Safari Park

Gloria Berry and I took the kids to the Woburn Safari Park.  It was a fantastic park with Lions, Tigers and Bears, OH MY!   Seriously, we drove through Africa and experienced a Safari in our car!  It was wonderful.  They have free Swan paddle boats and a walk through area with more animals.  You can walk in the enclosure with the kangaroos and the emus or pet the monkeys!  This is a great way to spend a day with the family.  Just don't take a really nice car!  

The male and his pride above.

Seal pool

Can you see the Kangaroo lounging on the wood above?

Mama and one of her cubs

Zebras close enough to cause trouble, but didn't.

The walk around part of the park

Ahhhhh, a good bum rub anyone?

Flying parakeets!

A wolf in front of the car!

yeah, well, who wants to walk when you can ride? These monkeys have found a way to entertain themselves.  They all choose cars to ride on and then after a while they jump off, run to the end of the line and jump on the next car.  This one was very nice and did not "pick" at anything on my car!  Like I said.  Don't take a nice car.

Belle and her Pony, Benjamin

What else can we find to do while Dad is away?

Riding lessons, of course.  Belle started her riding lessons this week.  The teacher is impressed with her balance and feels that she will only need a few one on one lessons with her.  She moved to jumping at the end of the lesson.  

Belle leading her pony, Benjamin, to the barn.

Belle atop Benjamin.

Dans first question was:  "Do I have to look into buying a farm?"  My comment:  "No, just a pony for the yard!"  We will see if this becomes addictive.  Most horse people will tell you  YES!

Dan away from Home

As most of you know, Dan is in America this week working at Caterpillar.  He is enjoying good food and good company.  We are quite jealous as we decided not to go with him this first time.  I should say, I mean first and last time, as we have decided we don't like seeing him on Skype in our home with the rest of the family.  Next time the kids and I will plan on joining him on a trip home to work.   New things happening:  Belle has been riding her big girls bike every night. Dan purchased this bike before we left for England and she is just now big enough to touch with her tippy toes on each side.  As with any new accomplishment,  she wants to ride all the time!  Her school celebrated Mayfayre this past weekend.  They have a large parade of kids dressed in all sorts of costumes who follow the May Queen and her attendants to the school.  There is a Jumpy Castle and a large blow-up slide to play on and they sell cakes and sweets inside with face painting and a toy store.  The kids have great fun and look forward to this every year.  On Sunday we went to the cinema and saw "Ironman".  I thought it was great.  It was Caleb's second time to see it and he enjoyed just as much as the first time.  I love it when they get old enough to sit through a movie and not ask questions.  We are almost there with Belle.  That was our weekend in a nutshell.  

  

Belle as a Rabbit

Belle and Tianda following the float.

Belle on her big girls bike.

Belle and Tianda at the Crowning.

The weekend before Dan left was spent draining the pond and patching holes.  

Current picture of the House

I thought I would include a current picture of our house.  One year later it looks much more lived in and taken care of .  And of course, the nice straight edge of my flower bed! 

Spring has Arrived

The backyard is set up with a badmitten net.  Caleb loves to play and Belle is hard on his heels also.  The large willow tree in the back is the tree that was trimmed yesterday to allow more light into the neighbors yard to our right.  You can see their house through the apple trees. 

The picture above on the left is the bed that I have been working on since last year when I pulled weeds, killed weeds, planted two different types of bushes, yucca plants and mulched it.   Today I completed the re-edging and added more annuals.  I would like to add a few more, and then the bed is done.  

We worked on the pond yesterday.  We pulled out the plants, recut them and threw the excess away.  We fixed the floating net (heroin won't step on it to eat our fish) and Dan cleaned the filter out.  We seem to have a few more fish this year, so they must be happy.  We have a leak in the pond also.  Left unchecked, the pond water will drop about 6 inches in less than a day.  Until we get it fixed, Dan set up the orange ball and hose system.  Works like a toilet, ball drops down, water fills it up until the ball is floating again and shuts off.  My hero the engineer.  Gotta love them!

The boxes on the left are my flower boxes that sit outside the front door that the owners left.  This year I filled them with pansies, some grass thingy, and the pretty lime green evergreen tree.  Yes, I bought it because it is so "pretty".    So on this beautiful spring weekend, I found myself in the yard getting some much needed yard work done.  Next week, we will do a castle!  Till later,  the England Crusader!

Venice in Springtime

Who is that handsome man on the left?  Yes, that is Ben.  Hard to believe

he will be turning 18 in June!  We went to Venice the first of April and 

I had to post a little about it.  It was beautiful weather and of course

it lived up to my expectations again!  I love the place.  We had a wonderful

apartment with 4 bedrooms and it was in a nice, quite residential area of Venice. 

If you ever get to Italy, it is not to be missed!

An aerial view of part of Venice.  Taken from St. Marks clock tower. 

 Lido is in the far background.

Ben, Caleb and Belle on a bridge by our apartment.

Just a pretty picture

Mom on Rialto Bridge with just a piece of the city of Venice behind her.

Mom in London

After almost two months in England, we figured it was time to get mom to London, despite the weather.  We bundled up and spent the day there.  We went on a bus tour, and saw the Tower of London.  Ate lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken and took the train back home.  We had a wonderful time and mom got to see the London sights.

Long Subway escalators.  Thankfully you don't realize how far down you are when there.

Double decker old time bus.  

Inside the Tower of London.