Birthdays and cheers and work, oh my!

Rah, rah, ree!  Amelia cheered at her first game on Thursday night.  It was an exhibition game at Spain Park's stadium against Berry.  The Bucs won....yeah!  She did great and had such a great time doing it.  This is a photo of her in their stunt.  She is "flying" since she is small.  That is definitely her element too.  We all showed up to support her, including Papa and Aunt Sarah with Luke and Eli.

Amelia is now 12 years old.  She had a great birthday on Friday.  I gave her one of her presents on Thursday night since it was a Vera tote in her favorite pattern.  She has been borrowing one of mine to use as a backpack for school and so she was excited to have her own for school.

Her BIG present was an iPod Touch.  She is absolutely over the moon about it.  It is a really cool iPod.  I was tempted to keep it and give her my classic.  She has wifi on it so this is the closest thing to having a laptop.  Honestly, she wouldn't use an laptop for much schoolwork, so this suits her computer needs.  She can check and send email, play games and do some research.  She can also download pictures into it and keep a calendar.  Again, it was quite tempting to keep the thing for myself!  She got money from both sets of grandparents and it is burning a hole in her wallet.  Aunt Sarah and her crew got her the VB mini-hipster so she has reorganized her purse into that.  It's very cute.  Her sisters got her an iTunes card and she has already downloaded some new music.  I was quite proud of her since she consulted with her sisters on the downloads and even downloaded a couple of Eleanor's suggestions which means they are sharing the music.

Back in the routine

Well, I've been home for several days now and am just finding a moment to catch my breath and post again.  Saturday night I slept well and long after our trip.  Amelia had her first communion at church on Sunday and that was very special to share that sacrament with her for the first time.  Sunday afternoon, Will had to go to Charlotte for a training session and I went to Apple and bought a Mighty Mouse for my new laptop.  The girls and I then went to Target to buy a back to school outfit for each of them and to pick up a few general supplies that I knew they would need while it was tax free.

Monday was back to work and time to get serious about planning my courses and getting my act together.  I talked through some of my ideas about structure with some of my colleagues and finally gathered what I hope is a completely coherent plan for the AP Govt. yesterday....I know, I'm such a procrastinator!  In this instance, not really.  I just needed to sit down and think through some of what I wanted to accomplish.

Today was the first day of school.  Amelia was NOT happy about what time we have to leave for school this year.  They moved the start time at the high school back about 10 minutes, which means of course that I need to be there 10 minutes earlier.  In order to make the rounds through all 3 schools that I go to before mine, we have to leave by 6:40AM.  Yikes!  We managed it this morning, even with Will taking first day of school pictures before we left.  Hopefully we will continue to manage it!

My classes went well, except for a copying snafu on my part for AP.  Oh well, I've made my first mistake.  I think I regrouped fairly well.  We'll see how things work out tomorrow.  The girls had a good first day.  We finished carpools around 4:05 this afternoon and headed to Walmart for school supplies for Eleanor.  It's much harder to juggle 7 different lists than I imagined it was.....I have more sympathy for my student's parents now.  In my defense though, my supply list has been posted since May!  I don't know if any of my students consulted it or not, but it has been posted...

It's already 7PM here and so I'm going to get down to some organizational business for tomorrow.  I hope to get to bed early tomorrow.  I'm so glad we start with a 2-day work week....

We're Home!!!!

We got to the airport and asked about the overbooking issue (with Will's encouragement), but by the time we got to the gate, they only needed one more volunteer to give up their seat...that wouldn't work for us.  It's just as well.  We were ready to come home.

The flight over the Atlantic was uneventful and was a good flight.  It was FULL, but the service was good, the food was good, and the in-flight entertainment system was good too.  I watched 4 full movies and part of another, and played Bejeweled and another game on their system. Passport control and customs was uneventful and we made our flight with ease.  That actually had worried me.  We only had 1-1/2 hours in Atlanta and I worried that we might get stuck in passport or customs.  They were very efficient though and it was a breeze.  There was a flight to Birmingham about half an hour before ours that was cancelled so there was a mad scramble by some of those folks to get on our flight or any other flight.  We were delayed a little at the gate while they fit some of those folks on our flight but we still landed early in Birmingham.

Will and the girls greeted us at baggage claim and we were all quite happy to see each other.  Got our luggage quickly and headed for the car.  They were ready to eat something and we requested Cracker Barrel.  I wanted some good sweet iced tea and some comfort food.  It was great!

We got home and handed around our souvenir gifts to every one.  We had a lot of fun searching for interesting and fun things this year.  I bought Will a metric tape measure in Serbia and an antique compass/sundial in a wooden box on Portobello Road yesterday.  We think it is 180 degrees off, but that might be fixable....Popo, I think we need your help!  Eleanor saw a sign at a shop yesterday that said "Trespassers will be shot; survivors will be shot again" (or something like that).  I think he'll probably hang it outside our house!  :-)  We found an artist stall yesterday where the woman worked with glass making various color patterns in pendants.  We bought one for Olivia and Eleanor (and me and Eleanor too).   In Serbia, I bought a brown beaded shawl with turquoise peacocks embroidered and beaded on it.  It is for decoration in Amelia's room as we finish it (hopefully soon).  Eleanor bought her a jeweled notepad and pen at Hampton Court and I bought her a shirt in Serbia that I think she might wear for the first day of school.  Allie helped me pick it out.  For Olivia, we got a cartoon pencil box, a Build A Bear outfit with the Union Jack on the shirt, a quill pen and a stuffed hedgehog that is just adorable.  We also bought some candy in Serbia and some gum in London for each of the girls.  I have other souvenirs for family members, but I won't ruin their surprises by listing them here.  I'll see if we can't take pictures of some of the things and post later.

