Saturday morning routine

Sadie and I go the bakery each Saturday morning for a breakfast treat. Today a lady comes in and asks for four hot cross buns....feel free to insert your own joke here : )

Hip Hop Birthday Party

So...it continues...the person in the family with the fullest social calendar is Sadie.  She was invited last weekend to a birthday party of a boy in here class where they spent 2 hours learning a street dance and then performed it for the parents.

Thought you'd enjoy!

More fun on our lunch date!

Sadie's teaching school

Dave's Birthday Gift...a new grill

And of course...even the English know that only Missouri knows how to BBQ!

Scooby Snack...who knew they came from a McD's drive through

Snow Snow - No More Snow

So when we came for a visit in November we asked about snow and were told it rarely snows around these parts.   So...as luck would have it...we have been here for the coldest and snowiest time since 1962.  We have all done well but some places in the hills it has literally landlocked people with roads covered in 8' of snow.  Some pics below.

My other snack date

My snack date

Sadie's birthday brownie

-

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dawsons concert this week

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sadie lost her first tooth

Sadie woke up with info on the tooth fairy so she drew a pic so we knew what she looked like.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Go Sadie...it's your birthday

We can hardly believe it, but our little girl is turning 6 today.  It is fun watching her mature and learn new things with each day that passes.  God certainly gave us unique kids and Sadie is no exception.  These days we find her incredibly funny, sharp as a tack, a little mischievous and a ton of fun.  She is probably more advanced at her age than any of the other kids were and picks up things very quickly...when she decides she wants to.  

Just last night I asked at the table who remembered the Bible verse we memorized as a family before this trip and she belted out Philippians 4:6 without missing a beat before any of the other kids could do.  We thank God for her and entrusting us with her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE!

 

 

 

 

 

Some more of Dawson's Performance

Enjoy some videos of Dawson's performance.

Upcoming Visits

We are looking forward to having some company in the next few months.  Kel's folks are coming for a month in April and our good friends Jason, Krista, Micah, and Maddie are coming towards the end of May for a couple of weeks.   Yeah ! Visitors!

Sadie doing her reading homework while waiting for Chloe

Nothing beats a care package

The kids love a little taste of home and get pretty excited when a care package comes with treats for them.  Thanks Aunt Di Di, Uncle Dean and the boys!

Musical Concert

Dawson joined the choir when we got here and he had his first performance this past Thursday night.  The performing arts center at their school is being renovated, so they were lucky enough to get to perform at the Royal Hall of Harrogate. This is the local performing arts center that is quite magnificent...so cool the Beatles even played there.

See some pics of the hall below.

Dawson performed with the Junior school through the Senior School (high school) and they all did very well.    The caliber of talent at the school with some of the special jazz bands and vocal groups was outstanding.  I would have literally bought a CD of the concert afterwards if I could have.  Enjoy some clips of the high points.

 

 

 

The school work continues

Chloe continues to do well with the increased course load and work.  A little Shakespeare anyone?

 

 

New Carpet

So we have had two rooms since we moved in that smelled like dog and we couldn't get them out - we shampooed them, vacuumed them multiple times, and then had them professionally cleaned to no avail.  Luckily we were able to get the homeowners to finally replace them.  Yeah!

Jeep Time

Sadie has finished her unit on Tanzania at school where they learned all about animals of Africa and much much more.  One of her activities was learning about jungle jeeps. They studied them and then built a jungle jeep on their own in their design technology class.  She learned about wheels and axles and her work culminated in this creation!

Australia

Just got back from a 8 day trip to Melbourne to meet my team and learn the business in Australia.  Good trip from a business perspective and nice to see Australia.  I was there during the height of their summer, so the weather couldn't have been nicer.  Melbourne is a beautiful city on the southeast tip of Australia.  It had been awhile since I studied Geography in school and had to be reminded when I was there that the size of Australia is about the size of the U.S.  Big land mass...but only 22mm people in the whole country.   Compare that to England which is less land area than the state of Missouri and there are 55mm people in the country.   

A lot of folks from the UK and other parts of the world are migrating to Australia for their weather and economy - which seems to be booming - but it is an expensive place to live...I believe it was recently named the 5th most expensive city to live in.  Lunch at McDonalds is about $10 for one person.

Some pics below from the 24 hour flight

8 hours to DUBAI

8 hours to Singapore

8 hours to Melbourne

I went out for walks each morning before work to get myself adjusted to the 11 hour time adjustment - I went out the first morning and found some rental bikes and enjoyed riding bikes each morning exploring Melbourne.

 See the row teams?  The river was full of row teams practicing each morning.