Winter whirlwind

So many pictures, so little time to post! I promise there are brilliant blog posts rolling around in my brain at all times, but again, this whole 'job' thing really eats away at my 'writing about my family' time. Anyhoo, catching up here. . .

We took a day trip north of here a few weekends ago and visiting Castle Rising and Hunstanton. The boys took their own cameras along and had an awesome time taking pictures of the castle. Hunstanton is a sweet village along the coast where we had hoped to find some good fossils. We didn't have any luck, but had fun exploring the beach and watching the crazy kiteboarders who were out in freezing arse water all afternoon.

Castle Rising has a cool past--it is a 12th century castle that had it's most famous period in its history when it was home to the mother of Edward III, Queen Isabella, following her part in the murder of her husband Edward II. Apparently, she was never imprisoned for the murder, but was sent to Castle Rising to live, which was not a bad punishment as far as I can tell!

Both boys are playing basketball, although the rotten lighting in the gym is seriously holding me back in the photo documentation department!

On the way home from basketball last week, the boys were just beating the poo out of each other in the car. Driving in the English countryside is challenging enough without seeing/hearing two boys fighting to the death, so I devised a new punishment (as it seemed that threatening to pull over and beat their arses wasn't working). Here are the end products:

The kids convinced Dave to have a water balloon fight with them, on a 35ish degree morning.

Last weekend, I headed to Bury St. Edmunds to find Butterworths, an amazing, teeny tiny little natural food store that has so many of the bits and pieces that I can't find anywhere else here. The markets here are so cool, and Bury's was booming.

Which brings me to a few pics of the yummy goods I've been making/eating since returning to 'veganhood' after Christmas. I've got some cool new kitchen tools (spiralizer, mandolin) and bought nice UK versions of a few gadgets I left behind (juicer, food processor). Some of my tastier creations:

Kale chips

Asian Zucchini 'Noodles'
Zucchini noodles made with the spiralizer (all three kids loved eating 2 foot long strands of squash, including Casey who has literally vomited almost every time we force him to eat a 'vengetable')

Secret sauce ingredients

Add some chopped/shredded carrots, red bell pepper, snap peas, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Really yummy and filling.

We spent a day in London last weekend for the Chinese New Year festivities. It was crowded and cold, but the kids made the best of it by finding a nice spot to come in from the cold. . .I'm still trying to figure out how our fun cultural outing ended with a tour of the 4-story overstimulating commercial meca of M & M World.

This morning, we woke up to our first UK snow! After scrambling to find gloves and boots to fit everyone (Keller ended up in mine, sign of how big the boy-child is getting), Dave, the kids, and Juno headed out to dive into the white stuff. Juno made her first escape since arriving here a month ago. We're not sure how long she had been gone (she snuck out a side gate that we didn't know was open), but she made a few friends along the way and a kind neighbor helped Dave track her down.

With the morning's snow came news that yet another of Marley's birthday parties had been sabotaged by winter weather. Poor girl--her birthday always falls around Super Bowl weekend and/or a snow storm. We had an extra layer of party-prep chaos today when Dave drove over to base to pick up Marley's cake and the pizzas for the party, only to get turned away at the gate because base was locked down due to the weather. (Let me just mention that we got 2-3" of snow, which where I grew up in western PA would've meant that you had to wear socks that day to keep your ankles warm--certainly wouldn't have amounted to a delay or closing of anything!). Not only were we blocked from getting on base, but the people who live on base couldn't get out--which meant that three of Marley's party guests had to cancel on us. Dave bravely ventured to the British grocery store to find a random cake and some take-and-bake pizzas to save the day. Marley's best buddy Aiden came, and I swear she couldn't have been any happier if she would've had 40 kids here.

We've booked flights back to the States and hope to see as many of you as possible sometime between June 20th and July 5th, when we'll be on tour of the east coast. Until then, I'll try to keep you updated with photos and corny captions of our adventures over here!