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.

Celebrations, Farewells & Holidays

I forgot to mention that I was at the school's Award Ceremony on the 19th May to watch Tom collect a certificate for being an A grade student for the whole year. Proud Mama moment. Well done Tom.
On the Saturday 22 May Lily went to a farewell party for her and Nina (she was returning to Greece) and then it was a quick stop off at home to grab Nick & Tom and we were off round to Craig & Bernice's for a barbecue and to say farewell to them. It was a very busy weekend because on Sunday after sorting out the rest of what we had to get packed and shipped we dashed off to Tom & Sian's to celebrate Tom turning 40.

The children all ended up having a massive water fight to keep cool and much fun was had by all.

Finally, it was Monday and the packers arrived bright and early so I went out and got them some breakfast and then let them get on with the packing until it was lunchtime and I went out and got them some lunch too, then gave them a hefty tip and now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that all our stuff arrives home safe and sound, undamaged and not missing! A few extra things got packed by mistake but no major incidents occurred this end. Now all that is left to do is make sure what we kept back fits into our luggage for the final journey home...but of course we have one final holiday to fit in before we leave the US for good.

So on Wednesday 26th we got up early and jumped in the car (Nick's Ford Taurus as mine has been sold already) and drove up to Atlanta to catch a flight to Rapid City, South Dakota. Above is one of the sculptures that are on display along the walkways at the airport, so if you always take the transit train you miss these pieces of African artwork.