A while in Worcester

How nice it was to be home. Matt always frowns when I say that, as he feels it somehow belittles our home and life in Kentucky, but England will always be home. And nothing beats a while at home with my mum and dad.

The whole Reg and Pat Stobbs Family:

Matthew, Paul, Elliott, Nicola, Grandma, Daniel, Grandad, Sam, Patrick, Sofia, Marianne (with baby Emily still in the making), Sarah, Matthew and Maxwell.

The boys with Grandma and grandad

4 generations from Nana Dunderdale.

Patrick, Marianne and Sofia came to visit from Norway. Max and Sofia had a joint second birthday party - on Max's real birthday - and Grandma threw Christmas in April so that we could all celebrate it together - we had a turkey dinner, Christmas crackers and even Christmas pudding. Unfortunately I cannot find any pictures to document either event.

Sofia with her birthday bear

A chilli day out

Daniel and Max ride Grandad's horse

Sadly, Matt could only stay with us for 10 days as he had to get back to school. We missed him very much but I think he missed us even more.

Jenny and Sam - more about the Sheffield girls to come.

Sam started crawling in England - see earlier video.

Max and Grandad spent a lot of time in the garden. They watered plants and looked after the vegetables but mostly they just played around with the wheel barrow.

Karen, Jamey, Saul and Mani came to visit us. The last time we were all together was when we all lived in Provo - except Max and Sam who were not yet born. Saul had a little American accent and Mani wasn't talking. Now they are pure Essex - especially Mani. Saul has a few northern words from his dad but Mani is true Karen. Loved our time with them but needed another few weeks together to catch up properly.

Digging in to a chocolate Easter Bunny - ears first

A rainy day at the farm with the Stobbs cousins. Max just loves his older cousins to death. Even now, he still talks about them. He could not get Elliott's name right and would call him Eddie. For a while, Daniel was Eddie and Elliot was Daniel. We finally got the identity mix-up sorted out but Elliott remains Eddie to this day and the rest of us ended up calling him that too. Max asked to see the boys every day and had a particularly soft spot for Eddie as he played with him so tirelessly. I wish he had his big cousins around all the time.

Feeding a cow with uncle Paul

So happy holding hands with Eddie and Daniel. Note: Max does NOT hold hands freely.

Holding a baby Chicken with mum.

Milking a cow with Grandma. The cats would wait beneath the cow and drink the milk as it came out. Max also got to hold baby ginea pigs and feed lambs with a bottle

Our very own lamb drinking his bottle in the barn. He even has a tail and pointy ears from his little devil sweatsuit.

We also had visits from Natalie and Aneurin and their cute little boy Noah from Sheffield, Brendan Leece and his adorable little redhead firecrackers and Ashley Leece (now Balloch -or something close), Naomi, Emma and thier little Sam who is a few months older than our Sam but weighs less and is waaaaay less trouble. In fact, all of Ashleys kids are amazingly sweet and pretty- if someone could clone them they could make a fortune.

Paris in the spring

Due to our delay in Newark, we landed in Birmingham on Saturday morning instead of Friday. Matt and I had already booked flights to leave for Paris with Annette and James on Sunday, the very next day. Max and Sam were not included in these plans and we felt pretty wicked leaving my mum and dad with them after just one day. We knew we were pushing it when we thought the boys would have two days to acclimatize. Grandma and Grandad deserve an award.

Off we went feeling footloose and fancy free. I really had forgotten what it is like to go anywhere without packing a daiper bag and I have to say it was fantastic.

Wonderful sunny weather and excellent company made this the perfect little get-away. Too bad the food was so expensive and our French so poor.

Angelina's for breakfast

Melted dark chocolate, otherwise known as chocolat chaud

we walked over 10 miles in two days due to the boys refusing to get a taxi.

The Louvre

Annette blending in with the locals

Notre Dame

And, how old are we??

p.s. the street our hotel was on was lovely during the day but was the homeless capital of Paris at night. The first night we were there James thought that the people all stuffed into the entrance of a fancy dapartment store were camping out waiting for a big sale starting the next morning.

Our Trip to Europe really did happen

I realize that late July is not the best time to report a trip which took place in March but here we go anyway. Armed with much excitement and some seditive for each child we took off for Europe.

An unwelcome delay left us with a missed connection and a 24 hour delay in Newark. I was hopping mad as the plane had not left the gate when we arrived (after a record breaking 2 mile sprint across Newark airport) but the cabin door had been closed and they would not reopen it. Thankfully we had purchased American Express travel insurance so we made the most of our misfortune by booking into the Hilton and ordering a fancy room service meal. We spent the next day in New York City. We visited Ground Zero, some old church next to the Stock Exchange building, an inner city playground and Katz's Deli. A pretty fun day.

The boys were tired out for their flight and slept most of the way.