Father Christmas

This year we weren't sure what to do about seeing Santa Claus. I started searching for ideas and there were so many different options I got a little overwhelmed. We decided to keep it simple since we've been on the go so much lately and we paid a visit to Santa's Grotto in a local store. You have to schedule your visit, 6 pounds per child to see Father Christmas. It was a cute little set up. It was kind of  nice that we didn't have to fight any crowds and the kids had him all to themselves. He spent 15 minutes with them just talking about Christmas, his reindeer, etc. He asked if they knew how many days until Christmas and Allie knew right away, "18".  At the end of their visit he gave each of them a wrapped Christmas present. Although it's been hard they still haven't opened them and they are sitting under the Christmas tree.

Blake didn't want to go near Santa. He was happy to be away from him!

 

We've been doing other fun Christmas themed activities too.

 

Watching Christmas movies

Lots of hanging out around the Christmas tree

 

 

Look for Elfy every morning. Luckily he hasn't been too mischievous this year. Of course, he had to have a tea party with friends whilst visiting England.

 

Of course the kids have been busy coloring Christmas pictures and making us cards, both at home and at school. Allie came home last week with the cutest card. She had it in her backpack for a day or two and made sure Derek and I wouldn't look in her folder. One morning she finally decided to give it to me before heading to school. It is the sweetest thing ever!

I'm not entirely sure why she wrote what she did. I can assure you we have not threatened them with no Christmas presents however they know if they aren't good they won't get any from Santa. We've also been talking about the real reason we celebrate Christmas and it's not all about the gifts, it's about our Savior. AND, we've talked about those less fortunate than us who don't get a bunch of presents at Christmas time because they can't afford it. This was all brought on because while watching their after school cartoons for every commercial they were saying, "I want that, I want that!" It then led to us gathering up some of their toys to donate. Derek's squadron was putting this together to take to Children's facilities around the local area. It was kind of cool because they posted a picture on Facebook of them delivering some of the toys and one of the toys pictured was one the girls had donated. Anyway, it's probably a collaboration of all three where Allie got the idea to write this on and they were probably fresh in her head when it came time to make this card at school. Nonetheless, it is the sweetest thing and will be something we will hold on to!

Every night before we go to bed we read one of the kids' Christmas books. They have a lot of them! We also read some scriptures and sing Christmas songs. Allie loves reading the scriptures to us every night. I will give her a verse to look up and she loves searching for it! One night when we were done reading and singing I found Avery doing this:

"reading" scriptures! This was a big deal to me as Avery does not like going to church......at all. She complains about it all the time. It's a struggle to get her to say her prayers. She's recently been trying to convince Allie that she shouldn't get baptized. So yeah, I really liked seeing this!

 

And what's Christmas without baking lots of goodies?!? I made tons of cookies this year. Some for an Airmen Cookie drive (so the single airmen living in the dorms can get homemade baked goods for the holiday), for the girls' teachers, neighbors, and our church Christmas party and I'll be making more for a Christmas party this Friday. Of course we had some for ourselves too. These are the best cookies ever!

 

And.....another pic of the kids being cute

 

 

 

 

O' Christmas Tree

We're starting to get in the Christmas Spirit over here. :)

 

 

Blake saw the stockings and knew exactly what to do. ;)

 

I thought for sure with us being so far away from the Grandparents that the kids wouldn't get as spoiled as they usually are. I was WAY wrong! I think they are even more spoiled now. I am pretty sure we've received a package every month we've been here. This last one was ginormous! Full of Christmas presents. One of the items in the package was a tin of popcorn, which we found out last year the kids loved. They still love it! Every day after school they grab the tin of popcorn and sit around it for their after school snack.

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

As a military family, holidays are HARD. Often we find ourselves far away from home, unable to spend time together with our families and, even worse, sometimes our spouses are away and we aren't able to go "home". Our friends become our family. We take each other in and help fill that void. This year we had our really good friends over for Thanksgiving weekend. They truly feel like family to us. We couldn't be more grateful for such wonderful friends. We are so glad they made the journey over here from Germany to spend the holiday with us (and grateful that they aren't sick enough of us yet to have us over to their home for Christmas/New Year) :)

We were having so much fun I didn't take many pictures. Not even a single one of our yummy Thanksgiving meal. While Nicole and I were cooking I did get out the cupcakes for the kiddos to decorate......they did it all on their own. (Thanks, Mom, for the supplies!)

