It was REALLY FUN to return and see the moms, the students and the teachers. The kids played on the new tire park and admired the new vegetable garden.
My heart broke in 2 when Andrew was allowed back in his room. He just lit up. He sat right in his chair and was DELIGHTED to see that some of his work was still in his cubbie!
He thrived the most in that school. He hasn't quite felt delighted in the the U.S. system yet, although we are in a great school. Why do I find it so hard to move my children around? They are totally fine, and probably the better for our experiences, but my heart just cuts in 1/2 when I see a kid like Andrew be so excited to see his former school and be so sad when we leave!
Each girl got to play with her special friends from Elsworth, and Andrew was greeted by his former class lining up and shouting out in unison, "Hello Andrew!"
We were able to spend some evenings in our former village and another wonderful friend braved having us over for dinner. I always feel so awkward arriving as a family of 6 for people to feed us! Lorna was WONDERFUL and it was SO GREAT to see her again!
We stopped by our former house and reminisced. We met Paul for dinner at one of the restaurants that we frequented when we lived there. We drove around our village and I nearly teared up at the memories that hit me.
Oh, it's just crazy how I drag my feet and feel so sentimental about things.
One thing that we did LAST Thursday was to go into London with Paul's mom, Angela, and watch the play, "The Railway Children". The Railway Children is a famous British children's book. It's equivalent to the U.S. series, The Boxcar Children.
The Railway Children play had started in York, one of the REALLY NEAT cities that we visited in 2009. It moved to London for a limited time and was playing during our visit. The neat thing about the play is that the stage for it was the REAL former Eurostar station....Waterloo! We sat at the real platform and the actors performed on the SAME platform that we had stood on when we took the Eurostar from London to Paris in 2007! A real steam train was part of the play as well!
It was SO NEAT to be back in London, back to a station that we had stood on 3 years earlier, and to see the play. I was just blown away by God's goodness (still coming in a future post)!
Here are Paul and Andrew on the train into London.
This was the platform where the play was performed. The "pits" are the real railway tracks!
This was intermission. Looks like you could purchase actual tickets, doesn't it? You used to be able to. In fact, Waterloo is still an active subway and train station. I thought the sounds of trains in the distance were part of the play, but they were actually real trains coming through!
After the play, they had this train to ride. We HAD to ride it, even though the kids have mostly outgrown it, but see the name of it? Plus, they were all excited about trains after seeing the play.
I love how these 2 have a special relationship!
After the play, we had ANOTHER special treat - some of our best baby-sitters ever and a very special family was visiting London the SAME time as we were! In our 2 1/2 weeks in England, we were only in London that one day, and Jean, Ariel and Rachel were there that SAME DAY (and they were only there for 3-4 days)! We met for dinner after our play and before their musical started. Over and over, God gives us these GREAT gifts. My heart just bleeds for our friends in Austin, but God helps us make new ones, and allows the ones in Austin to continue in our lives. These are beautiful, amazing girls, and I LOVED catching up with my friend, their mom, Jean at dinner.
After dinner, I felt all sentimental about being back in London and I took a bunch of pictures of us walking back to our train station.
This was actually on the way to dinner, but you get the idea!
This is very typical of how we get around. Paul charges ahead with whoever can keep up with him, and I follow behind the slower walkers in the crowd, making sure we don't lose anyone!
This is where Paul worked in Cambridge. I know it doesn't matter for people reading this, but it brings back a ton of memories for me!
We left Cambridge Wed. night and stayed back at the bride and groom's house that night. We spent one last evening with Paul's parents. That was the HARDEST part of leaving England, and my favorite reason to live there. It was nice to be close to relatives. We have always lived so far from everyone, my side of the family included.
Early the next morning we left England for our 12 hour flight back to California. The kids are AMAZING travelers, and Paul is AMAZING to travel with. He does so much (almost all) of the work when it comes to traveling. I just follow behind, make sure the kids are fed, and browse in the occasional book store!
I can NOT believe these pictures! These must have been from the way over, when it was a night flight. I think the kids were mostly awake on the flight back, which is almost a 24 hour day ordeal! Still, they fit in nicely on this travel theme.
Whew! I'm finally caught up regarding our "summer vacation"! Next, some super fun things we've been up to in California!
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