New Blog address for you

Got into the habit of blogging and realised I was missing it too much so started a new one, check it out at www.sarahwifelife.blogspot.com

The Final Post

We got safely moved into Staybridge Suites and I promptly managed to lose my room key (subsequently found it in a pocket of my jacket on my return to Britain). We had a last few days of frenzied activity getting the furniture uplifted, the house cleaned and returning keys to the landlord mixed in with saying goodbye to friends. Tom & Lily both got days out with their friends and both went to different water parks with close friends as well as trips to the cinema, meals out at Miyakos (our favourite restaurant in Montgomery) and wash out bbqs at the Goodalls (again)!!!
Finally, it was off to the airport and onwards to Washington D.C.
While Nick had to go to the British Embassy on the Monday morning, Tom, Lily & I went out for a bit of sightseeing. We saw the White House and then planned to go and visit a couple of art galleries but upon arriving at said galleries discovered they didn't open until 11am so that put paid to those plans.

We mooched about some more and then caught the metro back to the hotel for a bite to eat , shower and freshen up before heading to the airport to conclude the final leg of our USA adventure.

After an overnight flight back to the UK we got picked up by Les & Les and driven back to Butleigh with all our luggage (thankfully none of it went missing on the journey). Nick got reunited with his beloved Triumph TR5

as well as all the family.

The weather was perfect for sitting out in the garden on the Wednesday and we all had a lovely time (watching the England football game/gossipping in the garden).

My new car was delivered on the Wednesday as well and I am still getting used to the size of the car and the narrowness (is that a word?) of the British roads. Parking in carparks is a particular challenge compared to the US.

Thursday 24th June saw us drive up to Hawick to visit with Ruth & Philip for a few days, Lily was in her element surrounded by dogs and horses. Saturday was of course our anniversary and mum and dad came down for the night.

Ruth & Lily baked a (not very) surprise cake for Nick & I.

Then we went up to the top of the farm to cut the cake and have some champagne, how perfectly delightful.

Then it was back down to the house for more champagne, dinner and entertainment supplied by Tom singing and Lily playing the piano. Good fun.

After a lovely big brunch on Sunday it was back in the car for a couple of days in Lenzie. We thought we might get away with a barbecue but it started to rain while Dad was cooking so we ended up eating inside.

Nick and I popped into Glasgow on the Monday and got sorted out with new mobile phones and got some banking sorted out then it was off to Wormit on Tuesday to stay with Angela until our house was available.

On Thursday we took the children to school and left them there for the day while we got the keys back for our house and sorted out more stuff and then on Friday we got our furniture delivered along with a big pile of crap that we had put in storage! Most of it is sorted now and all there is to do is wait on all our shipping stuff to arrive and we can be surrounded by boxes again. Now I think it's time for a walk along the beach. Goodbye.

One Week To Go

Tim & Deanna came over last Saturday to celebrate Willa's 7th birthday at our house. So they arrived with 2 birthday cakes (we were belatedly celebrating Ethan's 10th as well), food, plates, napkins, a table and some chairs since all our stuff has been shipped already! We had a lovely afternoon by the pool with the obligatory boy's cricket match.

Then it was time for cake so we all went indoors as the cakes were ice cream cakes made by Deanna!

Yum yum, very tasty.

Monday was the ACSC graduation ceremony and Nick got an award for best International Teacher.

Tom, Sian and the boys came round afterwards for lunch and to say goodbye. Then on Wednesday we went to see our final Biscuits baseball game.

Then on Thursday disaster struck. As the temperature rose outside they rose inside too because the air con broke, aargh. 48 hot and sweaty hours later it was thankfully fixed. In the intervening time we spent Thursday night at Dorothy's to say goodbye and have a meal together and on Friday Tom managed to escape out for the day with Josh and Lily had a sleepover at Claire's house, lucky thing as it was 90F inside when we went to bed. Yuck.

Once the air con had been fixed on Saturday it was off to the Frantz's to watch the England v USA footie match which ended in a 1-1 draw.

Yesterday, Lily got to see Emily for the last time and today we all went out for lunch with Mary to say goodbye to her. Tonight we have our last night in the house as we move into a hotel tomorrow so the furniture can get packed up and the house can be cleaned without our stuff in it.

More Wyoming & South Dakota

With our visit to Yellowstone over it was back into the car for a very long drive to Devils Tower, we set off at 7.30am and after a stop for lunch somewhere en route we finally saw Devils Tower in the distance at around 4pm.
So we parked up and had a nice walk around the whole of the base of the tower which took around 50 minutes before jumping back in the car to find somewhere to stay for the night.

The nearest town was Hulett and we managed to get into a very nice motel for the night, again with single beds for Tom & Lily (thank goodness as they were getting fed up having to share while we were in Yellowstone) and a lovely view across a nice lawn down to a river, across from the river were some horses grazing. All very bucolic. After a tasty breakfast at the nearby cafe the next morning it was back in the car for the Black Hills of South Dakota and Mount Rushmore by way of a Dinosaur Museum for Tom.

