Quidditch Anyone?

My sister-in-law posted this blog about the World Championship Quidditch tournament held at Middlebury College in Vermont, where her husband teaches. Check it out.

Sense and Sensibility

At Darley Primary School, all of the children are part of different teams named after colors. The teams are across ages and you can earn points for your team through good behavior, etc. A little Harry Potteresque. Hilde came home last Thursday super excited for winning a point for her team, the Yellow Team. We asked her what she did to earn it and she responded "I had good behavior and sat sensibly during assembly". And really, what more could you ask than that? See how sensibly she is sitting in this pic?

Barenaked Ladies Anyone?

Most of my family are fans of the Barenaked Ladies (although after the whole drug scandal etc., I don't hold them up quite so high). Anyway, I guess they have been doing a cruise with their fans annually and each year they do a contest to win tickets on the cruise. This years theme was to create a 90 second video with the theme "High 5 on the High Seas". So my sister Christina said that since we are THE HIGH FAMILY for goodness sake, we are a shoe-in to win. Below is the link to the video my sisters submitted. Check it out if you want and if you do check it out, please vote for us. Voting starts Thursday 16 October. They only give out two tickets, but since I just found out that they are bringing a bunch of Kids in the Hall guys with them (Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, etc.) I think Dave may want me to fight a little harder for the tickets if we win! Or maybe I might just accidentally buy a pair when looking at their site sometime....

The video.

Raincoats Required?

Finally a halfway decent picture of me that I don't mind posting. This is from our trip yesterday to Pateley Bridge, a hamlet about 30 minutes from our place. We made the kids wear their Wellies (rainboots) and raincoats because it threatened to rain the whole time. But the rain never came and the sun did. We had a great time eating at a tiny little restaurant called Lemon Meringue and letting the kids play in the town's large playground. Dave and I took turns exploring the main street of shops. There was something for everyone.

A minute in our lives....

Actual phone call from today.

Me: Hello
British male voice: Good morning madame, I was just calling from SpecSavers.
Me: Oh yes.
British male voice: We wanted to check and make sure that Master Enoch would be able to make his site test on Monday morning.
Me: Why yes, he will be there. Thank you.

Master Enoch - how cool is that???

Ode to Hot Chocolate

This is for my best friend Gabers, who sent me my favorite thing in just about the whole world, dark hot chocolate, and who has regaled her blog with some pretty great odes (one in particular to Dr. Pepper).

O My Archer Farms Dark Hot Chocolate
How you warm my heart
You are yummy
In my tummy
I love you both day and night

Up, Up and Away

Our new favorite park is just at the end of our street. It has some slides, swings, teeter totters, and this climbing "mountain". Hilde has mastered the climb, and this time Enoch tried it too. He had some spotting from mom and dad, but got all the way to the top and back down again mostly by himself. He was so proud of himself and we were too. Here's our boy:

Happy Birthday Isabel

This is a little late in coming, but on 25 Sept we celebrated Izzie's 5th birthday. She had a big birthday party at the bowling alley the weekend before her mom left for school, but we wanted to do something small for her while she was with us. She had a few presents from her family to open and we made a vanilla cake (she hates chocolate - clearly she will need some counseling later). It was a lot of fun. Here are some cute pictures of the big day and that weekend.

To the Castle

Today was a beautiful, sunny, crisp fall day. We decided to spend it exploring the town of Ripley and its castle. Hilde and I had gone there on her birthday, very briefly. We only had time to walk into town, get some ice cream, and walk back to catch the bus. When we arrived we walked around town for a little while and took some pictures. You can go to Flikr to see more pictures from the day. Enoch insisted on wearing his Wellies and there were puddles all over for him to explore, he was in heaven. We think this picture should be an add for the J Crew Kids magazine. The castle grounds is where we spent most of our time. Inside the castle wall there is a deer park, walled gardens, kids play area, and a bunch of other things. We didn't do everything, but we did go to the kids play area. It was about a 3/4 mile walk to get there. It was mostly balancing equipment, but the kids had fun. The castle was pretty cool. The original same family has lived in it since the time of King Edward III. We went during the time designated as the "kids" tour, but they didn't seem to do anything different for the kids, except maybe cut things out when they started to lose attention. The boys particularly liked the room with the breastplates and swords. After storming the castle we got some ice cream and Dave checked out a well known butcher shop. What a great day.

October Blows

Today was cold, rainy and VERY blustery. Hilde and I raced to the car this evening and the wind nearly blew her over. She thought it was the funniest thing EVER. Dave promises that the whole winter will be like today was, only darker. All of the Brits and long term expats tell us the sun will come up after we are at work and go down before we leave. We will have to plan "sun breaks" into our daily schedule and just hope it isn't too cloudy to see it. In general, that doesn't sound all that bad to me, and it is just such a great place to live, I am willing to deal with it. (Ask me to revisit this topic in February and see if I have changed my mind). With it being so cold outside, when we got home Dave started a big batch of Vegetable Stock in preparation of making minestrone soup tomorrow. That sounds so perfect for the weather, and I am counting down the minutes. With many more days like this to come, I need to stock up on ideas for warming us all up at dinner time. So, what is your favorite cold/rainy/snowy/windy day meal? What do you crave to help you warm up? We are sure to use all of the suggestions!