun, too, with a great view from the top. We locked up our phones and cameras and enjoyed this place for the entire day. Highly recommended.
We all gathered in our suite with Grandma for a Christmas morning discovery of stockings, a few presents, and the now traditional White Elephant gift exchange. Once the excitement had mellowed a bit, we had room service delivery of breakfast.
By about 10:30 am, we were ready to get outside and go swimming in the pool and at the beach.
It has been so wonderful to be here at the Royal Haciendas in Playa del Carmen. Our first day here was spent re-familiarizing ourselves with the swimming pools, the beach, the poolside and beachside food and bar menus, all that amazing stuff. And of course trying very hard to not get sunburnt!
Finallllllllyyy! The day is here where we are flying to Cancun for a week of Christmas and family and sunshine. We have been counting down the months, weeks, days, and finally hours until this morning.
We saw a lot of festively dressed families heading out into the wide world.
There were families with matching sweatshirts that said 'Family Trip to Lapland 2019', families with everyone wearing matching antlers, and plenty of Christmas jumpers and funny hats.
We checked in, found a place for breakfast, and got on the flight for 11 hours to Cancun! Rhodri hasn't been feeling 100% the past couple of days, so he sat with the kids and I sat a few rows away by myself. It was a long flight but a good one.
Upon landing, we found our luggage and driver, then realized we were going to need to wait another 45 minutes for Grandma, Eric, Kristin and the boys. It was warm and we were all a bit sweaty, and it was fabulous to discover a little bar area next to the arrival area outside where we could sit and have some refreshing drinks and nachos! Bienvenidos a Mexico!
Rhiannon and her friends sure made a mess of the downstairs.
Iris had to leave early, and Zoey left slightly later so it was only Soph, Aggie and Rio who remained to do a rather good tidy up of the house. Fair play to them for pitching in!
As mentioned previously, we had a practice on Wed night and then tonight was our big performance. We were the finale to the evening. Here is the video of our performance... sorry that you might need to rotate your head to the side in order to view properly.
After the performance, everyone stood around socialising for a bit, then headed to the Red Lion pub for an after party. Rhiannon and her Danehill posse headed back to our house for a girls birthday sleepover. It was a little fractious with the 5 of them - splitting into two pairs with Rhiannon trying to keep the peace. Once they had a bit more food in their tummies, everyone was quite a bit happier and there was no issue.
Meanwhile, back at the pub, there was quite a big crowd of us and we were lucky to have the live music performed by a great guitarist and singer named Dave McLennan..
At some point only Rhodri, Pete and I were left and by then we were friends with the musician and he was taking our requests. We danced and sang with him until the very end, and a bunch of ladies from a dinner party round the corner came to join us too. It was a super fun night!
When we got home, we found that all the girls had totally taken over the main rug area in the lounge. The house was a huge mess but we weren't to discover the full extent until the next morning.
We got to Goleta around 8:30 pm and had a happy reunion with Grandma Debi, Eric and Kristin (the boys were already in bed).
