Well, I guess I just wanted to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!
We have enjoyed a month of Christmas preparations and fun. Before we handed our car over to David and family we made sure we fulfilled those of our Christmas wishes that required transport. We visited the London Temple, and actually managed to stay over there for a night, which was fun. We rode one more time on a friend's pony. Everybody enjoyed a ride, abd Rebekah really did fantastically without anybody holding onto her this time. She was worried still to start with, but once she got into the stride, or the "wiggle, woggle, wiggle, woggle" as she said most of the way around the field in time with her movements, she did brilliantly and really enjoyed herself. We also visited an equine rescue centre (for horses, ponies and donkeys) which Michael and the children had found the previous month and really wanted to go back to. Peter just loved wandering freely around finding yet more horses and ponies everywhere he went. He especially loved the Shetland ponies, which is fun as he looked just the right size to ride one.
From there we went to Stratford on Avon where we have been for the previous few years at Christmastime to see their lights. We ended up having a day there one year as a family and by chance it was the day the town Christmas lights were being turned on. They were really nice, and we had such a nice time that we returned for that again the next year. Last year and this we went in December rather than late November, and went instead for a free ride on a tour bus (open-topped double decker), which gives some history of Stratford and also takes you around the lights. We had fish and chips for our tea there (in the chip shop this time, out of the rain). Last year I remember going a week later than we had planned because of bad weather. This year we were getting rid of our car and couldn't do that, so we had a rather wet and windswept ride on an open-topped tour bus. My mad and determined older daughters decided they were going on the top, on the back seat as they had wanted to, no matter what. So Michael stayed downstairs in the dry with Peter, and I accompanied 4 damp girls, well equipped with dome umbrellas that they could sit inside and see through on the back of an open-topped bus. Of course once we moved away, it got rather windy, so Rachel and Hannah who were sharing an umbrella were tugging hard on it to keep it down. Whereas I was across the aisle from them tugging hard on Rebekah's and Sarah's two separate umbrellas to stop them (and probably us with them) from being blown away! Unlikely I know, but it felt like it! Needless to say one of those umbrellas was bent totally out of shape and had a whole in it when we got back downstairs. As soon as we set off on the tour Rebekah, and shortly afterward Sarah wanted to be with Daddy downstairs. Well, you try walking along a wet and slippery open-topped bus in the wind and rain when it is moving, and then getting down a steep spiral staircase with a 3 and a 5 year old. Not I! We had another ride after that - all in the dry this time. Then we wandered back to the car through the Christmas market and across the river. Some of us were drenched, but actually nobody seemed to mind. It was a lot of fun!!
We've done some other fun things too, most of which have included giving in one way or another instead of receiving. That has made it a really special Christmas so far. Now the girls are nestled all snug in their beds, and have been really excited to put out their stockings tonight and to open a few presents too. More and more people have been handing us gifts, so there are a few to keep them going! :o)
We have a few more Christmas wishes to be fulfilled this week. One is to see our family in America tomorrow. We'll have a video conference with them. Another is to have Nanny come to visit us (she'll actually be staying with us for a couple of days). Then there's the all important pyjama party, complete with a video and popcorn of course. A few other things too. We'll be enjoying them, this year as last through our illnesses. Last Christmas day Sarah was too ill to share our Christms dinner, We ended up having a second one on Boxing Day just for her. Well, we've been knocked for six with a nasty virus again and have been taking cover and hiding away under blankets for the last two weeks. Now it is Sarah's turn again for the illness - bad timing! Hannah is the only survivor so far, and we hope she stays that way. If we're well enough we'll also be going to stay with my parents for a few days from Saturday onwards, though we'll stay away if we're ill so they don't come down with it too. I think there'll be enough presents to keep the children busy anyway even if they are quarantined a little longer.
We hope you enjoy a very healthy and happy Christmas, and actually we hope we do too. :o) So we wish plenty of love light and laughter to you all.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Thursday, 20 December 2007
From 4 wheels to, um, ... 12 or so!
