HOME

For all of those who asked...ROLL all the way. Now the hard part, is that when you then create all that lovely space in your suitcase, and you fill it will the odd bits of packing that don't fit anywhere else, your suitcase will weigh more than 2 stone 8 lbs. I know this because the night before we left, we stayed at our dear friends the Cruickshanks. They were off in France and we were frantically trying to off-load the last of our furniture..all of which went to good homes...and do all of our last minute stuff before returning home. The house was a godsend and we were weighing our luggage the night before so we didn't have the horrible moment at the airport of realizing 1 bag was overweight and trying to repack on the floors at the check-in counter. Their scale is in stone. So is the one at the gym, so apparently this is still the common way to weigh your person, even though the airlines give the number as 23 kg for luggage. For us this is 50 lbs. So it is midnight, we have to leave at 4 am to have plenty of time at the airport...for anyone traveling through Heathrow..yes you need the whole 2 hours and then some...and we are weighing suitcases and translating it to Kg and lbs...my brain still hurts from that one! But we made it and with Frank's traveling good luck charm(really, his charming personality) got us upgraded the whole way home and arrived to the waiting arms and home of dear Christina, Eric and family. That too was a godsend as we collapsed in various states of exhaustion and delirium that night. The rest of the week was a whirlwind of getting Bridget off to her Freshman overnight, buying school supplies, moving over to the Zamberlin/Thomas house(there is only so much anyone can take of the Adam clan..so we spared Christina further despite her generous protests) and then starting school!!!

Finally on Tues night Aug. 31, 2010...we re-entered 7332 Keen Way N. Can I just say "there's no place like home". It felt great. We all ran room to room relishing the space. Of course, we have nothing in the house but the furniture, so we had to begin stocking. Can I tell you just how much fun it is to go to Costco when ALL of your cabinets are empty!!!

We have had some excitement with various broken appliances, but all-in-all our renters did a fine job of keeping the house in shape. Today was our first day all home and we began the "big dig" in our yard to shape it up a bit and managed to get through 1 of our storage areas as well. It is all coming together and I admit it is a bit fun. I feel like I've just played scrabble with our house(and life) and I got to throw in all the pieces and start over. We are hoping to maintain some of the new found "emptiness" and keep our life clutter free. I'll have to report back on that by Christmas to see if we are able to hold on to that!!! Pictures to follow, I have to update computers etc. But since everyone wanted to know about the packing...I thought I'd oblige.

Cheers to all who listened to me for the past year!

Flat or roll

As I frantically pack everything we own into 5 suitcases(now I know this all fit a month ago!)the eternal dilemma...do you roll the clothes to make them as small as possible, or lay them flat? Bridget is the packing connoisseur in our family and has done some amazing things with our stuff, but right now we have both systems going. Tonight will be the weigh in... so far, it seems you CAN fit more with rolling...BUT it may weight too much and thus be rejected by the airline. I will report in on this so you too can end this debate in your house! OK, maybe our house is just a whole lot weirder than others...I'm willing to believe that :)

North

It is early morning here and we have just come back from a week of touring "The North". Yes, on all of the road signs, it is simply labeled THE NORTH. We stayed in a border town called Carlisle..right on the border with Scotland and saw many Roman forts and hiked Hadrian's wall. For those, like me, who didn't know what this was, he was a Roman Emperor who fortified Britain's borders with "the wild country"..Scotland...by building a 73 mile, 12 ft high, 4 ft thick stone wall across the entire countryside. It is massive and impressive and you can pretty much hike the whole thing. We didn't hike all 73 miles, but got some pretty decent walks on it, over it, and through it. You meet some amazing people along the way for whom this is clearly a goal and are walking at speed to make the whole thing. Gorgeous views, weather and fun digging around old Roman Forts. At one stop(Vindalando) we got to meet with the head archeologist(in year 9 of his doctorate from Duke) who had a team out working the site. He gave this amazing history lesson of who had lived here(6 different forts over the years) and what they had done. It has the oldest collection of written works in Britain. With hand scribed party invitations, garrison lists, business dealings, even school lessons with teacher's corrections! A pretty cool glimpse into the past.
We took in Edinburgh at the start of its Fringe Festival, which is a big music, art, performance extravaganza with street performances everywhere of everything you can imagine and then some. I'm told at night it is even more wild! We went to Alnwick Castle where the first several Harry Potter films were made and had lots of fun pretending. We hiked the Lake District from the town of Keswick. It was so wild to walk through town and EVERYONE, even infants, are wearing hiking boots! The hike was spectacular up and over mountains, looking down at the lakes and finally walking the lake shore back to town.

