Spring Concert and Port Aventura

I'm getting really bad at getting these updates online. I'm blaming it on the weather. We've had glorious sunny days. Last friday the kids had a Spring concert. More specifically Jessica's class performed with a few others. Andrea and some of the kids in the Drama club performed a song from Godspell. I didn't get pics of that. I got video but I'm still having issues uploading those.

here is Jess and some of her class. They sang Do Re Mi. Her friend Karina had a solo as Maria.

That night the school held their International Food Festival. There were a lot countries represented with some very interesting and great food. I worked at the American table. Alexa and I had made little apple pie tarts. My favorite was the Russian table, where they had halupki. Yummy! We left early though because we had plans on Saturday with our friends, the Lasso's.

We woke up bright and early on Saturday to drive to Port Aventura. It's a Universal Theme park about an hour outside of Barcelona. It was an overcast day and a little chilly but we made the most of it. The kids had a great time on the rides...

Here we all are waiting for the Runaway train ride.

The teacup rideand Alexa and Joe on the serpent...

The kids are finishing up the school year. It's hard to believe it's almost over. News of friends who won't be returning is slowly coming in. Alexa has found out her four closest friends won't be here after the summer. She is having a rough time of it. Never the less, all four were talking about staying longer than two years on the way home from Port Aventura. Andrea is considering graduating from here. Alexa was in agreement until this week when she heard the news about her friends. Now she wants to go back to the US this year. I'm hoping they are content with a few weeks. We are planning on being in Massachusetts from August 10th through 29th.

So that's the news for now.

love and miss you all!!
~Bren

Mom

Grandma and Omi!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!
We love you and miss you and will try to call you later!!
((hugs)) and lots of kisses
Andrea, Alexa, Joseph and Jessica

(Nick and Brenda too!)

London!!!!!!!!

Hi Everyone,
Sorry this took so long to get up. But, better late than never. Last weekend we had a Labor Day holiday with a three day weekend. We decided to add a day and take a 4 day trip to London. I was prepared for rainy weather since England has a reputation for being wet and it's Spring. The forecast for Thursday was for rain, but when we landed it was already clearing, and that was the last of even a threat of bad weather we had for the entire 4 days. We started our trip by taking a walk around the hotel. We stayed at the Holiday inn Mayfair right around the corner from Green Park and Hyde Park.

So we took a stroll through Green Park, which has only had flowers in it in the past few years. Apparently one of the royals told her mate to give a flower to the prettiest woman in the park and the fool gave it to another woman...no more flowers in the park.lol Just past Green Park is Buckingham Palace. By the time we had arrived the gates were closed but we got our first look at the gaurds. Jess was enthralled.

Across from the palace is the Queen Victoria Memorial.

Alexa was guiding us to the nearest shopping center. We walked down to Victoria Station and took in a few stores. It was refreshing to be able to read everything in the store.

Joe, Andrea and Nick decided to try to get to a movie across the city so we took the Underground to the theater. They saw Wolverine. Alexa, Jess and I went back to the the hotel and watched High School Musical III on the tv.

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast at the hotel. Then we began a bus tour of the city.

Regent's Street, a street with a lot of shopping.

Picadilly Circus.

Trafalgar Square

Big Ben

The London Eye

Big Ben and Parliment

Views of the London Eye

Top of the Eye

Walking along the River Thames

The kids with Captain Jack Sparrow

The financial Center

The Tower Bridge

On the Tower Bridge

The Tower of London

We keep seeing these lines on the street. I think they mean you can't park on the side of the road. Nick thinks you get to drive zigzag. We didn't give him a set of keys to try it out.

The Archbishops house

The Westminster Abbey

Jess sporting her new hat...

We headed back to the hotel for a rest before going out later that evening. We had tickets to see the Lion King.

The show was amazing! The show opens with animals coming down the aisles and birds flying in the air. The way they manage all the puppets is so lifelike...and artistic. The show pretty much is the same as the movie...with a few additional songs and jokes. I really enjoyed the second half of the show. The adult Simba and Nala had amazing voices. The kids are still talking about it and singing the songs.

We were blessed with another beautiful day on Saturday. We had a day at Hyde Park planned. London has really beautiful parks. The sunny day had people out rollerblading, cycling and running. Below is a few pictures from the Rose Garden.

In the middle of the park is a manmade lake, the Serpentine. We took out a couple of paddle boats and took a few spins around the lake.

This little island in the middle of the Serpentine was the inspiration for the Island of lost boys in Peter Pan. We had fun imagining Peter Pan, Tink and Wendy running through the woods. The kids were disappointed that they couldn't get onto the island and explore themselves. It's protected.

We went off in search of the horse stables when we finished. Occassionally horseback riders would pass us in the park and we all thought it would be a fun thing to add to our vacation. We had to wander a little off the park and it was a bit hard to find. We managed to find a residence of Winston Churchill on our trek.

When we finally found the stables we found that we needed reservations. We took down all the info for the next time we're in London. We went back to where we spied a few restaurants and ended up in a chinese food restaurant. Once we were recharged we grabbed a taxi and went to the British Museum.

We had fun exploring the museum...and we saw the Rosetta Stone.

They have a replica in another room that you can touch. I really enjoyed seeing this. From the stone we went into the Egyptian section where we saw some more fabulous antiquities. It really emphasizes how vast the English empire really was at times in history.

Alexa and Nick trying to decifer some hieroglyphics.

Joe enjoyed the Mesopotamiam exhibits.

We also saw the marble from the Parthenon and Cleopatra's mummy. All in all some really cool things.

We took a walk around the city on Saturday night. We found this park bench with Winston Churchill and Roosevelt. The kids had a bit of a chat with them before moving on.

We woke up on Sunday morning and went to find some shopping. We went to Hamblin's Toy store. We had fun playing with some of the toys and trying out the candy section.

After we found a few treasures we headed to the airport and back to Barcelona. It was a great weekend in a fabulous city. We're already planning where we'll go the next time we're in London. It was fun exploring a new city...and even better to come back home to Barcelona.

For a complete photo album look here.

http://s155.photobucket.com/albums/s291/jerzeygirl68/London%20April%20May%202009/?albumview=slideshow

Love you

Bren '