Well, for quite a long time now Michael and I thought that we would not always have a car. Two months ago we felt quite strongly that we should get rid of our car, and we nearly did it, but not quite! Then a month ago my brother's family car (the one that had been ours before) decided that it was going to stop working, and it turned out to be way too much to fix. That was the push we needed. We offered our car to David's family and prepared to go car-less. Not a big deal for most of the population of the world I know, or even for other families as large as ours. However, the big red people-carrier (or family bus) that we had been driving had certainly made many things possible for quite some time that would not have been otherwise, and we have enjoyed that travelling freedom. Maybe now is a time to work a bit more to get places, maybe it will reduce our carbon footprint a little, or maybe, actually, it just allows us to work within our budget a bit better.
So as of a week ago we left our four wheels behind (round the corner at David's house to be precise) and we are walking, taking the bus to church and the girls' ballet class, and riding bikes to as many other places as we are able. Now that we have the lights and everything else we need for winter riding, riding the bikes won't cost us anything so they are definately preferable. We had been having a lot of fun going for rides as a family over the summer - mostly around a 2 1/2 mile block from our house and around the nearby woods. Rachel and Hannah are pretty strong riders. Rebekah made the block just fine, as did Sarah although quite wearily toward the end. Peter always had a nice ride and often liked to cuddle me from behind. :o) We felt the need to get bikes sorted for everyone, and a bike seat for Peter on the back of my bike which helped us be able to have that fun exercise over the summer. We now also have a couple of trailers bought 2nd hand for not too much but in great condition, which means we can still ride long distance with the 3 younger children in trailers. Especially good for winter journeys, and handy for shopping trips now too. So instead of our easily recognisable family bus, we are now travelling on anywhere between 12 and 16 wheels (training wheels/stabilisers included) :o).
Things are taking longer, which is to be expected. Life will sometimes go a little slower in what can be achieved in one day - also to be expected. It is taking a little bit more initiative to make some things work. We've used the internet and postal service a bit more for Christmas presents! We also see a lot more of the world around us as we pass it by at a much slower pace though, which has been nice on occasions and hopefully come spring and summer especially will be even more enjoyable. You never know, we may even end up a bit fitter because of it! Of course it was the first day or being car-less that the freezing weather really decided to set in. Typical. Come summer, riding everywhere will be a breeze! :o)
So as of a week ago we left our four wheels behind (round the corner at David's house to be precise) and we are walking, taking the bus to church and the girls' ballet class, and riding bikes to as many other places as we are able. Now that we have the lights and everything else we need for winter riding, riding the bikes won't cost us anything so they are definately preferable. We had been having a lot of fun going for rides as a family over the summer - mostly around a 2 1/2 mile block from our house and around the nearby woods. Rachel and Hannah are pretty strong riders. Rebekah made the block just fine, as did Sarah although quite wearily toward the end. Peter always had a nice ride and often liked to cuddle me from behind. :o) We felt the need to get bikes sorted for everyone, and a bike seat for Peter on the back of my bike which helped us be able to have that fun exercise over the summer. We now also have a couple of trailers bought 2nd hand for not too much but in great condition, which means we can still ride long distance with the 3 younger children in trailers. Especially good for winter journeys, and handy for shopping trips now too. So instead of our easily recognisable family bus, we are now travelling on anywhere between 12 and 16 wheels (training wheels/stabilisers included) :o).
Things are taking longer, which is to be expected. Life will sometimes go a little slower in what can be achieved in one day - also to be expected. It is taking a little bit more initiative to make some things work. We've used the internet and postal service a bit more for Christmas presents! We also see a lot more of the world around us as we pass it by at a much slower pace though, which has been nice on occasions and hopefully come spring and summer especially will be even more enjoyable. You never know, we may even end up a bit fitter because of it! Of course it was the first day or being car-less that the freezing weather really decided to set in. Typical. Come summer, riding everywhere will be a breeze! :o)
Thursday, 13 December 2007
An English Thanksgiving!