As we left our cabin we headed to York, but first stopped in the North Moors National Park, where 3/4 of the world's heather moors are grown. This was so obscure in the guide book, I felt I must see it. So you cruise along through farm country...counting cows and such...and suddenly you turn right and there are acres and acres of rolling hills that are all purple!! Just covered in heather. So we stopped in a local bakery for some sandwiches and hiked away up the mountains. We ended up eating lunch on the rock rubble of an old Bronze Age house/hovel/shelter. We made it to York in time to wander this medieval city with winding roads and over-hanging buildings. We climbed the 277 steps to the top of York Minster(the Cathedral) and then when down into the crypts where you see that this massive building is built on the remains of both a Roman and Norman site. Every 500 years or so, you can see where things settled, got filled over with rock and started building again! I am glad I saw this AFTER I had climbed up to the top. After a relaxing dinner, we went on the Ghost Hunt of York, where you wander the streets with a story-teller and look for ghosts . All good fun.

We are now home and just slept our last night in the Cromford Way house. We move the last of the furniture to the new various owners tonight and pack our things and move into friends' house while the cleaners come through tomorrow. We have just a couple of days for our last minute sight-seeing, but it is funny as we talk about what we want to do...no one has any ideas. that is a good thing, we worked our way through the guide books and pretty much have seen it all! It must be time to come home.

North and Scotland

Nick training to be a night at Alnwick Castle(of Harry Potter Fame)..he's got quite the aim!, Hiking through the Lake District 10 K through the mountains and still smiling! Edinburgh fir "The Fringe Festival" and the boys in some crazy hamster wheel on water thing and hiking Hadrian's Wall headed to Nick's mile castle...really it is called that :)

Greece

Our nightly after dinner walk to watch the sunset near 1 of our beaches. Us, touring Knossos Palace, home of the Minotaur and The Labyrinth

July Updates

Well, after all of the excitement of visitors from home, reality set in. We now had 1 week until the movers arrived. This all seemed doable at the time, but then remembering that when we came here, we each had 2 suitcases plus a carry on and now the new airline restrictions are 1 suitcase. So we spent the weekend trying to sort out what each of us will need for the next 3 months, that can fit into a suitcase and weigh less than 50 lbs. There were some hard choices. In the middle of all of this, the kids were STILL in school(that is the recurring theme here) so we had to keep out a few extra pencils, markers etc as various end of year activities/projects came up. That said, Frank then had several emergency trips to Germany that week...he managed to be home the morning the movers arrives, but had to leave in the afternoon. We found out later some things that did/not get shipped from his office. But within 5 hours, our house was packed and we were back to camping with 1 pot, and everyone having 1 fork, cup, bowl and plate to their name. Having done it all before, everyone slipped right back into this Spartan living.

Now came the interesting part of selling our furniture, etc. It seemed daunting at first, but after the first few things sold, it became addictive. We've had fun posting things, watching the e-mails come in and then people show up with a van and cash and out life gets simpler and simpler.

School finally ended this week and we had lots of awards and general happiness all around. Bridget received the Math award and the Athletics award... funny, in case you don't remember that I spent the first 6 weeks we were here trying to convince them that she needed to be in a higher Math group, and, did I tell you all she broke/shattered the school record for javelin and did her own personal best by 22 cm!! Nick got his SAT's back..those big end of yr 6 exams that he had to take extra classes for all year. Well, he smoked them, getting 5's..the highest you can get. Matthew earned highest marks in his class, so all things considered we were feeling pretty proud !

Now we are vagabonds until we can get into our Seattle house on Sept.1. So, we will travel for the next few weeks. We leave on Tues for a week in Greece..never been, looking forward to some relaxing at the beach, then a week- 10 days touring through Northern England, the Lake District, Hadrian's Wall, Yorkshire and Scotland. All looks to be filled with hiking, biking and running around castles. We come home for a coupke of days..with any luck all of the furniture will be sold by then...and then fly out to Seattle on the 19th of August.

