Christmas

This year was kind of bittersweet. It was Madison's first Christmas which was exciting to read her Christmas stories and open presents (mostly she just played with the wrapping paper) and play with her new toys. On the other hand we were pretty homesick and missing Adam's dad:( We just tried to keep ourselves busy. On Christmas Eve we attended a carol service at the beautiful Ely Cathedral and on Christmas Day we celebrated with the Royals.  The Royal family has a Christmas house about an hour away so this being our last Christmas in England we had to take advantage and get a peek at the royal family! Every year the family walks to the Church on their property for service. The public lines up along the path and the Royals greet people along their walk. We got there pretty early so we got a really good spot! There were an estimated 3,000 people there! After their service children line up to present to Queen with flowers which happened to be right in front of us! It was pretty exciting- we got to see Prince William, Kate, Prince Harry, some of the cousins and of course the Queen, just feet away!

 

 

 

Normandy Part 2

Normandy was an amazing experience! While there we visited two museums, one dedicated to the British war effort and one for D-Day at Utah Beach. We also visited Omaha Beach, Utah Beach, Point du Hoc, a German gun battery, and the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. It was truly a humbling experience, so many lives were sacrificed there for our freedom!

 On the way to the war sites Maddie wanted to stop in a really cute small town.

The British floated over a port from England.

 These German guns could shoot over 8 miles out to sea.

 This one was destroyed by a hand grenade.

 The craters at Point Du Hoc are still there.

 The American Cemetery was an incredibly sad sight to see.  It took our breath away.

 The D-Day Museum at Utah Beach.

Normandy- Part one

Over Thanksgiving weekend we took a quick trip to Normandy France. We love France so it was nice to go back. We had a great time except for the food poisoning Adam got the last evening there:/ On our way to our hotel, we stopped in a cutsie little town for lunch and to do some cider tasting. Everything was closed but we managed to find one creperie open- what more did we need. We tried some cider also! It was really good! The cider is made from different varieties of pressed apples and then bottled. Once opened it  tastes a lot like Champagne. Here are a few pictures from my IPad, I will post more from my camera another day.

Whirlwind trip to the States

We received some not so great news last week about Adam's dads cancer. It wasn't what we were hoping to hear thats for sure! We got plane tickets and headed to Texas. Seeing Madison was some good medicine for her Poppa!  We had been feeling pretty homesick lately so even though the trip was under some not so great circumstances we were so happy to be back for a bit! Madison and i even got to go to Missouri for a quick trip. Maddie got to see sooo many people and even meet some new cousins and aunts and uncles for the first time! Here are a few pictures from the week: