Our Lives and Loves

On the Road Again

February 8th, 2010 Posted in Family, Our House, Travels | No Comments »

We are traveling in Europe for a couple of months! We will be spending most of our time in the Netherlands. We will use this opportunity to reconnect with long-lost family, see the sites, and learn some Dutch. We are headed for Wageningen, a university town in the centre of the country. We have found a furnished house to rent and look forward to seeing the arrival of spring in a new part of the world.

We are thankful that our kids have been incredibly resilient as we move about. They have faced each change and challenge as a team and we are so thankful for that. We’ve made some wonderful friends here in the UK and pray that we will be back soon enough to see those relationships grow even further.

These moves do come with their challenges. I personally find it the hard to divide our belongings for a third time, having to make the decision of what to take with us to the Netherlands and what to leave in the UK. We’ve already left so much behind in Canada, to have to go through this process again is really daunting. But we hope to be back soon!

Diana

Kenilworth Castle

February 5th, 2010 Posted in Family, Travels | No Comments »

We made a short trek out to the ruins of Kenilworth Castle on Saturday.  The kids ran around exploring in all the nooks and crannies.  It was so much fun watching them.  They would call out to one another from different areas of the ruins and encourage each other to come see this or that.  The views were spectacular as was the lighting.  We came later in the day than planned so the sun was fairly low in the sky.  The brilliant blue sky and the clouds just added great colour.

Enjoy the photos.

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Caleb’s friend Pieter, from church, joined us for the weekend.

Diana

Hyde Park

January 31st, 2010 Posted in Family, Travels | 1 Comment »

In December, before returning to Canada for Christmas, the kids and I took a morning to walk around Hyde Park in London rather than a museum.  The kids needed to run around, raise their voices, and enjoy some fresh air.

Hyde Park Pictures:

This is the Marble Arch which both dwarfs and defines the intersection.

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An incredibly large horse head that we thought was an enormous thumb at first.  LOL

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Some photos of birds we saw as we walked along the Serpentine.

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We had a wonderful morning.  It was sunny and a lovely temperature.
Diana

London Museums Resumed–Victoria and Albert Museum

January 22nd, 2010 Posted in Family, Homeschooling, Travels | 1 Comment »

Pete had business in London the last week we were in the UK in 2009 so we decided to all join him. The kids and I enjoyed visiting the British Museum (again) and the Victoria and Albert Museum.  We also had a great walk around Hyde Park.  One cabby gave us a great tour between the museum and our hotel–past Harrods and their Christmas displays, the city street Christmas lights, and other lighted London sites.

Some of the tops picks from the V&A.

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Diana

The British Museum revisited

January 21st, 2010 Posted in Family, Homeschooling, Travels | 2 Comments »

The kids and I always take a camera, sketchbooks, and pencils along to the museums we visit.  Here is Emma drawing images from the side of this item. She argues that it’s a bath tub, but it’s really for burial. But it has scenes from the Jonah story all over it, so I decided not to contest her four year-old logic.

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A very cool snake sculpture, if you like that sort of thing, which is displayed with a mirror underneath it so that you can see the coiled detail from the bottom as well. Jonathan really liked it.

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All the personalities are coming out on this picture. This is a remake of the Rosetta stone. The kids were fascinated with it because we use the Rosetta Stone language courses for our second language.

By this point Emma has had it, Hannah’s hanging in there, Jonathan thinks this is so cool, Caleb is still not ready to call it a day, and Pete just joined us and is smiling nicely for the picture and then reaching for his Blackberry.

Diana

We Tipped Our Hats To Oxford

January 17th, 2010 Posted in Crafts, Family, Travels, birding | No Comments »

Just a week before we made our trip to Canada for Christmas we made a short visit to Oxford. We visited a RSPB site local to Oxford called Otmoor, and spent some time in the great outdoors looking for British birds. There were some really interesting viewing holes in the bird blind that made great frames for pictures.

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Between the RSPB reserve and our friends’ home in Oxford we drove through this little village where the road would narrow to just a car width framed by the walls of buildings. The several dozen buildings in this village were all built using the same stone and every 5 or so had a thatched roof. Very cool! I could only snap a few shots as Pete tried to carefully navigate between the buildings.

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We continued on to visit with Tim and Anna and their 6 children.  While Tim gave Pete and I a 2 hour sprint tour of Oxford, Anna kept the kids out of trouble with bread baking and shaping, and drawing.  Here are some of the results.

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A kingfisher and Tucker (the rabbit) crafted into bread dough.

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Images nabbed on our tour.

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One of the Oxford College courtyards. There are 39 colleges in the Oxford University. Each college has a courtyard such as this one. The building houses the college library, study halls, and other related rooms. And if you continue through the back gates there is often a beautiful garden for the enjoyment of the students (weather permitting).

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The crafting that went into these old buildings is stunning and it is overwhelming as there is so much to look at. It makes me want to study more architecture. They even decorated the water spouts.