The Black Hills are very pretty and a welcome change from the rolling plains we had been driving through, Mount Rushmore was interesting.

Then more driving through one of the twistiest, windiest roads I have ever driven on which was through Custer State Park and had bridges called Pigtail Bridges because they were so tight and twisty.

Our final day was to be our adventure into the Badlands and what an adventure it was (for Lily anyway).

We did a few walks out and around including one called Notch Walk which we were advised was 'strenuous' and included a ladder. Not to be daunted, we set off and came up to the ladder

The ladder is held together by metal cables so it moves when you and others are on it....this is not a good thing for Lily. Once we got her to the top we congratulated her, calmed her down and told her it was all over and not to worry about it anymore.

We made it to the end of the walk to discover that no, it wasn't a loop walk it was an out and back walk. This was not good news for Lily as she had to face the ladder again, this time to go down it...well to say she was terrified is probably an understatement, but with much screaming from Lily and coaxing and guiding from Nick she finally managed to get back down again to much applause from everyone. We always seem to manage to terrify Lily at some point on vacation, poor thing. Once we got back we noticed this sign which advises sturdy boots. I think you can

probably see that Lily is not looking best pleased with the situation. With that ordeal behind us we were able to enjoy the rest of the day and ended up visiting the town of Wall to see what all the hype about Wall Drug was about. On our drive out to the Badlands we had passed approximately 70 adverts along an 80 mile stretch of road for Wall Drug, touristy? yes, but had to be done. We had a look around the store and had ice creams and the children got to pan for gemstones while Nick was entertained by a rather strange man. He got very excited when he heard Nick speak, 'Do you know Monty Python?' says he, Yes says Nick and then the man launches into a Monty Python Silly Walk..It was truly weird. Then to top it off, he discovers that not only is Nick English and yes, we do say words like 'super' but he is also in the RAF..Oh god, thinks Nick, Oh yes, thinks the strange man who then proceeds to quiz Nick about jets. Needless to say Nick was pleased when it was time to go. A great way to end the holiday, me thinks.

Yellowstone & Grand Tetons, Wyoming

Day 1 in Yellowstone, we arrived at Old Faithful just in time to see it erupt and have a bite to eat before walking around all the other geysers in the area. We were very lucky because we also got to see Beehive erupt...
and Beehive (above) only erupts every 12 hours or so.

One of many photographs of bison (slightly out of sequence from the narrative! Sorry.)

And this is Old Faithful erupting for a second time just as we finished our walk. After all that walking it was about time to check into our hotel for the night, it was well timed as it started to snow shortly after arriving at the hotel. This is what we woke up to on the 29th May - not what

I normally have to do on my summer hols! We drove down to Grand Tetons for the day and boy, was it cold. We rode a small boat across Jenny Lake and then walked back to the car via Hidden Falls, the children had great fun playing in the snow on the way back.

Tom had been a bit under the weather since the start of the holiday and his cough had gradually been getting worse and now conjunctivitus had reared its ugly head so we headed to the medical centre in Grand Tetons after we had finished the walk. $168 later we had a small bottle of eye drops to clear up the infection ($28 for the eyedrops, $140 for the consult - long live the NHS). The annoying thing was the conjunctivitus looked like it was already getting better before the consult, but as it's so contagious I felt obliged to go and cough up for the drops before we all ended up with it.
Over the next couple of days we did lots of driving around the park and walking and took loads of photographs, a decent selection are now posted on my Facebook page. We were lucky enough to see this little fellow just ambling through the park minding his own business...

Minnesota and Montana in May

So our flight left Atlanta on time and we arrived at Minneapolis Airport to catch our connection to Rapid City. I stopped myself from buying a Minnesota postcard but I did take this photo to prove we have visited the state. I am not allowing myself to say we bagged it though as we didn't get outside of the airport, which, incidentally, is very nice and has some good shops.
Okay, we got to Rapid City and collected our luggage and hire car and then we were off into the wild blue yonder for our adventure. We got as far as Sundance, Wyoming and called it a day and managed to find a nice motel with a 3 bedded room for us which kept Tom & Lily happy as they didn't need to share.

After breakfast the next day it was back to driving through some very boring countryside until we ended up in Montana to visit the battlefield site at Little Big Horn which is where, as I'm sure you all know, General Custer met his demise.

After a nice walk around and stretch of the legs it was back in the car for the final bit of driving for Thursday to reach our B & B for the night. We had a lovely view of Emigrant Mountain from our room and were the only guests staying there.

We had a nice walk around the garden and went and said hello to the horses who seemed very pleased to see us, I'm guessing they don't get paid much attention. Then it was back inside for something to eat before bed and the start of a new day.