Double Happiness

Delayed Gratification

Since Gwenny turned 5 in Paris without the benefit of a home-baked birthday cake or really any celebration at all other than the fact that she was in PARIS!  I mean, really, shouldn't that be good enough?  Well, maybe if you're turning 15 instead of 5.

So we've been home since Sunday and we're finally past the urge to lapse into a coma at 3:00 PM each day and Gwen's been reminding me of my promise to make her a cake.  She asked for chocolate - with chocolate frosting and I was at a loss for how to make a totally brown cake look 'girly' (Not unlike my dilemma when Michael asked for a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting for his 4th birthday).  I finally decided to go the cupcake route since I had a cupcake 'tree' that displayed the treats in a fancy way.  Fancy = Girly.  Right?

So that was Gwen's delayed gratification and here's some for you.

A few posts back, I mentioned that we were in Scotland (trying to tolerate the rain and the bagpipes) but I don't think I mentioned that we spent another full day there and the weather cleared and it was insanely beautiful.   Honestly, in the sunshine, even bagpipe music sounds good!

Here are some of my favorite photos from our last day in the UK.

 
Can you believe how beautiful this is?  Seriously, I can't stop looking at it.  I just wish I remembered what the heck it was!
Another gorgeous photo of Edinburgh.  This time I crouched down and snapped the photo through a wrought iron fence that protected a bed of beautiful flowers.

 
Gwen was allowed to pick a souvenir of the trip and she chose a sword and shield.  No big surprise there!  Here she is "protecting" a spot along the "Royal Mile".  Be sure to click the image so you can see the larger view and appreciate her face and how serious she is about her job.

 
Gwen and Maddy inside the ruins of the Abbey behind Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.  It's amazing to be in a place that is this old (it was built in 1128!). 

 
I love this photo of Andrew and his baby girls.  He looks so good and the Abbey Ruin is so spectacular but Gwen is clearly miserable.  Maddy is only happy because Gwen isn't.  To pretend that our entire trip was all fun and games to them would be a disservice to every parent who has ever traveled with 4 and 5 year olds.    Looking back, it's kinda funny.  As parents, you just soldier through all of this as best you can.  Now I find it remarkable how these gorgeous photos betray the full mood of the moment in which they were taken.

 
A snapshot back in time - nearly 900 years!

 
Don't you almost expect a unicorn to walk across this grassy path?  I don't think I've ever seen anything more beautiful and it was a relief to be in the garden of Holyrood Palace because, frankly, the palace is kinda grim.  It's dark and cold and musty and full of things that must have been state of the art several hundred years ago but seem uncomfortable now. 

Interesting how we can judge how royalty lived hundreds of years ago and (by western standards) it seems substandard.  This was especially true of how Emperors lived in the Forbidden City in Beijing but things weren't much more comfortable for Kings and Queens of other countries.    Kinda makes me wonder how the peasants lived back then.

If you're still wanting more, check out our flickr photo set for Edinburgh. All these photos are there and several others too. Best of all, they're full size so you can see every glorious detail!

We're Home, Wide Awake and Squeaky Clean

Yesterday, we flew from Edinburgh Scotland to London England to San Francisco and came home to a very grateful cat and a nice soft bed.  At 3:00 AM (today), we were all wide awake and decided to start our day nice and early. 

I ran a bath for the girls and plunked them in it while I unpacked suitcases.  I heard them playing and splashing and laughing so I knew they were safe even though I wasn't directly supervising.  Then I heard Maddy say "Um... Mom?  I think we need your help..." so I ran into the bathroom and saw this:

The scene made me gasp. They emptied THREE bottles of bubble bath into the Jacuzzi Tub and turned on the jets!  Then they stirred all of their bath toys into the foamy mess.  I was not looking forward to cleaning this up since there was still so much unpacking and laundry to do after our trip so I tried to scold them but I couldn't keep a straight face (damn it!).  I told them to stay put while I choked back laughter and ran to fetch Daddy and the camera.

We put each girl into the shower and rinsed them off but the soapy foam just wouldn't go down the drain.  It's still 8 inches deep in the bathtub and no amount of water I dump on it seems to reduce it.  Anyone know a good home remedy for dissolving foam?  Salt, maybe?