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A piece of Christ Church College out buildings, supposedly the end that Henry VIII stayed in.

In our short tour we saw so many aspects of Oxford, but only really saw a glimpse. Most of Oxford is behind walls, our camera battery running low, and the lighting poor contributed to fewer pictures than I had wished for. A few of the highlights included a cross in the road marking the place where Bloody Mary had three bishops burned at the stake for failing to recant the Protestant faith, the 1000 year-old towers that they were kept in till their deaths, and the Eagle and Child, the pub where Tolkien and Lewis chatted.

The thing that comes back to me every time are the layers of history overlapping one another. It’s so hard to put into words. We were surrounded by insignificance and significance. Insignificance in that there were people walking past getting groceries and doing their Christmas shopping without a second thought. And significance in that so many people that lived in Oxford in days gone by have changed the world.

Diana

Back in the UK

January 14th, 2010 Posted in Family, Our House, Travels | No Comments »

On Tuesday, Jan, 12th we arrived safely in the UK after a month in Hamilton, ON. Other than missing our connector flight in Paris and Emma sleeping on my lap during the entire trip from Toronto to Paris we had a smooth trip.

What a flurry of visiting and hosting!  It was great to see family and friends again after several months apart.   The kids each had a list of things they’d like to do and people they’d like to see while in Ontario and I am happy to report that none of them were disappointed.

On one hand I was much relieved that there wasn’t a great deal of snow to drive through as I had a lot of shopping to do and also a lot of driving from event to event.  We did however get some skating in and one hour of tobagganing.  No snowmen to be made though as the little snow we had was very dry.  (They had more snow in Birmingham, UK than we did in Hamilton, ON.)  I really do love snow activities but the major bruise I got from tobagganing made me feel just a wee bit old.  Fortunately my new skates relieved me of my old arch ailments and I had the best skating since I don’t know when. (The hand-me-down 1980s skates from my oldest brother should have been replaced years ago, me thinks.)

Thank you so much to the many people who had us over to enjoy a meal, a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine with during our month in Canada.  Celebrating with family and friends during the Christmas season and New Year’s was such a treat.

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Diana

New Year’s Update

January 11th, 2010 Posted in Crafts, Family, Travels | No Comments »

We’re in the midst of packing up to travel back to England. We have had a wonderful month in Canada, but all good things must come to an end. It’s time to get back to work!

While I’m writing, I must add that my Mom, Marike Scholtens, has set up her own blog, For the Beauty of the Earth, to highlight her art work. It looks great, Mom!

See you on the other side of the pond. We’re looking forward to reconnecting with all our friends and colleagues in England.

Pete

Home for the Holidays

December 16th, 2009 Posted in Family, Our House, Travels | No Comments »

We are finally home in Canada again.  We left our British home on Wednesday morning for a few days in London.  We were to fly out of Heathrow Friday morning but due to foggy weather conditions our flight was delayed by five hours.  By the time we got to Amsterdam we had long missed our connector flight to Toronto.  We spent the night with family in Apeldoorn.  Our trip into the Netherlands was actually a wonderful bit of adventure, considering all things.  We took a train to Apeldoorn and had great discussions with others on the train.  It’s such a funny situation to hear a language that sounds so familiar and yet really don’t have enough of a grasp of the language to understand everything being said.  (Both Pete and I are of Dutch descent and our grandparents and parents spoke Dutch around us while we grew up.)

The days have been really busy with grocery shopping, errands, and adjusting to the different time.  We’ve already been to visit with several family members and Hannah reunited briefly with her pet rabbit Tucker. All is well.

Diana

Sandwell Valley RSPB Nature Reserve

December 1st, 2009 Posted in Family, Homeschooling, Travels, birding, creation | No Comments »

Caleb’s been patiently waiting for us to find a place to go birding.  We signed up as RSPB (Royal Society for Protection of Birds) members and the kids received their first membership packages last week.  They were super excited! We found the closest RSPB site, Sandwell Valley, and made a trip there on Saturday afternoon.  It was really cold so we dressed up in lots of layers.  With our binoculars, camera, and birding scope we trooped out to find all those “lifers” (first time sightings).

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Getting all the gear in working order and first sightings.

Here is the list of birds we saw and which ones were lifers:

Mute Swan
Gadwall
Mallard
Shoveller
Tufted Duck
Moorhen
Coot
Black-Headed Gull
Wood Pigeon
Robin
Blackbird
Long-Tailed Tit
Great Tit
Coal Tit
Blue Tit
Magpie
Carrion Crow
Starling
House Sparrow
Green Finch
Canada Goose

Lifers:
Teal
Goosander
Great Crested Grebe
Little Grebe
Cormorant
Water Rail
Lapwing
Snipe
Bullfinch

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The European Canada Goose and friends

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The Goosander

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Emma and I wandered off as the light was fading, ready to get home again.

Enjoy!

Diana