I have been trying to put this on here for a while, but we have been quite busy for the past few weeks.
This year, on 22nd November (which is now three weeks ago) we celebrated Thanksgiving along with our family (and friends) in America. It might seem strange to do so, not being American and with the reason behind much of why thanksgiving happened in the first place, however we have a lot to be thankful for, and looked forward to the opportunity to have a day dedicated to thankfulness, and especially as it was intended, to praising God for all that he has done for us. A primary reason for us also was that we have a sister and brother (with family) in the States, along with many others that we love, and this was another opportunity to be a bit nearer to them by sharing in some of the things that they would be doing, albeit many many miles away. Our family in America we have to spend time with in different ways to get to know one another and be close to them, as we just don't get to see each other in person.
Well, thank you to all of you that shared your own thanksgiving traditions with us. Thank you Debbie for your especially thoughtful response. We enjoyed reading them and there are some that we didn't manage this year that we might well try out in the future as we are hoping this will also become a tradition for us. It is fun to know the kind of things you would be doing.
That week wasn't my best of weeks, nor that day my best of days (in terms of how I was feeling), but we kept things simple and had a lovely time. We had looked at the history of thanksgiving over the previous few days and the children enjoyed learning something about the colonialists/pilgrims and what was effectively the first thanksgiving. That was really a harvest festival to us, and our meal reflected that partly. We did in the end go with partly 'traditional' food for our celebration meal. We enjoyed a free-range chicken (not turkey!), and mashed potato, gravy, cranberry sauce (we made our own in the end so that it would fit in with our no-sugar diet!), green beans, carrots, a big mixture of roasted vegetables - parsnips (mmm!), peppers, mushrooms, leek, sweet potatoes, garlic, etc., and then a baked butternut squash with some soya mince and cheese. Oh, and we also had sweetcorn (corn-on-the-cob) which Peter was especially thankful for! We didn't eat the squash in the end - we had that over the next couple of days instead along with some of the left-over veg. We had chosen some fruit we really like for dessert, but really didn't want it in the end as we were so full, so kept that for another day too! In future we might go for apple pie for a dessert, and I have a recipe for pumpkin pie (no sugar again) that we'll try out at some point, but maybe when we grow our own again in the next couple of years!
Rachel and Hannah really enjoyed helping out with preparing our meal and decorating the table in the morning while the little ones played and Peter had his nap. Then before our meal we had a few pieces of corn on our plates and thought about how the pilgrims for a long time really didn't have much food (like many others in the world now). We each took turns putting a piece of our corn into a glass as we shared things that we were each thankful for, until the corn was all gone, and we then had a special prayer of thanks. Then we filled the table with food that we really were thankful for (partly as it's food we don't normally get to eat!) We had coloured leaves decorating our table as a reminder of all things natural that we are also very thankful for.
We went for a walk in some woods near our home during what was left of the afternoon, and enjoyed exploring a part we hadn't visited before, which came out into a lovely grassy clearing in the middle. We gathered some fresh holly while we were there - that was the first of our Christmas decorations to go up that evening when we got back home. That was our only decoration for a while, tied up with some Christmassy ribbon, as despite our intentions to follow the tradition of decorating for Christmas right after thanksgiving, we had a lot happening here at the same time and didn't get organised enough - maybe next year?! I did manage to paint over some of our walls the day before though while Michael and the children went to visit their Nanny, so the house was looking pretty smart!
We finished off our day with tea/dinner and a pyjama party - we watched a video while enjoying some popcorn - all of us in our pyjamas. :o) That's one of our family traditions that the children sometimes choose for birthdays, and that we tend to do on Boxing day (day after Christmas day) and now sometimes at least for Thanksgiving too!
