Drinking With the Kids

The last few days leading up to the end of the school term were cuh-ray-zee. Thank goodness that's over! Audrey's school nativity play and completion of the Mayor's house painting project landed her in the Henley Standard newspaper! What a fun souvenir to take home when we leave Henley. Here she is:

The last day of school ended at 1pm for Audrey and we (me, Audrey, and Dorian) ran home, changed, and ran again to the train station to catch the 2pm train to Maidenhead for another birthday party. We barely made the train, but after the most hectic journey of narrowly missing another train in Twyford for the connection, we made it in one piece. Here's Audrey with the birthday boy and her other boy (space) friends:

We met Stegen after the party and went to grab a quick bite to eat. Little did we know, Pizza Hut in the UK isn't a quick pizza joint--it's a full-service restaurant! It's just a shame that their pizza still tastes awful!

Two course meal at Pizza Hut...?

 Anyway, these last few days have been the coldest that I've experienced since the move. The crazy wind and rain storm that we've been dealing with today really didn't do much for my hair, but it was okay for my bones. Last Friday's "calm" frost was a different story--it hurt! The cold went down so deep that I felt my body go into survival mode...basically, all of my energy went to maintaining body warmth and all brain function was lost. When brain function returned, I realized that I seriously need some new shoes with triple fur lining and major traction--"ice-skating" to school is dangerous!

 
 When we were back in the bay area, I encountered quite a bit of clique problems--people had their groups of friends and there was this weird need to exclude. Maybe keeping people out made their circle of friends more exclusive, or maybe it just kept things predictable. Whatever it was, it was dumb. Anyway, I can't speak for the rest of England, but I will say that the people that we've met in Henley truly believe in "the more, the merrier." We've been invited to the local brewery with several families this past weekend, Christmas Eve with a Swedish family, lunch after boxing day, and a "North American mid-day drink" at the pub around the corner for Christmas Day. 

That being said, being with these new friends makes me miss the really good friends that Stegen and I made back home. One of those friends sent us a card, but it couldn't be delivered! 

Oops! We'll be taking care of the extra postage online so that we can figure out whose card we're missing. How strange that USPS allowed it to even go through and make it all the way to England without the right postage!

Anyway, I hope everyone is ready for Christmas! We love you all.

 
(Side note about pubs and breweries here: everyone brings their kids and "grabbing a drink" is a 5 hour family affair! I might just be able to have more than one alcoholic drink when I come back to the states...without turning beet red and passing out!)