Yeah, William is visiting

Of course we are busy busy busy, but William keeps telling me that I have to blog. I am trying!

James had flown on Thursday (7/11) to Nashville and returned with William on Sunday (7/14). These photos are from Helen. She texted them to me with the words that she already missed him. Of course. But we miss him a lot of days too when he is not here.

I went to early service and went to the airport afterwards to meet them. In the afternoon we went "across the river" because Sarah had invited us to dinner. William's cousins miss him too and vise versa. 

Group hug!

First a little play outside. William is trying out Caleb's tractor. 

Dinner enjoyed by all. Of course there has to be a fair amount of monkey-ing around.

Quiet-time before bedtime?

Stella didn't let that happen.

Monday

William was invited to spend the night and next morning we all went to the zoo. A hot day had been forecast but Sarah had only limited days off work. We tried to be as early as possible. And of course we had hats.

The kids had to have food for the giraffes. One of their highlights.

William had never had this experience but he was brave and really enjoyed it.

The tongue was very slobbery though.

The aviary is another "must" for Sarah's children with food. William enjoyed this too.

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Then we looked for a place to have a break in the shade. 

All four had to do some climbing.

We didn't see all the animals. It was just too hot and nap-time was overdue. Last thing ... a ride on the carousel. Why not?

After lunch (not sure exactly when) Sarah took us all to their ACAC pool. They have a family membership. It is a great place. But sorry, no photos. We were too busy having fun. Caleb is fearless. He went on the big slide. He can because he can stand there and he also started doing a few swim strokes. The twins must have jumped a hundred times from the edge. William does not have the swimming opportunity at home but he too does not mind putting his head under water and had a lot of fun.

We took the two older boys to our house and at 6 pm I brought them to our church. It's the week of St Martin's VBS. It goes til 8 pm and James brought them back to Sarah and Wade's house for the night. Decorations in the hallway.

Tuesday

Sarah's last day off. Since it was very very hot she thought it would be nice to go to the movies. I went in the morning to their house and Sarah put us all into her car. Guess what we saw?

The two older boys didn't move from their seats. They were glued. The two younger (being in the middle of being potty trained) asked every other minute to go to the bathroom. I am not sure how much Sarah saw of the movie. 

We went through Wendy's drive through, ate at their house and when it was time for the twins nap I went with William and Caleb to our house. We wanted to go swimming in our CR pool. Pool time for children is limited to certain times since we are a 55+ community. We were a little late, Caleb had forgotten his goggles and did not want to go in and a dark cloud had appeared. We could hear the rumble already. The boys were disappointed but we decided to go to Sweet Frog. Do they look happy? We started outside but it was too hot ... even with ice cream.

VBS again from 6 to 8 pm. No question they had fun. Small groups of children moved around to different stations. It looked great.

They also got dinner there. Robin, our church Sunday School Coordinator, is also Sarah's nanny. Everybody loves her.

After two nights at Auntie's house William had Caleb for two nights at our house. The boys slept upstairs in the guest room and were very good.

Wednesday

What to do on those hot hot Virginia days? Sarah had found an event at the Three Lakes Park from 10 to 11 am for us to go to (she was back to work). They have a summer nature series and this was about "Sharks". 

There was so much to see. The nature center has a lot of aquariums and terrariums with live animals but also a lot of stuffed animals which also was very interesting.

It was still early so for "elevenses" (tea break in England) so we went to a donut place. 

Caleb "posed" for the camera.

At home the boys found something to entertain themselves.

William wrote a letter to his Mom.

VBS of course at 6 pm again. We had been informed that it was "water day".

VIDEO!     (1:24)

Bed time. Every evening Caleb asks to see "the woodpecker". The husband of my cousin in Germany had made it and given to me when we visited them many years ago.

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And this is it for now. William's parents might like this "report".

bye Windsor / hello home

Thursday

A leisurely day. As we suspected we didn't see Stephen this morning since he had to leave for work so early. We are leaving tomorrow too so it is time to think "packing". I wanted to buy something I had seen earlier but didn't get because of limited suitcase space. That problem was solved since we are allowed to check two suitcases each but only came with one. Jane gave us a duffel bag she almost had got rid off a while ago.

We leisurely strolled around town. I could not believe this huge department of hats and fascinators at Daniels. Since the Ascot races were over everything was on sale. Don't need one, ha-ha.

James had "complained" that he didn't like the sloth on the horse's hind-leg in a previous blog so I took a photo of the other side he liked better. James is not impressed with this art but I kind of like it. 

