Friday, July 25, 2008

Germany!!!

Opa, Oma and Millie at the animal park in Germany.

Millie and mama just got back from a week in Germany where we got to visit with Oma, Opa and Ur Oma. Millie got so much attention. The weather was fairly nice, a bit cold the first few days, but nice enough to still get out and enjoy the parks and playgrounds. Also, perfect shopping weather too! Here's Millie a few days after we arrived giving a kiss and cuddle to Oma and Daisy.

On Sunday we went to this amazing wild animal park. Millie got her own bag of animal food. I think the animals liked being fed almost as much as Millie liked feeding them.

After visiting with the animals, we just had some fun in the playground and later had a yummy lunch in the cafe.

Lucky us, there was even a carnival in town that week!

On our last day the weather was so warm, so off we went to the water and sand park in Wuerzburg.
We are so lucky that it's only a bit over an hour to fly to Germany. I can't wait until our next visit!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Hit the Beach!!!

Too nice a day to work. English weather is pretty unpredictable lately, so when it gets nice, you have to take advantage. Here we are visiting Thorpeness Beach. A quaint little town right next to the North Sea. Had a nice picnic lunch. No swimming though, too cold for American blood, but not for the British! Melanie's Mom is visiting from Germany, so a great family outing. Well once the wind shelter was set up, that is...

Digging for buried treasure:



Family shot, by a poor english bystander:



Some of the beach wildlife:



Having an ice cream in the town center. Swans were in the attack mode for food. Not even a swift kick would deter them!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Animal Crazy!


Happy 4th of July! Today the family headed out to the Colchester Zoo. Bonus-it happened to be a gorgeous, sunny day! Millie couldn't wait to see the monkey's. We had a nice lunch, saw lots of animals while letting Millie run wild thru the park (we stopped her just in time from entering the lion cage!) and then ended our day with an ice-cream and some fun at the outdoor playground.

English twilight


One nice thing about an English summer is the long daylight hours. Can you believe it is 9 o'clock at night?


Now it's almost 10:30 pm and it will stay like this all night.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Staying Put


Ended up turning the STL job down. Once we sell the house in Seattle, we'll be able to move back to a new locale, but till then England will just have to put up with us! Millie says "What we're not moving?"

Party Time!

For 2007, the Squadron I work for won the Raytheon Trophy. Best Air-to-Air Squadron in the Air Force! Started off Thursday with a golf tourney, followed by a BBQ at Duxford. This a grass strip and air museum unchanged since the Battle of Britain. Naturally, P-51 and Spitfire demos were required. In the background behind Millie is a Dehaviland something, it actually flew some of the DV's around.


Now for the demos, good to see the old iron still flying:



On Friday was the formal dinner and trophy presentation at Dunston Hall near Norwich.