 

We did a couple of crafts which I let Allie take the lead on and she really enjoyed that! :)

 

The day after Thanksgiving we went to Cambridge for the day. Still love that city!

 

 

 

There are several Willy Wonka style candy stores. Here is one of them.

She was in heaven!

She liked it because she loves the movie Willy Wonka but she could care less about the candy.

 

Their last full day here we went to High Lodge. We had our doubts about going because it was so wet and muddy out.....and also turned out to be really cold. It's a fun place to let the kids around though so we went for it.

Avery's face cracks me up in this one

 

Everyone had a turn on the zip line

and I do mean everyone

It ended up being a fairly quick trip. I think everyone was cold and hungry. We drove to base to get our fix of American food and ate at Taco Bell. :) That night we went to King's Lynn for dinner at the amazing Nandos.

 

They stuck us in the Vault Room. Really cool secluded sitting area.

 

I love this time of year in Europe. Everywhere you go there are Christmas Lights everywhere. So festive and pretty!

 

Thank you Barker family and Rob for spending the holiday with us!

The Rest of Our Adventures with our First Visitors

So, I didn't mention that we had planned to see Paris on our very first day in France and then go to the Normandy sights on our second day. We ended up skipping out on any sight seeing the first day because the car ride was getting to be too much for little Alex (we had 6 hours of driving that day!) In hindsight, it wasn't even a good idea to try to squeeze anything in that day. What were we thinking!!?? We rented a house about an hour outside of Paris and we just went straight, grabbed a bite to eat and went to bed! So we opted out of going to Normandy and went to Paris the next day instead. The house we stayed in was interesting. Looked way nicer in the pictures. It was still nice just not totally what I expected. And the owner only spoke French so communication was rough!! They lived on site too.
Here are a few pics at the house:

standing by the door to our portion of the house

 

Entry to the house, gardens and horse stables

Steaming truck load of fresh manure outside the gate

 

Petting and feeding the horses

and the only picture I got of the inside....it was nice that there was a toy box there!

 

{Ghent, Belgium}

I don't know what it is but I love Belgium! Not a lot of sights to see but just quaint villages and streets. Derek had a conference in Ghent 4 years ago. I tagged along and ventured the city alone for 3 days. I really came to love Ghent! We had also planned to go to Brugge, another fabulous city in Belgium, but we decided not to rush things. We were still exhausted from Paris!

 

Best part of the day...lunch....Belgian Waffles, French Fries and Hot Chocolate!!!

 

Street with Hanging Shoes

 

Gravensteen Castle

 

{York, UK}

This day ended up going all wrong in so many ways. Derek and I had yet to go here but we've heard great things about it. It is a 3 hour drive to York, we just got done doing SO much driving...not a good decision to do this today. It also ended up being our only day without rain and we spent the majority of the time in the car. Knowing that Natalie & Alex wanted to see a castle I looked into one......obviously not good enough because it was North of the city center of York and the castle itself ended up being closed. We paid to walk the grounds. The grounds were amazing though! By the time we were done exploring them it was dark and we didn't get to see any of the city!

 

Castle Howard

 

 

 

After a long walk through the woods we found a playground

 

{Stonehenge & London}

We started out with Stonehenge which is, you guessed it, a 3 hour drive.

 

There was a guy doing headstands so Blake had to try it too. I really should get him doing this at every site we go to. He's always doing it anyway.

 

By the time we got to London it was dark. It was cool to see it at night although I'm sure Natalie and Alex would have rather seen it during the day.

 

Tower Bridge

 

Late Night Race

 

{Cambridge, UK}

The girls had to go back to school. Derek had to go back to work. Natalie, Alex, Blake and I went to the college town of Cambridge. Sorry no pics! I had yet to make my way to Cambridge. It's an easy hour drive. It is now my new favorite city that is close to us! Lots of shopping, beautiful scenery, great restaurants! We met up with an old friend of Natalie's who happens to live in the area.

 

{Castle Rising}

Natalie & Alex's last day here......I had to take them to a castle. Another one I hadn't been to but the only one that is close to us. It wasn't as grand as some of the others we've been to but it was still quite impressive. We ended their stay at our favorite restaurant.

 

Despite everything, we had so much fun...such an adventure! We LOVED having Natalie & Alex hang out with us and hope they will come back.....and Andy should come too! We look forward to more visitors. And now that we know not to squeeze so much in it shouldn't be as exhausting! ;)