Many thanks for all of the nice comments during our vacation.  Sorry I didn't reply to everyone but our internet connections were pathetically slow everywhere we went and I was barely able to do the little bit of computer stuff I did.  Now I'm excited to get the kids into school a few hours per day so I can have time to visit blogs and catch up on what my friends in bloggerville have been up to!

Guess where we are?

..

Hee hee... Any guess where we might be today?

Yesterday, we left Manchester and Yorkshire.  Andrew was born in Manchester and his mom is from Yorkshire so we visited some of the places they used to live - including very two very special neighbors of Andrew's childhood home (they feel like family).

There are many other photos in our flickr sets but here are a few of my favorites from the last three days.

A pretty spot in Grassington.

Another pretty spot in Grassington

Typical Yorkshire countryside. I can't help but think about "All Creatures Great and Small" when I see this.

Andrew and the girls playing the garden of his childhood neighbor (and long time family friends), Pat and Dilys. His old back yard can be seen in the photo above just to the left of the hedge and trees the run up the center of the two yards

We fly home tomorrow morning.

Visiting relatives (and the park hereafter referred to as the Allergy Park)

We spent last night and today in Sheffield visiting Andrew's Aunt and Uncle and cousins.  Between thunderstorms, we dashed over to a nearby park so the girls could run off some excess energy.  The park was beautiful.  Here's a pic from last night.

Gwen played "tennis" with Daddy.  He would pitch the ball to her and she would swing at it like a baseball player.  When she was successful, she'd grin and huff some moist breath onto her fingernails then proudly buff them on her chest.   What a silly girl!

She picks up these cute little expressions from watching people and movie videos closely and she has a special knack for incorporating them into her everyday life.  For example, if I ask her to do something, she'll always say "Yes, Sir!" with a sharp salute. Sometimes she'll say "Aye aye, Mommy Captain!" and instead of saying "yes", she'll almost always say "sure".  Instead of "no", she'll roll her eyes sweetly and say "I don't think so!"  And that's just a small sampling.  She's really quite a character, our Gwendolyn!    

Gwen is such a fun loving and happy child.  She's sturdy and capable.  She's always up for an adventure and isn't one to shy away from something because it's risky or uncomfortable.  She'll attempt anything.  Climb anything.  Jump over anything.  She almost never falls and when she does, she's likely to jump up, wipe the blood off of her scraped knees or elbows and take off running again.   She's hardly ever sick and when the rare illness happens, she doesn't complain about it.  So today was especially hard because she had her first ever allergy attack and it really looked like a miserable one! 

It started with one itchy eye and quickly spread to both eyes.  Five minutes later, she was a mess.  She was sneezing and crying and rubbing her itchy red eyes. 

We left the park and popped into the pharmacy on our way back to Auntie Barbara's house.   About an hour after some eye drops and some Benadryl, she was back to her cheerful self.

After all this allergy drama, we drove to Andrew's birth town and visisted his incredibly sweet neighbors.  They are two of the nicest people I've ever met and their home and garden are beautiful!  The camera battery was dead but it's charging now and we'll have plenty to share tomorrow when we return. 

  

Goodbye London...

We left London three days ago.  Michael flew back to New York to spend the rest of his summer break with his girlfriend and we rented a car and headed north to visit relatives.  I'll post later about the experience of driving on the left side of the road!

Our first stop was Calcot Manor, a charming little cottage just outside of Tetbury in the Cotswolds.  We spent two days here. 

We stayed in the Malmesbury Suite.   The master suite was downstairs and the kids' room was upstairs.  We had our own little enclosed/fenced garden.  This really was the most quaint place I've even been.  From the mossy roof shingles to the sweet little chirps of the baby birds calling to their mothers.    I could live here forever, I think!

While we were here, we visited Andrew's Aunt, Uncle and Cousin in Chipping Norton.  We had a nice visit while the girls played in the garden - watering the many beautiful flowers.  Later, they found an assortment of old toys that their Daddy also played with as a child.  It was fun to imagine all the little hands that have held these over the years.

More photos on flickr in our Calcot Manor and Chipping Norton sets

Yesterday, we headed to Yorkshire to visit more family.  I'll post more on flickr and here about that later.  Today, we're visiting the old family farm and I hope to also catch a glimpse of James Herriot's veternary practice.