Grandparents, Rome and picnics…oh my.

Settle in…this is a long one.

So my parents came to visit last month... for about a month! There's nothing like having visitors to get you out of the library and exploring one's surroundings. Also, there's nothing like Grandparents for dumping your kid on them so you can go do something else for a bit. It was great to have them here and Nora absolutely adored it. After all, Grandpa did buy her ice cream every time she looked at him with those big blue eyes and said, "Grampa, please you want to buy me some ice cream?" (If only you could hear her say it you'd buy her ice cream too!)

First, shortly after my folks' arrival, Deanna and I (NB: without Nora) took off for a day trip to Rome with a group of people from my program (led by my supervisor). That's right, a day trip to Rome. Our flight left at around 6 am and we touched back down in London at 11:30 pm. Then there was a drive home. It was a long but fantastic day.

Deanna's first pizza in Rome. Later we enjoyed gelato too!

The Colosseum

Temple of Jupiter

Fontana di Trevi

Grave Stone: Paulo Apostolo Mart… (Paul, Apostle, Martyr)

The next trip was a day in London, this time with the grandparents and Nora, where we traipsed around the major sights (Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Changing of the Guard, Big Ben, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square etc.) and finished with a lovely dinner with some old friends of my parents.

At the Changing of the Guard

Family picture in St. James Park

Ahhh…the grandparents.

We told my dad to pretend he like being in pictures.

Beautiful day, no?

At Trafalgar Square

Fear not. Nora is NOT being eaten by the lion. She liked shouting into it's mouth and hearing the echo.

A tired little girl looking at her balloon.

The end of a long day.

Then we rented a car for the weekend and on Saturday, Sunday and Monday we visited Blenheim Palace (Churchill's birthplace), Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare's village), and Cambridge (home of…you know, Cambridge).

Blenheim Palace on a beautiful day.

One of our many picnics…of course this is at Blenheim and not our backyard.

Sharing carrots with Grandpa.

Stratford-upon-Avon

If she were in Oregon she'd be hugging trees…

Shakespeare's grave.

Playing dress-up at Shakespeare's church.

Shakespeare's birthplace.

Nora and yet more ice cream.

All of these trips were packed around many trips to the (many) parks, the outdoor market, the library, the Botanic Garden, museums, Oxford sightseeing, a C.S. Lewis day (including a trip to his house, pond, church, grave, college and pub), punting, pizza at our favourite (!) pizza place, and lots of walks, backyard picnics and trips to feed the ducks. We watched a hot-air balloon launch too! The weather was incredible the whole time with most days clear and in the 60's and 70's. (As a result we put my parents to work in the garden.) Clearly, they now have a very skewed idea of the weather here in Oxford.

Who doesn't like a see-saw? Crazy people, that's who.

Grandpa keeping Nora safe... really.

She put her boots on by herself…can you tell?

Punting on the Cherwell.

The view from our punt.

At the pond by Shotover Hill where C. S. Lewis used to swim.

On the steps at Magdalen College.

All in all, it was wonderful and now that they're gone and we have settled back into life-as-usual, we have space for more visitors so come on over!!

The Royal Wedding: A Recap

Today Ben humored me.  He sat with me (and wrangled Nora as her interest waned) as I unabashedly drank in every detail of the royal wedding.  What a guy!

Honestly, I wasn't sure I'd even watch it - this was not a massively pre-planned event in our house.  First off, while I find it all amusing, I'm not a huge royal family buff.  And we don't have a TV and we listen to the radio for about 6.5 seconds every morning (this is how long it takes us to hear the alarm and then turn it off) so besides the Kate and William china plates and tea towels that have been appearing in shop windows for the past 6 months or so, I really didn't experience any of the build-up.  But, I figured, it's not everyday that you see a royal wedding... and so we watched.

And I must say, I was thoroughly swept up by it all!  For those who didn't watch I can tell you it was certainly a royal affair complete with hundreds of guards carrying automatic weapons, 5,000+ police, red carpet, horse-drawn carriages, adoring masses lining the streets, an arch-bishop presiding, an orchestra, an angelic boys choir, and trumpeters.                  

(Ah yes, it's all clear now.  That's what was missing from my wedding... the trumpeters.)

  

And the star of this wedding - as is most often the case - was definitely the bride.  Wow.  Kate who is now Duchess of Cambridge, Countess of Strathearn (Scotland) and Baroness Carrickfergus (Northern Irish) was absolutely stunning.  But not in a "Hey look at me!  Oh wait you can't help it because I look ridiculous" sort of way.  There was an understated, effortlessness about her and the woman showed amazing poise with half the world watching.  Her dress, and in fact her whole look, was traditional - yet modern and stylish. 
Classy, elegant, and timeless without tip-toeing toward old fashioned. Very fairy-tale princess.
And the perfect dress for the occasion - if you ask me.





And then there were the hats.

Oh my, the hats.

It seems that the tradition of wearing hats to weddings is a hold-over from when women always wore hats (to cover their heads) in church.  Since a wedding was a very special occasion one would, of course, wear their very best hat - assuming they owned more than one.  I've also heard from a British friend that traditionally it is married women who wear hats while unmarried women may wear some other sort of headband or fancy, often feathered hairclip (appropriately) called a fascinator.  Nowadays there aren't such strict rules about it.  The hats are a fashion statement for all.  A chance to be eccentric, to dress up, to put on your best and to splurge a bit.  And boy did these guests ever do that!

Wow.

But not in a good way.

Obviously some made more 'positive' (read: 'palatable') statements than others.

Any favorites??