At this point, it's about 8:30PM here, which is 2:30AM on my body clock.  Eleanor crashed about an hour ago and is out like a light.  I think the caffeine in the sweet tea has kept me awake...that and playing with my new toy.

I failed to mention that I was greeted with a welcome home gift by Will and the girls this afternoon....my very own MacBook Pro!  Will was tired of monkeying with the PC that crashed last month and bought me a laptop for work and fun.  We have been working on setting it up for the past 3 hours or so, but I'm starting to crash myself.  Tomorrow is Amelia's first communion at church, Will is headed to ESPN for training and I have been persuaded to take advantage of the tax free holiday this weekend to do some back to school shopping....perhaps at the new Target which just opened up in McCalla.  School starts back for me bright and early Monday morning so I might not check in tomorrow at all....I better finish posting pictures tomorrow though or it might not get done for awhile!

Good night.

Portobello Road

We got up this AM and went to Kensington Palace. It was nice and we enjoyed the dress collections, both Princess Diana's and the older ones. I still think Hampton Court Palace is my favorite of the palaces though. We then had lunch at the Orangery. I had the soup of the day. I really didn't understand what he said it was. Didn't really like it, but the homemade bread with it was terrific. I liked the hot tea too--had the Earl Grey. We ate outside on the terrace. It was breezy and pretty, but Eleanor thought it was cold, so we walked back to the flat and Eleanor changed into jeans. The temperature today was just amazing. I know I am going home to hot and humid; today was maybe 70 and breezy. That I will miss.

We then decided to check out Portobello Road and its shops and markets. They are slim on a Friday. Apparently Saturday is the day to go, but we had a really good time shopping there and spent plenty of money to support the local merchants. This was on Eleanor's list of things to do because of the scene in "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" where they sing about Portobello Road. The most nostalgic part to me was shopping in the....are you ready for this Dad.....Woolworth's! I didn't know those still existed anywhere, let alone on Portobello Road in Notting Hill, London. We bought a bottled drink and some candy which was sold by the hmmmmm....kilo maybe? We pay for things in pounds, but don't measure them that way here. Gee, I'm not sure. It was .69 pence per whatever the measurement was! There was an antique store along the road that had the most amazingly beautiful crystal doorknob sets. I texted Will, but he told me the price was too high. Pity....I'd love to have cut crystal doorknobs in my house...wish they had been a deal!

We came back to the flat and did about 90% of our packing for tomorrow, so I could relax for the rest of the evening. We are going to head to the Victoria and Albert and out to dinner in a few minutes (it's about 6:30PM) and then try to get to bed early. Our car hire is picking us up at 5:45 AM to head to Gatwick for our flight. The flight is oversold and when I checked in online, it was saying that they would be asking people to get off the flight for compensation. I was tempted since it might pay for Eleanor to get back to Europe next summer, but when I checked the other flights out, I only found two more flights after that to the states and they had full coach sections too. Oh well.

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Back again....We went to the Victoria and Albert. Unfortunately, they had most of the galleries closed off. I wish their website had been clear about the fact that their late night didn't include all the galleries. We would have made more of an effort to go earlier in the day. We saw some amazing religious art and sculpture though. There was a display on stained glass and church objects (for communion, reliquaries, etc.). Breathtaking stuff. We spent a little over an hour there and then headed toward Queen's Gate Road to catch the Number 70 bus back toward our flat. We walked past the Baden Powell House along the way--it is the former home of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, the founders of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. We found out while at Hampton Court Palace yesterday though that she was a "grace and favour" resident at Hampton Court when she was elderly. Eleanor and I would like to be "grace and favour" residents and get to live in a palace for the rest of our lives!

We finally caught the bus at the gates of Kensington Gardens (far side of the gardens from where we are staying though). We got off about a block and a half from our flat....although we didn't realize we were that close. Tonight....on our last night....we found the cut-through to the side road which we overlook from our flat. Figures! :-) We went to a Tex-Mex and Spanish tapas restaurant around the corner from the flat. This was a concession on Eleanor's part because she doesn't like Mexican food. I had chicken fajitas that were very good....they allowed her to order from the kids menu even though she is obviously older than 10. She had a burger and "chips". Total cost was 29.81...geesh!

During dinner, we discussed our highlights for the week.

For Eleanor, her top three were 1. Spamalot, 2. Kensington Palace, 3. The Churchill Museum and 4. The hamburger she ate at the restaurant across from Hampton Court--perhaps tied with riding the tube. That was more than three wasn't it? LOL

For me, the top three are: 1. Swan Lake, 2. Churchill Museum and 3. Hampton Court Palace. I liked the tube a lot too!

Will told me earlier that if I can get the airlines to compensate us with two round-trip transatlantic flights to go ahead and hop off the plane...but only if they guarantee us seats on another flight tomorrow. I'll see what I can do....

I'll check back in when we get home tomorrow. For now, Ciao!