Happy Thanksgiving from Ely Cathedral

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. We spent our Thanksgiving eve at the world famous Ely Cathedral where Alicia and a friend participated in the service choir. Very cool.

Check out this cake-

Alicia has been making cakes for a while now. She's really good, but doesn't seem to want to pursue it for some reason. This is her latest creation, it's a birthday cake for our friends daughter's first birthday:

It's pumpkin time

I can't find the photos of our carved pumpkins. We joined some friends for a chance to pick out some pumpkins though. It was cold, because it was England.

Alicia turns 29... for the rest of her life

For Alicia's birthday, we drove up to Windsor castle and got stuck in traffic because of a police chase. The castle is still in use by the Queen today. It's huge. The castle grounds are broke up into a few parts, the first being the tower which overlooks everything for miles.

Next is a row of housing and the famous St Georges Chapel. The Chapel tour has some interesting history to it, but unfortunately there's no photography inside. Below is the chapel on the left.

Then there's the Quadrangle courtyard. Yeah, it's a square with a fancy name.

Part of the castle tour takes you inside to look through the rooms which are still decorated and some are used today. There's some cool stuff in there. My favorite was the foyer surrounded by various suites of armor, swords and guns. My least favorite was the china room dedicated to the royal plates, bowls and cups. There is also a replica dollhouse of the castle that was a birthday gift to the queen. It features working items, including plumbing, and items that were state of the art when created such as vacuums. It's not your ordinary dollhouse.

We concluded our trip with a birthday dinner at a Greek restaurant. Neither one of us had ever eaten Greek food. It's delicious.

Yes, we did attend the Robin Hood festival

August celebrates the annual Robin Hood festival up in Nottingham. Sherwood Forrest isn't as big or exciting as you may think, and most of the giant trees are gone. But that doesn't stop the brits from putting on a fun filled day of falconry, archery and of course a fight between Robin Hood himself and the Sheriff.

Remember me? A visit from family - Debbie and Savannah

In July we got our first, and who knows - maybe our last, visit from family. Alicia's sister Debbie and niece Savannah trekked across the pond to say hey. We took a road trip to Edelweiss which is a resort in the Bavarian alps.

First stop - Reims, France. Ok, so I won't say that I like France as a whole, but I did like Paris and I do like Reims. This first shot is a cathedral in Reims. It's pretty fantastic display of what can be built when inspired by God. That's what the sign said anyway. But really, if it doesn't impress you, then you must be blind.

Reims is the champagne capital of the world. I've never really drank champagne. Only after our trip to Italy did Alicia and I start to enjoy wine like we do. So, Alicia booked us for a champagne tour. The french used to dig out these enormous caverns into the ground to store the champagne and are still used today. I won't be drinking champagne every day, but I won't be turning down any free glasses either.



After Reims, we stopped in Germany to see the hospital where Debbie was born. We ate some authentic German food, that's right Schnitzel! Amazing! And then off to the resort. The Bavarian alps are simply incredible, much like that of Switzerland and Austria. The river that ran along the main highway was an emerald green color and was crystal clear. As soon as we got home from the trip, I looked up what it would cost to buy a vacation home there. It's doable. Not now, but maybe a bit later in life.



We also visited a lake.

This is Neuschwanstein, its the castle that Disney knocked off in their movies. Look familiar?

We popped into Austria for an afternoon to eat some lunch. English is taught as a secondary language up through the sixth grade. Guess where I'm moving in the event of necessity?

This kind fella dressed in traditional Austrian garb was getting ready to play a concert and let us take a photo op.

One of the best parts of our trip was to Partnach Gorge. It's a natural gorge with a river running through it, lined with walkways and sporadic waterfalls surrounded by the alps.

On the way home, we took a cruise down the Rhine river. The Rhine has great scenery. There are castles and cascading vinyards everywhere.

Part of the cruise included a stop off for lunch and German wine tasting. Our host for the wine tasting was large jovial man, and he taught us the finer points of wine tasting. The most important point being to drink plenty of it.

We also got some time to tourist ourselves around one of Germany's most famous shopping towns. The people here were not very nice, so they didn't get any of our money. There was also a lift we took to see over the whole area.

Following our cruise down the Rhine was our last layover of the trip, in Bruges. There's a lot of great architecture in Bruges and the city is filled with watered canals that offer tours of the city. Pretty cool. Stopping off here gave us the opportunity to meet up with our nephew Aarons' mother-in-law and eat some overpriced food.

Happy 30-th to me!!!

For my 30th birthday Alicia and I went to Ireland with our friends, the Richardsons, J and Natalie. We flew into Dublin, rented a car and stayed in an apartment. We got there late and got lost cause somebody didn't remember to grab the directions. But after driving around the same block about 20 times we found our spot.

We hit up the Guinness brewery for a tour, tasting and lunch. I got to taste the extra stout. It's amazing and cannot be purchased in the US.

Alicia booked us for a special dinner at the Jameson Whiskey distillery for a fun night of food, booze, music, dancing and singing. Actually, the dancing was left to some wonderfully quick footed Irish ladies and a guy who performed some traditional dances, and a couple of schmucks who couldn't get out of it, I was one of them. Happy birthday to me.


We also got outside of Dublin for a bit and visited the tallest waterfall they've got to offer. If you've been to waterfalls in the states, this isn't going to impress you much. But it was nice to see.