Six Busy Days

Went into busy, noisy, dirty, crowded, overload central London (can you tell I'm not a big city person?) to visit the Queen's domicile. Buckingham Palace was lovely, and seeing Queen Elizabeth II's 80 sparkly, pearly, silky, velvety, long gowns and her incredible jewellery was lots of fun. No photographs allowed inside the building. You'll just have to go yourself. Great to see our longtime friend from Switzerland, who toured with us, and told us of her recent adventures in Peru and the Galapagos.

This is a shot of the rear lawn of Buckingham Palace, after the interior part of our tour.
Had lunch with David at his office for the first time and got to see where he sits all day, as well as experience his train commute route with him. It's a long way (over an hour each way, if you count the walking, door to door), but as David points out, he gets "alone time" in the midst of all those people he doesn't know, and has guaranteed time to read his Bible, pray, and chill. The fast walking on either end of the train ride also provides a little daily exercise, which he didn't use to have when he drove to work in California and France.

This photo shows the train station and main road railway crossing in our little town in Berkshire, England, looking towards London. We are really glad we are on the same side of the railway line as our school, so we don't have to wait for the trains to pass in the mornings on our way to school.

Took the kids to Orientation Day at their new school. By this time there were three sick people in the house: David, Jason, and me. Thankfully, Emily was as boppy as ever. After Jason's 2 hours at school, he practically collapsed into the car under the power of his cold.

Took the kids to their first two days of school in England. I am so proud of them and the way they tackled yet another new school system in another new country with all new teachers and classmates and materials. On the way there in the morning, Emily said, "I love the first day of school! It's so tense and good!" I guess that sums up her personality. Jason was calmly determined and focussed. And the days went well, as God answered all my prayers for a good beginning.

Went shopping for all the extra school necessities we weren't told about until school started and the kids met their teachers. Discovered a huge new (to me) shopping center 15 minutes away that I hadn't known existed, in a town I'd heard of but never been to yet. The shopping center has three sports goods stores (for P.E. needs like shin guards and hockey socks and navy shorts), at least three bookstores (for reading material for the Book Challenge in Language Arts class), various stationers (for notebooks, binders, and a cross-cut shredder - the latter a home need!), electronics stores, department stores, a farmer's market on Saturdays, several grocery stores and drugstores (chemists as they are called here), lots of cafés and restaurants, and a zillion other businesses which I have yet to discover because the kids were tired and needed to go home.

Battled this cold that is still hanging on. Now it seems possible that David has a sinus infection beginning. :-( He's resting as much as possible. Which means on the weekends. Fortunately we have a three-day weekend right now ("Late Summer Bank Holiday" - over here it seems several of the official holidays don't even celebrate anything, or have a reason - but we're still thankful for them!). Jason seems to be all better (thank You, God!), I'm mostly better, and Emily's still the image of health and vitality.

Rewatched Frequency, with Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel. Dennis Quaid often plays such nice guys (The Rookie, the Parent Trap, Frequency...). You think from watching movies like these that the guy himself is a faithful husband and so on, then you look him up on imdb and find he's on his third wife and was engaged to someone else in the meantime, and he was addicted to cocaine, and the illusion rightfully bursts. I just can't imagine the extent of the awful stresses and pressures of being famous.

Funny, I could have sworn I saw this movie about 15 years ago, but now I discover it only came out in 2000. Wow. How come I've seen it before and David hasn't? Maybe I saw it on a plane or at my mom's or when he was on a business trip. And about Jim Caviezel...when I first saw this movie, I had no idea who he was, and didn't remember his name or that he was in this movie...but this time around, of course, I know him as JESUS in the Passion of the Christ. Wow, that's a different feeling! Anyway, I really liked Frequency again (it features a happily married couple who are still in love years later - that's my kind of movie), despite the fact it is a bit gruesome (caveat viewer).

Today we've decided to visit another new church - with a congregation that meets at 5pm about 15 minutes away. It's hard to make a choice on a church around here in August, since the children's ministries are mostly shut down to give the workers a break. So we're just enjoying meeting new people and joining in with the worship at various places, but knowing that we won't be settling down until a few weeks into September, when we can find out more about what the kids' environment will be like during the year. This has become more of a central issue for me now that the kids are older. I found in France that I was happy where the kids were happy. Because if they're happily engaged and learning about the Lord, I can concentrate on worshipping and learning, too.