Poor Bridget has to hit the ground running, as she has her Freshman retreat starting on the 20th and then try-out week for sports on the 23rd. First Day is Aug.27th. I am sure she is up to the challenge. The boys and I will be busy getting new school supplies, clothes etc and driving by our house everyday looking longingly at it :)

I will try to post pictures of our travels, and keep you all posted on our whereabouts..so you can hide if you need to :) The clock is ticking and we can't wait to see all of your smiling faces. You will be happy to know that we are having a going away party here. Friends are giving it for us. It won't be quite the crazy Green Lake event, but we are looking forward to spending some relaxing time with everyone before we go. There have been so many great people who have opened their hearts and homes to us that we feel so grateful that the universe took care of us on this year of wild adventure!

Day 2/Erasmus Bridge

We were right in the middle of the Erasmus Bridge for the start of Day 2. It was beautiful and we were so CLOSE to the riders, I don't know how they do it ! I got my up close picture of Lance and the other leaders in the yellow jersey and some great shots of the bridge .

The Prologue

It was a warm sunny day, until Race time. Then the rain moved in. So we took all of the weird hats and bandanas that the pre-race parade had thrown at us and out them on to stay warm and dry. Nick decided it was best to just take a nap, rain and all! Bridget found a little quiet dry spot against a building, that way she didn't have to be seen with her weird parents :)

Our own Tour de France

At the Tour, there were no end of biking things for us to try including this crazy gizmo where you peddle yourself upside down and around! Here are Matthew and I racing in the Prologue, with our pedal power pushing a little man on a bike across the field. Here's Frank on the off-road course.

Ferry Crossing to Rotterdam

Our ferry crossing from England to Holland was a delight. We boarded at9:30 at night and went straight to bed :) The ship departed around midnight and we arrived outside Rotterdam at 8 in the morning. A very civilized way to travel !

Rotterdam

Lance's team car...

The boy try out the new age port-o-pottys

Field Day and Art Museum

Nick and Matthew exploring space and shape at the Tate Modern Art Museum and Matthew brining home the winning relay on Sports Day

June

WOW, what a month we have had. After Ireland began the month of visitors. Frank's parents came and survived a week with us and the phrase "it's just a 1/2 mile walk" became our rally cry, or death toll depending on whom you ask :). They did a bus tour of downtown, spent a day at the Imperial War Museum visited old friends up north and helped us usher in the World Cup. We watched the US-England opener in our local pub. At 1 point all Frank and I could do was try to figure out if we had a clear path to the door in case the US won! These people take their soccer seriously..a tie was bad enough...we watched in silence and then quickly slipped out...whew!

Next we had MJ and her 12 yo Liz come and visit. Terry and brother Sean were off at the college Baseball World Series and the girls weren't interested...I wonder why? Anyway, now we brave Wimbledon tennis tournament. There is a whole culture around this thing that we quickly became indoctrinated into! We went Day 2. Our dear friend Mary, whose daughter is a ball girl this year, dropped us off near the sign for "The Que". Yes there is a giant road sign. You then proceed to a line(que). You either get in que for tickets today or tomorrow. If you are in que for today, you proceed through a lovely archway whereupon you given a booklet entitled "Guide to Queuing at Wimbledon" and a numbered ticket. Now in the booklet is a list of rules around how you wait. For example, you are allowed to bring food, it just can't be "smelly". You can bring alcohol, but not more than 1 bottle of wine per person, etc etc etc. The Que itself is the social event with all the local residents coming down after work/school and hanging out for an hour or 2 before you get in. We were able to see some great tennis up close and even saw the Williams sisters playing doubles..ok we saw their heads when we stood on tip toes...security around their matches was intense. It was all so much fun that the second week we went 2 more times, learning that if you leave our house on bikes at 5:30, you can be sitting, watching a match by 6pm! Since it still stays light until 9-10..we had some late night rides home....lots of fun and it brought renewed enthusiasm for tennis lessons.

