It seems like a real English thing to do, dry the laundry outside.  Luckily we have a drying rack outdoors that slides back into itself on the side of the home.  It doesn't hold all our laundry but I also have an indoors one I use for the under clothes and on sunny days like these, it doesn't take long at all to find they are dry.
Works well, especially now that our dryer is not working.  Between this and doing huge loads of sheets and towels on the Base Laundry Mat, we are doing well.

It has been 30 years since England has seen a wedding, the last in fact was in 1981 when Princess Diana married.  There was talk leading up to this, block parties, friends getting together, people even braving the streets of London.  Today was also Suzanna's big "Billy Goat's Gruff" play, so we had to be nearby to attend that. 
We even joined in the celebration with the blow horns!
Everyone seemed to have their eyes glued on the wedding of Prince William and Kate.  It was a beautiful wedding, I love how just how rich it was with religion.  God bless the Royal Family!

 The boys next door (Charlie and Oli) have been intreaged by our fire pit for some time now.  We told them when they returned off Holiday, we'd roast some smores.  They've never had any and it was too hard to explain, so we fired up the pit.
 It proved to be a success, now our little English friends next door can say they have enjoyed Smores!

 Many days to minimize trips car time we'll stay out all day.  This was the aftermath of doing early morning laundry, visiting the post office, play date with a friend at the park, picnic lunch, off to Suzanna's class for her Talent Show and the finally we were home, after being out since 8am, both Ella and William fell asleep in the van!  Makes you miss naps, right?

The local buzz that has been going around has been the excitement of the Royal Wedding Friday.  Each little village has their own party, some neighborhoods have block parties.  What will you be doing?  We're not sure what we will do with the royal family but Suzanna has a Nannie Goat's Play (she's really excited about it) and we might crash something else too!

Some of my favorite things, American Flags & cherry blossoms.  Spring is still in full bloom, I love England this time of year.  Spring has been lasting so long, I feel so spoiled especially after the last two places we've lived, they've seemed to only last a few weeks if we were lucky before summer hit full blast. 

William insisted on wearing Suzanna's shoes outside.  He loves crocs and these are his new favorite.  Let's say I persuaded him to change to his own pair.

 Our family has a bit of a fascination for steam engines, if you add William's love of Thomas the Tank then that equals to a great Saturday at Nene Station.

 The kids were given their own tickets that were stamped shortly after we sat down.
 We had our own box car, it felt like something out of a BBC Classic, North and South or Cranford.  To be honest, it would be nice if the trains now days had this type of set up, we could just slide the glass door and we'd be set (sound proof for the neighbors).  It was a great ride!


All night William talked about "Ride Thomas Tank" (with a huge smile on his face).  I think we made this little boy very, very happy!

We have been enjoying this gorgeous Spring weather!  I've been told over and over again by locals that this is unusually hot and not to get use to it, change is right around the corner.   Even if it turned tomorrow, we'll still enjoy today!  Today was a photo shoot, I did part one with the brothers.  Part two will be in a few weeks with the whole family.  Little Parker below goes to school with Suzanna.  It was a really sunny, day and I really enjoyed photographing the brothers!

Long ago when Ella was just crawling she had a little buddy that Suz would call "Two Ella's".  I laugh at that now, but I wanted to post a picture of  a little Brittish girl in Ella's Sunbeam class from church.  Our first visit to church as we were walking through the doors I heard a lady behind us calling "Ruby!  Ruby!"  I wasn't sure who she was referring to, until now.  This is Ruby, there's something about her that does remind me of Ella (especially when her hair is down).
Did I tell you she also goes to Ella's soon-to-be preschool class?  The English have 15 free hours to enroll your 3 year old children for school.  At age 4 they go to "Reception" which is a full-day preschool, soon after at age 5 they go to "Year One" which is our Kindergarten.  I wasn't sure I wanted Ella to go, but this Montessori school is down the road from Base, I can pick and choose my hours and days, I make up the schedule.  Also, it is a group learning with the 3-5 year olds so that means if I enroll William in January (when he turns 3), they will be in the same class (and I like that idea).  I can also have her stay there all of next year (again picking my own days and times) before she will attend the DOD schools in Fall 2012.  WOW, did I just say Ella will be in Kindergarten next year?  I'm not sure I'll be ready for that!

We couldn't believe just how many bikes littered the sides of the streets, all the creative ways of strapping the baskets to the front, and just how much faster you can ride on a bike than in the car!

This was our first time visiting the lovely city of Cambridge.  It's a 20-25 minute drive from our village.  It was a very sobering morning, walking the well kept grounds, hearing the bell tower dong to the tune of "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful".  The memorial was beautiful and the English Spring day couldn't have been more perfect.  I found some fellow Murray's on the wall.
This is the only permanent cemetery for American Soldiers that died during WWII in or around the British Isles.  It was also donated by the University of Cambridge and here are buried 3,812 heroes, not counting the 5,127 missing in action.
Casey's really good about taking the kids for me so I can just photograph to my hearts content.  As he and the kids were inside the memorial, I was outside snapping some shots of the grave stones.  What a beautiful memorial, we look forward to coming back on Memorial Day.



A friend of ours (Ella's old church teacher) in Florida told us her uncle was laid to rest in this cemetery so today we took some pictures, made a paper rubbing of his grave stone and laid some daffodils near his grave.