We hope all of you that are American enjoyed your own celebrations. It was nice to be thinking about you all in a different way while celebrating along with you. Somewhat belatedly, Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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This year, on 22nd November (which is now three weeks ago) we celebrated Thanksgiving along with our family (and friends) in America. It might seem strange to do so, not being American and with the reason behind much of why thanksgiving happened in the first place, however we have a lot to be thankful for, and looked forward to the opportunity to have a day dedicated to thankfulness, and especially as it was intended, to praising God for all that he has done for us. A primary reason for us also was that we have a sister and brother (with family) in the States, along with many others that we love, and this was another opportunity to be a bit nearer to them by sharing in some of the things that they would be doing, albeit many many miles away. Our family in America we have to spend time with in different ways to get to know one another and be close to them, as we just don't get to see each other in person.
Well, thank you to all of you that shared your own thanksgiving traditions with us. Thank you Debbie for your especially thoughtful response. We enjoyed reading them and there are some that we didn't manage this year that we might well try out in the future as we are hoping this will also become a tradition for us. It is fun to know the kind of things you would be doing.
That week wasn't my best of weeks, nor that day my best of days (in terms of how I was feeling), but we kept things simple and had a lovely time. We had looked at the history of thanksgiving over the previous few days and the children enjoyed learning something about the colonialists/pilgrims and what was effectively the first thanksgiving. That was really a harvest festival to us, and our meal reflected that partly. We did in the end go with partly 'traditional' food for our celebration meal. We enjoyed a free-range chicken (not turkey!), and mashed potato, gravy, cranberry sauce (we made our own in the end so that it would fit in with our no-sugar diet!), green beans, carrots, a big mixture of roasted vegetables - parsnips (mmm!), peppers, mushrooms, leek, sweet potatoes, garlic, etc., and then a baked butternut squash with some soya mince and cheese. Oh, and we also had sweetcorn (corn-on-the-cob) which Peter was especially thankful for! We didn't eat the squash in the end - we had that over the next couple of days instead along with some of the left-over veg. We had chosen some fruit we really like for dessert, but really didn't want it in the end as we were so full, so kept that for another day too! In future we might go for apple pie for a dessert, and I have a recipe for pumpkin pie (no sugar again) that we'll try out at some point, but maybe when we grow our own again in the next couple of years!
Rachel and Hannah really enjoyed helping out with preparing our meal and decorating the table in the morning while the little ones played and Peter had his nap. Then before our meal we had a few pieces of corn on our plates and thought about how the pilgrims for a long time really didn't have much food (like many others in the world now). We each took turns putting a piece of our corn into a glass as we shared things that we were each thankful for, until the corn was all gone, and we then had a special prayer of thanks. Then we filled the table with food that we really were thankful for (partly as it's food we don't normally get to eat!) We had coloured leaves decorating our table as a reminder of all things natural that we are also very thankful for.
We went for a walk in some woods near our home during what was left of the afternoon, and enjoyed exploring a part we hadn't visited before, which came out into a lovely grassy clearing in the middle. We gathered some fresh holly while we were there - that was the first of our Christmas decorations to go up that evening when we got back home. That was our only decoration for a while, tied up with some Christmassy ribbon, as despite our intentions to follow the tradition of decorating for Christmas right after thanksgiving, we had a lot happening here at the same time and didn't get organised enough - maybe next year?! I did manage to paint over some of our walls the day before though while Michael and the children went to visit their Nanny, so the house was looking pretty smart!
We finished off our day with tea/dinner and a pyjama party - we watched a video while enjoying some popcorn - all of us in our pyjamas. :o) That's one of our family traditions that the children sometimes choose for birthdays, and that we tend to do on Boxing day (day after Christmas day) and now sometimes at least for Thanksgiving too!
We hope all of you that are American enjoyed your own celebrations. It was nice to be thinking about you all in a different way while celebrating along with you. Somewhat belatedly, Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
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