The next week brought the Jackson/Collins crew from Seattle. They too survived some Wimbledon time with us and Chris, Bridget and I became "ninja tennis fans" weaving through crowds and finding seats. After a long week of sightseeing, we all braved a Ferry to Rotterdam to see the first 2 days of the Tour de France. It was amazing because Holland had just won a spot in the semi-finals of the World Cup the night before and the city was ROCKIN'!! Add the TDF craziness and it was a happy place. Beautiful city, lots of fun stuff to do while waiting for the race to start...we did a crazy biking thing that you bike yourself upside down and over, like a roller coaster, we all "rode " the prologue on bikes attached to little biking men that raced around the course and did a computer simulated version..all with us on 10 speeds...we saw the big names: Lance, Contador, Cancellara, etc etc and had great seats. Day 2 we saw the ceremonial start on the Erasmus Bridge...standing in the middle of the bridge was spectacular!

We all made it back to the ferry to rest on the sun deck and relax on our way home watching the rest of the race on TV's all over the ship.

This week brought fame to Bridget as she broke the school record for javelin so will have her name permanently on the board/books at her school. She felt she needed to leave something behind so there was proof that she had been here. Nick has his Yr 6 play next week and then a Prom...yes you heard me...a prom for 10/11 yo's. The jury is still out as to whether he is going. Matthew continues to plug along with tennis/football and sports club with Nick and is busily on the birthday party circuit.

The biggest news of all is that the movers are coming in 1 WEEK. Yes, I now have to think about what I can live without for the next 3 months.

I will post some pictures of our adventures and hope to try to keep this up until we leave and can't wait to see everyone' smiling faces again. I can't believe a year is up, I can't believe the kids are still in school and can't believe that I already am ordering uniforms for the fall!!!

Hope everyone has a great summer!

Dublin

Frank in the Guinness brewery, old dock yard building where U2 has recorded all but 1 of their albums, our Vikings in training and cows in the early morning block our road!We think he is the same one that blocked us hiking :)

More adventures

The bull who wouldn't let us pass, the boys atop the ancient fort in the Burren, Bridget tries her hand at sheep-herding, and the boys will never miss a chance to jump in freezing cold water!

More Ireland

Matthew braves Dingle Bay, Frank and Bridget on their mighty steeds and 2 signs that really sum up driving in Ireland!

Bike trip to Inishmoor

Bridget's feet on the Cliff edge


The ferry ride from Doolin and the crazy biking maze through ancient rocks

ireland

Everywhere..cows

Bridget on the Cliffs of Moher

views from our cottage

Ireland

OK, I have been lax in my blogging. Things are getting busy here as we had out last 1/2 term break and we are now in our month of visitors. I would just like to say where were all you people in the the dark cold days of February when we couldn't get the house warm huh??? Seriously, it is very exciting to have so many friends and family visit and the weather is cooperating by being warm and sunny. I promised nuclear power plants and rapeseed and will add those pictures, but suffice to say, another hike, another discovery..this time past an old nuclear power plant that Frank tried to get us into...no luck and fields upon fields of these yellow flowers....turns out it is rapeseed used for cooking. The real adventure was our recent trip to Ireland.

Well, most of you know of my family's Irish heritage and their epic trip many years ago now. But it has always been on my short list of places to visit. We ended up renting a cottage on the West coast in County Clare in the small town of Fanore(just out side the 'big town" of Doolin..home of pub fiddle music). We drove from New Malden up to Northern Wales, then took a ferry over to Dublin then drove on the "new Motorway"..our poor GPS didn't know it existed so we had to turn her off, it seemed cruel to have her keep trying to correct us! Anyway the area we were staying is called "The Burren". It is spectacularly beautiful, barren, wind swept lime stone ending in death defying cliffs down to the greenest ocean I have ever seen. The view from our house was out to see and the Aran Islands(home of the "fisherman knit sweaters"). Our house was right up from O'Donohugh's pub...which is marked on the map as it is the ONLY landmark in Fanore. We became regulars. There was 1 tiny store run by Tom O'Toole which really ended up having all the essentials we needed. He even loaned us maps and books to help us get around for the week. There was no ATM, no gas, no grocery store. We took a ferry over to Inishmoor(1 of the 3 Aran Islands) and biked to the ruins of an ancient fort(B.C.). The whole landscape is lunar. There are ancient hand-built stone walls creating a maze of paths for miles and miles. There are no signs, and it is early in the tourist season so no other people, so you just bike along looking out to the horizon to see if you can see where you are heading. The cliffs near the fort are terrifyingly beautiful with crashing waves swirling down below.

