Spanish trip to Spain

This weekend Tryfan flew to Santander, Spain with his Spanish class for a few days. I had the privilege of taking Tryfs, Oscar and Andy to the airport at 06:00 on Saturday morning. They were so cute and excited to be going.

The teachers who were on the trip did a good job of updating the class Instagram account with photos from the trip. They fit so much into the 3 days they were there! Really impressive.

They went on a boat trip, visited a wildlife zoo, took a flamenco class, went to art museums, and also were given free time to go to cafes and shops, play football in the park, and probably loads more that I have no idea about. They are teenagers on a school field trip, after all!  Anyway, they got back tonight and Tryfan was just buzzing about his trip, showing photos and telling stories.

Just us two

With Rhi at Prin and Tryfs in Spain, Rhods and I got to spend some quality time of our own together. We didn't do anything too exciting, but it was nice weather and we enjoyed the stretch of days of just us.  A sign of what will be to come in not too many years from now!

Parent's weekend at Prin

Last year at this time, Aunt Kristin flew to St. Louis to spend the weekend with Rhiannon. But this year Grandma Debi flew out to St. Louis to see our girl!  It was a big deal because she hadn't been out to visit Principia since Heidi graduated back in 1994. I don't have too much photographic evidence of Grandma Debi and Rhiannon's weekend together, but it sounded like they had a really special time together.

I'm so grateful that they were able to spend this time.  Thanks Mom for making the trip :-)

Newcastle trip

On Tuesday I took the train from Haywards Heath station all the way up to Newcastle in the northeast of England.  It was a great trip!  I arrived into town just before 6 pm and was able to do a bit of exploring round the quay before it got dark. Such a cool city actually!

On Wednesday I was able to go on a bit of a field trip with one of our clients. 

It was a spectacular drive across the North Pennines Orefield.. so desolate and beautiful

I got to see the field site that I had studied and read about earlier in the year, which was just really cool.

Today was the actual conference and it was in a really cool venue - the Institute of Mining and Minerals at the University of Newcastle.  I was on a panel about geothermal potential in the Northeast of England so got to sit up front for a bit which was cool.  But the highlight was meeting people and sitting next to Lord Peter Lilley.  He was delightful to talk with and I had such a good time chatting with him throughout the day.  Tomorrow I will take the train back home, but its been a great trip.

A misty start to October

 This was the scene in the Ashdown Forest this morning as I took Annie out for a morning walk.

I do love this area when it looks this way.. reminds me of foggy mornings when I was growing up in Goleta.

G-Buck's fur coat

Tonight, which is the same night at Homecoming for Rhiannon, Tryfan went to a party at some girl's house near Chailey.  He wore G-Buck's mink fur coat and it was a real hit!

Homecoming at Prin

 Homecoming is kind of a big deal, and Rhi had been planning things for several weeks now.  Looks like they had lovely weather and a beautiful setting to have a photo session before the event.  .

Her date for the evening is Drew, and he had asked her to the dance back when they were on their Senior year leadership camp in Michigan.  Apparently he had made a poster on some cardboard and carried it all the way in his suitcase, carefully keeping it flat until the moment came when he could pop the 'will you go to Homecoming with me' question.  So cute.

Open Mic night

 .. at the Bluebell Vineyard and it was also Sharon's birthday this week. Good excuse to come out and be social!  I actually didn't feel like going out at all but went along anyway.

It was fun to catch up with friends like Sharon, Rachel and Heather.  I took these photos to send to Rhiannon since Sharon was Rhi's boss at the chicken farm, and Rachel was Rhi's teacher when she was 5 years old!  

Spirit week at Prin

 This week is apparently Spirit Week, where each day has new and different dressing up challenges.  Here is 'Twin Day' (or Triplet, as the case may be), 'Character Day' (where Rhi and her friend dressed up like Adam Sandler), and 'BBQ Dads vs Soccer Moms'.

Its nice to see our girl smiling and having fun!

Tryfan's football team

 Since Rhodri is Tryfan's football and rugby teams, I never really get to see them play. At least someone took this photo of the team after the game today.  Looks like he was playing goalie in the game today, which he never does.  Not sure what the story there is!

Rhodri's 50th birthday - part 2

 Today was a nicer day to celebrate Rhodri's birthday so we both took the afternoon off and drove an hour out into the deepest darkest Sussex countryside to rent kayaks at the Bodiam Boating Station!  It was a spectacular drive, and then we hopped into our kayaks and took to the water. 

We had the river to ourselves and it was just so peaceful and lovely to simply paddle and enjoy the elements.  We saw birds and sheep and a few fish, but nothing too spectacular except for the clouds (and we all know how crazy i am about clouds!).  We had rented the kayaks for 3 hours, and so we had started by paddling downstream first and then turned around to head back but we still had about 45 min left. So we grabbed some provisions from the car that I had brought and continued paddling upstream for a bit.  Then we hooked our kayaks together and busted out the provisions, and just floated back down to the starting point. Brilliant! Loved this part because it was just us, floating, enjoying canned cocktails and the late afternoon sunlight.   We finished with some 'dirty nachos' and drinks at the cafe there at the Bodiam Boating Station before heading back home. 

Somewhere along the way on the paddling adventure, Rhodri admitted that he had been thinking of inviting friends to meet us at the pub that evening but he hadn't actually asked anyone!  So he sent a text message around during the middle of the paddle, and fortunately there were a few of our friends who were able to join us.

We had the Denslows, the Dons (including Max who joined in!), the Perrings and Mac. It was a civilised, easy evening and felt really great to see these good people. We haven't seen enough of these peeps.

Memories from Bormio

 Petter sent this photo of Rhodri, Ole and him when they were altogether in Bormio on the cycling trip.

Rhodri's 50th birthday - part 1

 Today was Rhodri's 50th birthday and we woke up to a very windy and stormy day.  I had planned to do something fun in the afternoon but instead we will save that for later in the week and instead do something else.  We went for dinner at the Lewes Depot and then saw an opera! 

The dinner was great - the Lewes Depot is a surprising place because it is a converted warehouse type place that is now a cinema with conference rooms and an interesting space with a good restaurant.  But then the opera was really weird... it was "Das Rheingold" by Wagner, and it was a live screening from the Royal Opera House.  So it was a really long, dark, sort of dystopian opera with strange characters.  The clincher was having a very old lady (one of the actresses in the opera, not just a random person) walk out on the stage in the first scene. She walked out really slowly and in a frail, hunched over way, and she was stark naked!! 

So it was nice to do something to celebrate his birthday on this weekday night and we got to wear our Rolexes!

Fun times at the start of Senior year

Looks like Rhiannon is having a great start to the year now that they are back from their leadership camp week