Blog: FAIL

I'll just come out and say it: I'm el lame-o. Seriously, don't ever pay me to maintain a blog for you--the couch calls my name after long days and I'm not strong enough to say NO. 

My mother-in-law gave me a little pep talk the other day and suggested that I just get on here and sum up what's happened so far and start fresh from there. I'm going to take her advice--I mean, I started this blog to update family and friends, but also to have something to look back on twenty years down the road when living in England will be a past that we'll struggle to remember. So, even if all of our 5 blog followers have unsubscribed and given up, I'm going to give this another go...for us.

So the last time I sort of blogged, we were on our way to Scotland. Edinburgh is stunning. The landscape is so layered, you can't help but gawk in awe at the 360° view of awesomeness. It's too much to detail, but we visited all the main sites and spent most of our time at their National Museum. The castle is splendid (yeah, I said "splendid") and we got to see their 13:00 firing of the cannon for historical timekeeping. Scared the crap out of me...my countdown was wrong. Here are just a few pictures:

Climbed to the top of Arthur's seat, Edinburgh's inactive volcano.

In case you're wondering--yes, they sell traditional Scottish attire at almost every gift shop and bagpipers are on rotation to play constantly in the city center. We grabbed the obligatory Scotland shot:

Once we got home, school was back in full swing and Audrey had playdates, parties, sports day, and lots of homework. One assignment was to make up a Fairytale based on a well-known one. Here's her story--definitely worth a read! And side note: she amazes me to no end.

This picture reminds me of how awesome this race was. All of the kids were split into teams, so one team had kids from all years. When it was time for Audrey to race, all of the Year 5 kids started chanting her name. She told me after crossing the finish line that their chants made her heart feel full and pushed her to go faster. Kids are amazing.

Anyway, July rolled around and a friend of mine named Hillary invited us to the fancy Steward's Enclosure at the Henley Royal Regatta. There were quite a few rules that guests of the enclosure had to abide by, but in the end, the experience was worth the near heat stroke Stegen and I suffered. No kids allowed in the enclosure, but she gave us all boat tent passes so we were able to take the kids into the first section to meet the rowers. Go Cal and Yale!

Right around July 4th, with my birthday around the corner, I got extremely homesick. Our first year of no Independence Day BBQ and fireworks--sad trombone. Luckily, we have some pretty fab friends here. We all got together, gathered as many Americans and Brits married to Americans as we could, and had our own little celebration at the local brewery. I even made a cake!

American kids, half-American kids, and three non-American kids who love Americans.

For my birthday, we went to a beach called West Whittering with one of our favorite families. Here's our friend Tuc joining in on a jump shot! And in case you were wondering, yes, we were all wearing hoodies (minus my crazy kids) because, well, it was freezing a** cold!!!!

Two days later, Audrey freaked out, screamed and wailed through the gentle extraction of her second loose tooth. 

You might be surprised to hear this, but hot damn...it's sizzling over here! We've had some boiling days (like, over 75°, which without A/C is like 900°). In England, there's no guarantee that we'll have warm days twice in a row, so when it happens, we seize the day and spend as much time in our back garden as we can. 

Well, that's the best I can do for now. I still have a bunch of pictures and really intelligent things to say, but a relaxing shower and Orange is the New Black are on the agenda tonight, so I'll save my smartness (is that a word?) for later. We're finishing out the last week of school (hallelujah!) and we're off to Greece for two weeks of holiday. Check out Sifnos and Folegandros--we'll be kicking up our feet there for awhile!

I'll leave you with a video of Audrey singing God Save the Queen--she's quite the American Anglophile!