Merry Christmas! Here we are celebrating our third Christmas in England and what a year it has been. At times I’ve found myself wondering if I’ve seen myself coming and going and yet as I sit here to write our yearly letter I find myself thinking, “were we really that busy?” Probably not, but to find out here is a recap of the important and memorable moments. I hope you enjoy this year’s letter!
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and may God Bless all of you in the New Year.
JANUARY
We rang in the New Year at the George and Dragon Pub. We visited the London Aquarium. Visited St. James Park and fed the squirrels again. David turned 37 and we celebrated at the Hard Rock Café in London. The waitress was wonderful and made David stand in the chair while everyone sang Happy Birthday. Neal McCoy came to Mildenhall on a USO tour and we got to meet him!
FEBRUARY
I have no photos! I honestly have NO idea what we did.
MARCH
I made my first Apple pies! Everyone loved them! We went to Canada! Not really. We were there the end of the month for a layover on our way home for our first visit since moving to England. Finally got to meet my new niece Hannah! She is precious.
APRIL
We celebrated Easter with our families, had a huge dinner, and surprise birthday parties! Becky and I both were ganged up on by the family! David dressed up like the Easter Bunny for all the kids. It was very memorable! Did you know the Easter Bunny rides a 4-wheeler?! We also celebrated the 4th of July on Easter and lit off a ton of fireworks. Thank goodness my mother-in-law lives in the country, outside the city limits. England of course does not celebrate the 4th and our kids were missing it, so we made up for it. Ashlynn and I also flew to Ohio to visit our friends and had a great time - neither of us can wait to go back! I even got to attend a Mom’s Night Out while there and the Mom’s informed the waiter it was my birthday! Then the day finally came for us to return to England and guess what? We were stuck stateside! A volcano erupted in Iceland, causing havoc and preventing us from flying back for a whole week! The kids LOVED it and to tell the truth, we did too. It was nice just to sit and enjoy the rest of the week after visiting all over. David and kids even went fishing. We finally were able to return to England, on my actual birthday! We were sitting in the plane, mid-flight and David says, “Happy Birthday”. Kinda crazy, uh? I finally turned 30! Yes, I am excited about that. It makes me feel all grown up. My sneaky husband, with the help of our neighbors, planned a surprise party and thankfully I did not sleep through it! That jet lag is really something. Needless to say, my 30th was greatly celebrated. It was a most special birthday.
MAY
Ashlynn and I took a girls ONLY trip to Wales and went horse back riding. It was great! Wales has a ton of sheep and a whole lot of slate. We also learned rather quickly that we do not care for the English saddles; boy were we sore! We also had something called Sticky Toffee Pudding - it is amazing! You’ve got to try it! We dog sat Sadie, and she and our dog , Lady, got into a good bit of mischief. They destroyed and ate a bottle of Tylenol and had to have their tummies pumped. Bad girls! They had matching pink bands, though, from where their IV had been. I’m still at a loss as to where on earth they got the Tylenol from! I keep in the kitchen cabinet. Brier turned 8 and we celebrated by renting a bouncy castle and getting rained out! So, we had to switch plans and quickly think up some indoor games to play. We also went to the Science Museum in London - that place is huge!
JUNE
In June, we decided to recover! We went to Framlingham Castle and called it good for the month. It’s a good thing we saved our energy, just read what we did in July!
JULY
We went to Legoland and decided our kids have outgrown it, oops! Ashlynn went to her first school dance, she was so pretty. I had a surgery, very simple, and recovered quickly enough to experience my first “Hen Night” aka “Bachelorette Party”. We went to a much anticipated wedding here in the village. One in which I handmade all the stationary for; my biggest order ever! We loved the wedding and reception. It was like something straight out of a movie...and pretty cool to see the guys in Kilts and hear the Bride led in by bag pipes. Marilyn, David’s mom, came out to visit us! We had a great time showing her the sights. We also took her to France with us on our family vacation to Paris and Disneyland. We had a wonderful time and look forward to visiting Paris again. Oh, and we rode a ferry for the first time. Kids loved that too! July is always the busy month!
AUGUST
I cycled 32 miles with a friend to raise money for a local charity. I’d begun cycling in June; it is a rather popular thing to do in England. David and the kids were great supporters! David also cycled 35 miles with friends for a charity. David & I celebrated our 11th anniversary and enjoyed a weekend alone in Scotland. Very nice! We plan to take the kids to Scotland at some point.
SEPTEMBER
The kids returned to school. Ashlynn is in year 6 and will be completing Primary school in July. Brier is in year 4. Those are equivalent to grades 5 and 3. Brier began playing football; more commonly known to us Americans as soccer. Brier also found a hedgehog out in the garden and fed it chocolate! I have pictures to prove it! David & I attended the Air Force Ball and now I can say I have been. No need to try that again. It was fun getting all dressed up, though.
OCTOBER
We went to the Royal Fruit Farm in Sandringham and picked apples. It was a nice outing. We also went to a nearby Pumpkin patch to pick pumpkins, go through the corn maze, and have hot chocolate! Ashlynn celebrated her 11th birthday quietly, with a few friends and a trip to the movies. She received many new books, a cell phone and has recently gotten into lip gloss! She is also quite a little baker and made cheesecake truffles as her treat to take in to school. I was hired to make 150 birthday invitations for a combined birthday celebration. That was a nice project and pay check.
NOVEMBER
Ashlynn & I both participated in www.nanowrimo.org National Novel Writing Month. Ashlynn won with 30,007 words and I with 50,052. We both printed off our certificates and ordered our winner’s shirts! Pictures will be taken soon! So if you heard that I’ve been writing a book - it is true. But, Ashlynn did too! We celebrated Thanksgiving with friends, received wonderful news from them too (but I can’t tell) and we all went to see the first part of the 7th Harry Potter movie! David and Brier did not enjoy it much, but Ashlynn and I did. Of course, we’d both read all the books and knew what to expect.
DECEMBER
Both kids are in the choir this year and we went to the Christmas Bizarre at their school to hear them sing. We also watched their Christmas plays; we love seeing those. Ashlynn had her first solo; she received a lot of well deserved compliments, and even brought a tear to her Daddy’s eye. Brier has been having a rough year and so we, Ashlynn included, have been scheming and planning the greatest Christmas gift for Brier...but I’m not telling you what it is! I do not want the information being leaked. So if you want to know, look for the video on our blog, Facebook, or send us an email. Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait till next year to find out!
Much love, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!!
David, Tonya, Ashlynn, Brier, and Lady VanWinkle
UPDATES:
- In September we found out that our extension to stay in England has been approved. We will be here until further notice!
- For those of you that haven’t heard there is going to be a Royal Wedding in April! :)
- David will celebrate 20 years of service Nov. 2011!!!
WE’RE ON THE WEB:
- You may find David & I both on Facebook.
- You may read about our adventures on our blog at http://www.lifeinengland08.blogspot.com/ Warning: I am slacker at that blog sometimes, but I do try. If you would like to receive the posts, rather than looking every so often to see if I’ve written, then please subscribe and it will come directly to your email.
- You may also email us.
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