The rest of the week included riding the famed Connemara ponies, hiking and swimming throughout Dingle peninsula, more hikes to ancient forts and trying to catch the kids as the scrambled to be the first to the top. one of our new cover pictures, shows Frank and Bridget having been blown over at the top of our of our hikes. The wind just took you down. It was either fall, or get blown off the cliffs! We tried our hand at sheep-herding. Well, when the road is full of sheep and you can't drive. There is nothing for it, but to get our of your car and walk about a mile with the farmer and his dogs and help get the sheep down the road to their new field! We had a go with some cows as well...they were much less obliging than the sheep. On 1 hike, we had a stare down with a rather large bull. Again, not being up on my animal behavior strategies, we decided to hop the stone wall and sneak past him. Clever bunch we are :)

We ended our week with a day in Dublin becoming Vikings on our tour hunting for unsuspecting Celts and roaring loudly when we saw them(particularly the infamous cappuccino Celts), we all became brew-masters on the Guinness tour and ended collapsed in exhaustion ordering pizza from our hotel room....there is only so much sight-seeing one can do.

My take away on Ireland is it is truly a land of terrible beauty. The small little section we saw was filled with wonders, not the least of which were the people. Everyone, from Tom the shop keeper, to Willie our pony master whose book I bought, to Nigel our viking tour guide , to the young lad who took us down an old tin and lead mine who regaled us with Irish history and the bitterness that still lies just under the surface. This is a special place with uniquely strong people who will share their time with you for just a smile and a pint never hurts either!!

let me explain

I am having trouble lining up my words with my pictures. It takes so darn long to upload pictures, that I can't be patient enough to do them in 1's or 2's, so I do 4...but that leaves me with the editing problem. Since I seem to always blog while I am cooking dinner, something is always burning right when I am getting ready to futz around with it..so let me explain. Another weekend, another hike..we several in the last few weeks. The Stinging Nettle one was with friends of ours here, the Cruikshanks...think Hermione Granger's cat. Anyway. We were off on this lovely hike, it had started off raining, then turned beautiful and we roamed through this great countryside, up to an ancient church which dated back prior to the Roman times and you could see for miles. We found an old bunker from WWII where soldiers/citizens would stand on guard for signs of invasion...you can see us lifting various children onto it. But the leaves.

James Cruickshanks, Matthew friend was leading the charge with Matthew in hot pursuit, but of course he got distracted and had to climb every rock and tree stump we came across. They were quite far ahead when we heard the screams. Apparently, Matthew tried to cross a gully on a fallen log, sadly he slipped and fell with a few scraps, but worse, he fell INTO a HUGE patch of stinging nettle.(that is the picture without any hands or flowers). I had no experience with this plant, but as I looked at his hands and back and watched the welts form, I thought, hmmm..we may have a problem. Luckily, Mary(James' mom) also works at the school and helps run the garden there and immediately had us all searching for Dock leaves..well her family was searching..we didn't know what there were. It turns out these 2 plants grow near each other routinely and 1 counter-act the other. So, as we were miles from the car, we began making bandages of these leaves, including stuffing them down Matthew underwear...I told you he fell into a HUGE PATCH! Anyway, within about 15 mins(he would claim hours) the welts were gone and just a vague numbness remained. Whew, that goodness we took had the locals with us for that one!!!

Next up is rapeseed and nuclear power plants

Stinging Nettle and Dock leaves

Dead nettle..these are ok to touch

Dock leaves..very important: counter-acts stinging nettle

Stinging NettleDo not touch..or fall into

St. George's Day

Ok, we found out where all of the St. Patrick's Day fun went....into St. George's Day!! He is the patron Saint of England and Bombardier beer sponsors all of the events :) We went to a Medieval St. George's festival on Saturday and there was jousting and archery contests as well as ample opportunities for the boys to be "trained up" as viking, then medieval, then red coat soldiers, each age with different weaponry. Really, with battle re-enactments and everything. Matthew ended up as a Scotsman who dies bravely in battle. Nick was part of the French cavalry who fled after raiding the English camp. All of it involved screaming with your "war face" on and attacking big burly men, who nicely fell to the ground when attacked by the screaming hordes of children. You will notice a slight change in our wardrobe...yes, those are shorts that you see.....winter had finally cleared out....we hope!!