Hi there and welcome back! It’s been an interesting summer for us, but I’m starting to get organized again so henceforth I will bring an update and a summer retrospective.
Since June 1st we’ve lived in four different houses and slept in (by my count) 12 different beds. It’s been a very interesting time and we’ve enjoyed the closeness of being together as a family, but it’s also felt quite disjointed, not to mention the adjustment to living in a new country. So we’re all looking forward to the start of the school year, when everything else also seems to start up again – it will be nice to have more of a routine and consistency again.
I have managed to download and organize our photos from the past three months, so we have pictures! You can find these and many more pictures at our Picasa photo album, which I’ve recently updated.
The view from our cabin in Tofino
MacKenzie Beach at Tofino
The view on the Duffy Lake Road from Lillooet to Whistler
After the game at Safeco Field
Our house for the next year
With the flamingos at Bristol Zoo Gardens
Connie & Heidi on the Zooropia elevated ropes course
Camping with friends at Thetford Forest
Lots of Lego models featuring cities in Europe
Before we left for England, we did a few smaller trips. We went to Tofino on Vancouver Island for a few nights, which was really nice – great weather and possibly our favourite beach. Rachel and I stayed here on our honeymoon, so it was nice to come back this time with the girls.
Then the girls went camping at Whistler with my parents while Rachel and I did a little driving trip from Vancouver to Hope, up the Fraser canyon to Lillooet, back along the Duffy Lake road to Whistler, and then back home again. We highly recommend that drive – the stretch of road between Whistler and Lillooet is especially nice and quintessentially Canadian.
We also did a little trip to Seattle and went to a Mariners game. After the game the kids (and parents) got to run the bases and it was worth waiting the extra half hour to walk on the field.
And then, a few days later we bid goodbye to Canada and headed over to the UK to stay with Rachel’s family for a couple of weeks.
We moved into the house we’re renting on July 31st – below is a picture of us at the house before we went inside for the first time. The house is furnished so we have the basics, but it’s still taken a bit of time to stock the shelves again and pick up little things that we chose not to bring (or forgot to bring).
We visited the Bristol Zoo Gardens, which apparently is the 6th oldest zoo in the world. They have a very cool elevated ropes course that you can do (for an extra fee, of course), so Connie and Heidi gave it a go.
We’ve also been to the beach at Weston-super-Mare (sorry, no pics) – if the forested mountains of the Duffy Lake Road are quintessentially Canadian, then the seafront at Weston-super-Mare is quintessentially English. Fish and chips, donkey rides on the beach, a huge pier (closed for repairs), tacky gift shops – it’s got it all.
We also enjoyed a few days camping with our old friends from Norwich, the Snells and Pointers. We were at Thetford Forest and although our streak of camping without rain was broken (6 consecutive camping trips without rain, prior to that), we had a fantastic time.
The most difficult thing about moving somewhere new is that the very thing you most want is what you don’t have – close friends. It was great to spend time with friends who we’ve known for years, and even though they’re not living close to us in Bristol, it is nice to know that we have friends here that we can look forward to spending some time with again.
Last week we had a day out at Legoland, which was also good fun. A large number of theme park rides and a huge number of Lego models. By far the best part was the kids driving school where the 5-12 year-olds can drive electric cars on an open course (ie. no tracks). It features flagrant traffic violations of all sorts, driving on the wrong side, head-on collisions, rear-enders, and the occasional smart one who follows all the directions properly.
So there we are. Most kids are back in school today, but our girls don’t start until Monday. So they effectively begin the year with a 5-day weekend. Go figure.