Week 3

In case you thought I forgot about you, here's week 3! As you can see by the pictures, this week was all about the Birthday girl. Yes, Bridget is now 13. I hope we are all ready for this :) Everyone was back into the swing of school, with reports, spelling tests, oh and fund raisers! Yes, the boys have to study and pass a math test on math facts and for each one they get right they get 5 points and then they collect money for a local charity based on their points. Just when I was relaxing about not having the magazine sale!

Bridget's classes continue to get moved around as they sort out what Math group to place her. A computer error placed her in the wrong class and she was quite bored, it took 3 trips to the school for me to track down the "head of Maths" to correct it. She has all sorts of interesting classes and projects including Technology, where they are designing toys, Science where she got to use a Bunsen burner for the first time. The groups had to decide whether their volcano was going to blow and whether they should evacuate their village. Bridget was the communications officer for their group and they decided NOT to evacuate...sadly, the villagers all perished.:( Interestingly, the only group that DID evacuate, it turns out didn't need to, so they got criticized for wasting tax payers money!!) She was elected to School Council and this weekend met with the teen Choir director and will be singing at the 5:30 Sunday night teen Mass. Sports are supposed to start over the next few weeks for her. Her classmate wants her to play Net Ball..we are told that is something like Basketball..I guess we'll find out!

The boys have been doing soccer on Thursday's and Saturdays and having lots of fun. This weekend was the Rugby open house. It is quite the thing here. Several of Matthew's classmates all play. We spent the afternoon watching various ages/levels play and Nick was thrilled that at his age it involves contact. Matthew was equally thrilled that at his age it does NOT! It seems if you can push forward with people hanging on to you and hold a ball, you are a star. And if you are willing to hang on to people and be dragged....this is also good...we haven't found a down side for Nick yet! It is all just training and learning and you pay 2 pounds each time you show up for a session...so they both wanted to try it out next weekend. It is co-ed and they need older girls(there's only a few and the coaches were eagerly trying to recruit Bridget)..we will see what she says next week.

Frank's favorite part about the whole thing is that there is a bar/barbeque/coffee/tea and really anything else you want over looking the field...so the kids are out playing and the adults wander back and forth from the bar. In fact the coach told us that they encourage everyone to hang out for an hour or so after the training is over so that the kids just run around like crazy and the adults socialize. It all closes when the last man leaves! I think Frank will start playing if the kids don't just to have a reason to go and visit!

After our Rugby outing we walked to Wimbeldon Common and then on to Richmond Park. It is all just miles and miles of walking/biking/horseback riding paths that wind around for ever...just glorious. We saw a deer just wandering and gave it a few apples.

The weather has continued to cooperate with us and it is again sunny and 70's. Frank is headed to Finland for the rest of the week, so I am sure we will have some adventures while he is gone. I have been getting involved at school and have made friends with several of the moms. I don't have a work-out buddy yet, but 1 of the mom's mentioned she's doing a 1/2 Marathon so I may try to get a run in with her. I've looked into my work options and of course with a bit of paperwork, everything is possible...it just depends on whether on not I can prove I speak English. Apparently, I need no less than 4 verifications on this. HHMMm..we will see how that all pans out.

Not too exciting otherwise, we talk of you often, think of you daily and hope for a visit soon!