Activism

 Today it was just Emma and me swimming at the beach on our Saturday morning, but today was a bit different because straight afterwards we attended a protest march down in Seaford.  

The big deal is that the local politicians have not been voting the way their communities want them to. In this case, they are not voting to stop sewage going directly into the ocean and there is no excuse for that!

The whole thing was pretty well organized and over 200 people were at the Seaford 'splash point'. As you can see, it was a beautiful (and chilly) day. Here is a little news article about it:

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/23283883.xr-slam-maria-caulfield-mp-protests-lewes-newhaven-seaford/

Boys in the gym

Oscar and Tryfan have been using the gym a couple of times a week after school.  It's pretty fun having teenagers in the house.

Progress in the back

Things are coming along in the construction site out back! Not sure when it will be finished, but we are going through a lot of tea and coffee keeping the work crew going.

New car in the fam

For the past 10 years or so, we've been leasing cars on a 3 year cycle. Back about a year ago, we organized to get our next car to be an electric one. We really liked having the BMW i3 several years ago although it only had a range of about 60 miles so at the time we couldn't go very far.  When was that? 2014 or something?  Anyway, we agreed to get a Skoda Enyac electric car and today it arrived!  We've named him Eddy.

A new friend in the kitchen

For Christmas at work, we were given a voucher worth £40 to spend on some gifty type website.  I had forgotten about it until today, so I spent all of 15 minutes looking at the website and decided to put the voucher towards a radio! I'm so excited that it arrived today.  I plugged it in, and music came out!  I'm gonna put it in the kitchen so I can just switch it on and listen to the radio whenever I want. 

Thinking of our girl

Tonight we went to see Avatar: the way of water film at The Depot.  We went a bit early in order to have dinner, and even though it was over 3 hours long, it was so good!  We had amazing food at the Depot cafe although it didn't feel complete without Rhiannon there.  We asked the waiter to take a photo to show Rhiannon that we were missing her.

A little squeak

This morning Rhodri and I were actually both just sitting on the couch at a reasonable hour of a Saturday morning, reading the paper and drinking coffee, and we both heard a tiny little squeak.  Whaaat?

We checked the uber-sticky trap under the sofa, and voila: little mousey who has been evading us for months was stuck.  Poor little fellow. It was sad that he was so stuck and would not survive. Rhodri put him out of his misery, but actually it was a big moment because we have been trying to catch this guy (or girl!) for so long.  It has been fun getting to know the rodent exterminator lady Harriet.

Advertising campaign

 Our girl has been featured on an advertisement for Prin!

Christmas demob and dining out

After getting back yesterday from Austria, we had a day of organizing stuff and demobilizing Christmas. Its always sad doing this, but it has to be done at some point.  This was a pretty awesome Christmas season, between the family crowd at the house and then the chalet, and now the party is over...

But then tonight we went for a nice dinner out on the town (only Haywards Heath, but still, OUT!). We had a good time and it felt really nice to be just us four together.

Happy New Year 2023

We had an early start but no troubles getting to the Salzburg airport and then traveling home.  In the afternoon Evie came over so that she and Rhiannon could spend time together and do crafty new yearsy projects.

Off to a good start, I guess!

Onward into the new year

Although our week of rental at the chalet is due to finish on Jan 2nd, we Lewises are departing a day early. Rhiannon needs to get back to St Louis and we needed to build in some wiggle room with all the travel uncertainty.  It was fine in the end and I'm glad that we left some room to be able to regroup.  However, it was really hard to say goodbye to everyone after this wonderful week!

We had an amazing dinner and then watched the fireworks from our room since we retired for the night just a little before midnight. We are getting up early in the morning for the taxi to Salzburg airport and to kick off the new year!

Few more Austria pics

Although the snow conditions were not great, the weather was lovely and it was amazing to be with so many family members for this stretch of days.

More Austria

For the stretch of days that we stayed at this place, we had breakfast altogether, then went separate ways during the day, headed back to the chalet around 4-4:30, spent an hour or so in the spa/ sauna area, then got dressed for dinner and settle in to lounging the rest of the evening. It was so wonderful to spend these hours with dear family members. 

After a few days, we changed the routine so that the kids started eating a bit earlier and then got to go on the tablets afterwards while we adults & teens continued our dinner.

The Austrian smile...

Scenes from Austria

One night there was a ski show put on by the Instructors in the area and it was really fun to watch.

Austria here we come

We got picked up by a semi-grouchy Hello Taxi's bus driver in front of our house with a 16 passenger van and we all piled in to go to Heathrow and fly to Munich. 

We actually travelled in two groups - the California clan (5) and the rest of us (8) and arrived about an hour within each other.  Finally we walked into the grand chalet of Panorama in Maria Alm.  What a place!

We got settled into our rooms and had an amazing dinner prepared by Chef Thierry, then went to sleep at a decent hour ahead of our first day on the slopes. 

The next morning we had breakfast down in the nook 

and then set out to find skis and boots and start our adventure.

And so this is Christmas

"It's 7:31!!!" That was the loud whisper that the whole house could hear this morning as the kids were finally allowed to go downstairs and open stockings.  It was really fun to have littlies in the house for Christmas again, and our teenagers seemed to enjoy being the cool big kids.

After opening presents we went for a walk to get some fresh air.

We had quite a big brunch type meal that worked out pretty well, and then we had leftovers for dinner. It was a fabulous Christmas day and evening. The only thing was that we were missing our sister Heidi and her family, who weren't able to come over and join us. 

Tomorrow morning very early we are starting out journey to do a week of skiing in Austria!