We have to buy our tea at Waitrose and also got some strawberries. There were other products "less than perfect" too. Cucumbers which were not straight enough? EU regulations.

 

I must admit that Windsor is one of my favorite towns. I just love that you can do everything walking. 

When we walk back to Jane's house we always pass 7a where the uncle and 2 aunts lived at one time. And before them James lived there as a child with his parents and siblings. He has so many memories of it.

The road is called Clarebce Crescent because that's how the road bends. Houses are only on the outside of the half circle. On the other side of the road is a large private park. Only the owners of these houses have a key. On Sunday afternoons the family would have quite often had tea in that park and the children could play and run around. James told me that this was their favorite climbing tree.

I commented how tall it is. He said that it wasn't that tall 70 years ago.

Packing, packing, packing. And then we took Jane out for dinner. She had provided enough meals for us. Since we don't know any places she suggested an Indian restaurant and made a reservation for 7 pm. It was an excellent choice. The food was really good but the portions huge. We should have eaten half and taken the rest home. Jane does like leftovers (like we do) but we just kept enjoying and eating.

Friday

We had set the alarm for 5:15 am but the internal clock had woken us just before. We were quickly done. The taxi had been ordered for 6 am and he was very punctual. It took 20 minutes to the Heathrow Airport. 

Check-in, security, everything was so quick that we had plenty of time and went into the American Airlines lounge. They had a nice buffet. Almost a full English breakfast.

And this was the view.

At 8:42 am we were comfortably settled. I had a window seat. James was just across the aisle. 

Take-off at 9:27 am. 

All those days in Windsor and the noisy planes flying low over Jane's house but it is always the landing approach. Take-off is in the other direction. No chance to have THE view. Jane talked about seeing the rowing basins for the Olympic games. Are these it?

The Thames? Oh, I wished i knew were all this was.

The coast. Could this be Christchurch?

Oh well, time to settle down. That bowl of nuts for one person? No way. And an extra bottle of vodka in case the bloody mary is not strong enough?

We normally don't travel so luxurious but James had found an incredible good deal for the business class tickets. They were only a little bit more expensive then tourist class. It shows that it is important to search for it.

When the meal comes it always uses up a lot of the flying time.

For the main course James chose lamb and I had fish. Of course. The menu said: butterfish with pumpernickel topping. The fish was excellent but without the topping. 

Afraid to say that I did take care of my chosen dessert. Ice cream is never that filling. It just melts into places. 

I actually went through the airline magazine which I usually don't do but it had an article about Budapest mentioned on the front page. And I found the sudoku page and managed to finish all 3 of them labeled easy, medium and hard. And hard was really hard. It wasted a nice portion of the flight. On paper it is so much harder than on the iPad. 

This was part of a light meal prior to arrival. Instead of a sandwich I had salad again and this was part of it. I had no idea what the read things were. I googled on it and found out that they were 

"Mild Roquito Chilli Pepper Pearls". They popped in your mouth like bubbles. Funny.

After watching two movies (Mary Poppins returns and Nancy Drew and the hidden staircase) it was about 8 hours later when there is Chicago at noon local time.

We were so lucky again with immigration, the custom/luggage thing, transfer to another terminal we found again that we had a lot of time. But clever James saw that there was an earlier flight and managed to get two seats on it. Instead of 2:48 pm we took off at 12:53 pm. Two hours later we couldn't believe that even our luggage was there. An Uber brought us home. Life is good (except when we stepped on the scales).

Some of our friends in our community go almost every Friday evening out for dinner and often we join them, not today though. After a shower James went for milk and a salad kit. All we needed. But then we got a call that those friends were sitting after their dinner on a back patio two streets over and we should come too. Oh well, why not? We could share the "Rumanian Delight" we had bought to share with them.

But before the invitation I had started the computer with the mailing of the Cloak, our monthly church newsletter. I had worked so hard on it in Windsor trying to be on time as much as I could but then the church software didn't let me get in a second time from that internet. So I was nervous to try whether I could do here again or whether it was a different computer problem. No problem. I could start it and it kept running while we were gone. All done. Yeah! Here it is if you are interested in it. 

St Martin's Cloak 2019-07.

Saturday

This morning's survey in our garden. Some saucer-size hardy hibiscus. 

But not everything has survived our absence. I think this would have liked some water? Oh goodness, some work is waiting.

 

And that is it. THE END of this wonderful trip.