Last day of school

The girls were very excited for the last day of school at FIS. Unfortunately, we are moving back to the states and the girls are so sad to leave their friends. This is the hardest part about moving back to the USA. We have all made some great friends here and the school was great!

Weekend in Holland

This trip was organized through the American Womens Club. We boarded a bus very early on Saturday morning and drove to the city of Delft, Holland for lunch and shopping. Then the plan was to visit the Keukenhof Gardens. Due to the super large bus crowds, we were unable to even get into the parking lot so we just headed to the hotel for an early dinner. On the way we saw many, many tulip fields in bloom.

The next morning we visited the Gardens. It rained the entire second hour but we were able to enjoy the pretty tulips and walked through most of the Garden. Next we headed into Amsterdam. We boarded a boat to tour the canals. Next, we took a quick walk through the red light district. Then we headed to the Anne Frank House. The lines were a bit long and our tour guide kind of freaked out. She did not want to wait so she took a quick vote and it seemed no one else wanted to wait either. Except me and Lily and 2 others. We were pretty disappointed and didn't mind waiting in a line. In fact I knew to expect a long line, since it is a very popular museum.

So instead, we headed for the town of Volendam, on the coast, for a late lunch and more shopping.
The town was very charming but packed with tourists.

There were several fish stands along the walkway. We ate some good fish and shrimp.



Then we boarded the bus for home.

Daytrip to Munzenberg

Today was Easter Monday, a holiday here. Everything in Germany is closed except restaurants and castles!! So first we visited a castle ruins in the town of Munzenberg and then ate lunch at the local Biergarten.

The castle dates to the 12th and 13th centuries and sits atop a hill in the small rural town. It is a large castle with a couple tall towers. One tower you could climb up to the top. On this day there was a medieval thing going on. They also had an egg hunt for the kids. They were real, hard boiled eggs.

Here are some of John's excellent pictures:

HAPPY EASTER

The Easter bunny visited us this morning. The girls had fun hunting for candy eggs. We then went to church. It was a nice service. Unfortunately, during one familiar song, I looked over at Lily and she was crying. She remembered the song from our church in Kokomo and was missing being there for Easter. So, of course, I started crying and then Lia didn't want to be left out so she started crying. John just shook his head in dismay. I think the lady sitting at the end of the pew was getting sick of us. We left the sanctuary 3 times.

London

OK, when you have someone you don't know take a picture for you, you never know what you're gonna get...This person did a terrible job. I was bummed to see that John is blocking Big Ben. Isn't that the purpose of the photo! And of course we only had the guy take one photo. ugh. At least we all look decent enough.
Our trip to London was a lot of fun. We saw a ton of interesting sights and had a lot of fun. We walked so much the first couple of days that by day three we took a taxi. It was well worth the money and we didn't have to mess with the tube (subway). There is no way to tell you everything we did and saw so I have included the major things in this blog.

The HIGHLIGHT of our trip was seeing Mamma Mia on stage. It was so much fun. Both girls rank this as their favorite thing we did in London.


Sights from London:

Almost all of the taxis look like this and there are a couple of seats facing the rear of the car. The girls loved this. Sometimes there was a fight when there was only one backwards seat. Lily won this time.


Big Ben
Big Ben, Parliament and River Thames
Big Ben and London Eye




We toured Westminster Abbey. It was pretty inside and we were able to walk around the entire interior and listen to an audioguide with headphones. The girls did a kid scavenger hunt page. It was actually 6 pages long and took a lot of effort but they enjoyed it. No pictures were allowed inside, of course.



We took a ride on the London Eye. The girls really liked it!


We visited Buckingham Palace. You cannot tour the inside except for the months of Aug. and Sept. so we just walked around and took a few pictures.


This is a video of the Palace guard.


The girls with the Bobbies. The next morning we were over an hour early to get a spot for the changing of the guards at the Palace but it didn't matter. The crowd was so thick everywhere around the area that it was impossible for us to see anything. The Bobby told us to view the band from the side. This is what we saw. We toured the Royal Mews which is the Royal stables. We thought the girls would enjoy seeing the royal horses and the fancy carriages. This is one of the fancy, decorated in real gold, royal carriages that is used by the Queen. The Queen was spending three weeks for Easter at Windsor Castle so she took 27 horses with her (how extravagant, did she travel there in a horse drawn carriage!) She left 4 horses at the royal stables. This is one and he liked to pose for the pictures. (Of course they don't tell you before you enter that there are almost no horses at the stables.) The royal crest on a carriage. This is Prince Charles favorite car to use. We visited the London Tower which is a castle, the last one remaining in London city. It turned out to be huge and with the crowds it took us 4 hours to tour all of the exhibits. We learned a lot more about Kings and Queens and prisoners and executions. It was pretty interesting and an enjoyable day. Most of the time, cameras were not allowed.

The white tower. There was a neat exhibit on Henry VIII. We learned a lot about this King during our visit.
The prisoners awaited their fate in the Tower Green. Many carved elaborate messages into the stone walls. Here is the guard of the Crown Jewels. Inside this section of the castle is the Queen's crowns which are full of jewels and a septre with the largest Cullinan diamond (530-carat), otherwise known as the Star of Africa. Krispy Kreme Donuts!!! We found this inside the food station at Harrods Department Store. You have no idea how excited we were to eat a donut. They were YUMMY! St. Pauls Cathedral is a beautiful church. It is the second largest church (the largest is St. Peter's in the Vatican). It was closed to tourists on the day we visited because it was Good Friday. We sat inside, said our prayers, and looked all around at the beautiful interior. Modern art at the Tate Modern museum. Visiting this museum just confirms the fact that we do not like modern art. The "art" on the walls were all ugly or just slops of paint. Not for us! Lily wanted to visit the British Museum because it has a large Egyptian exhibit. The exhibit was good but it was absolutely crammed packed with people. It was crazy. We worked our way through the Egypt stuff and then a brief run through the Greek room and we were done. This picture of the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. Mummies, lots of them. Greek statue These are marbles from the actual Parthenon in Greece. We walked through several pretty parks in bloom. John enjoyed taking lots of pictures of the flowers and of the girls. These are just a few.