Alps

This was in Chatel, France, a ski town about 75 miles from Geneva. These bits are called the "Dents du Midi".

-Dale

A day at the beach...

To celebrate the end of the finishing of school on July 22, we decided to take a family trip to the beach. We returned to Brancaster, shown to us by some friends that has beautiful sandy beaches that are not overcrowded. We took all of our regular beach gear, awning for sun protection, sunscreen, cooler for lunch and snacks, buckets, shovels, etc. However, we were missing the one thing essential for all British beaches: a wind screen. If you double click on the picture to the right, you will notice all the blue and striped wind screens stuck in the sand. The first thing packed here is the wind screen and a mallet to pound it in. We found that out after our emergency purchase of a wind screen that day. The sand was so packed together from the wind and wet that it was like trying to dig a hole in cement. We spent most of the day righting out wind screen since the wind kept blowing it out since we could not get the wind screen poles deep enough.

After a day at the beach, tradition recommends going and getting fish and chips for dinner. We went to nearby Hunstanton for this. Hunstanton is an established beach town with boardwalks, carnival rides, ice cream stands and all things associated with beach going. The boardwalks were not made of "boards" but of cement and probably served both as boardwalk and protection from the sea.

The best part of our day was that it was nearly 80 F and it did not rain!!

Creative thinking...

Alyssa needed to create a costume for a carnival. I thought it was so hilarious that everyone should see it.

Just in case you are wondering, she was a bumble bee.

Royal Albert Hall

Alyssa and Nathan had the opportunity to sing at Royal Albert Hall in London with their school choir along with 33 other schools
across England. The show lasted over 3 hours and included over 19 songs! Dale and I were not sure who was going to tip over first, them or us! The performance was a massive fundraising effort for a children's charity, Barnardos.

Royal Albert Hall is absolutely gorgeous! It opened in 1871 by Queen Victoria. Today, it hosts leading artists from all over the world have appeared on its stage. According to Wikipedia.com, each year this venue is the site of more than 350 performances ranging from classical, rock and pop concerts, to ballet and opera, to award ceremonies and lavish banquets. Originally, it was supposed to have been called The Central Hall of Arts and Sciences, but the name was changed by Queen Victoria to Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences in honor of her husband.

The ballerina and the football star...

We made it through a weekend of a 5-a-side football tournament for Nathan and an elaborate ballet production for Alyssa. Here are a few pictures of events...




Alyssa in the forest scene...










Alyssa in "The Golden Goose"...










Nathan at the trophy ceremony at the end of the season...










Nathan with his team, the Hardwick Harriers

Brussels...

We traveled to Brussels on our way to see the Amstel Gold race in Maastricht, Netherlands. Full of beautiful architecture, a day of site seeing is barely enough time to appreciate all that the city offers. We walked to the famed city square that hosts the City Hall.

We also took a trip through the city to the Atomium, built for the 1958 World's Fair. It is a steel structure (335-feet tall) steel spheres connected together to create an atom magnified 165 billion times.

Finally, we made sure to try lots of chocolate and taste the beer too just to make sure we got the entire Belgium experience.

food

This is Lyle's Golden Syrup. I never saw this until I got over here. It's used on pancakes or oatmeal just like Maple Syrup is. It can also be used to make baked parsnips w/seasame seeds. Yum!

I heard a joke the other day:

Did you know it only rains twice a week in Ireland?

Yup, Monday to Friday and Friday to Monday!

-Dale