Saturday 26 May 2012

Old News

1. Well, by now Easter is old news. (Actually, it was old news by the time we got around to dyeing the hard-boiled eggs.) We went to Marie's house for my dad's birthday and Easter Sunday combined.



2. Badminton is also old news, we've moved on to Track & Field - but no pictures of the latest sport.  Carmen was able to go to divisionals in the doubles category. Jaclyn was home from college by then and she provided a mixture of coaching and cheering. Well, not cheering. We don't cheer at badminton tournaments.



3. Steven has one game left for spring football next week on Wednesday. (It's almost old news.) The truth is if it had been up to me Steven would play piano rather than football, but I love it now. I've come to appreciate football as I've watched Steven learn discipline and dedication, resilience and accountability, and then apply those lessons to other areas of his life.


4. We're taking the family vacation of a lifetime this summer! This is old news because we decided to do it back in December, but it is ever on my mind.


We are travelling together to London, Paris and Ireland. I started out with a travel agent, but I guess I just wasn't communicating what I wanted very well, so I gave up and booked it all myself. For the most part we are staying in small (20 room) hotels. Our typical style of family vacation has been the road trip - this will be our first time flying as a family. Really, we've just taken our road-trip-style vacation across the ocean. I'm calling it our Planes, Trains and Automobiles vacation.
We're flying with Air Transat to the Gatwick London Airport. London travel will include the tube, a hop-on-hop-off bus tour, and a bus trip out to the Harry Potter Studios north of London. We are travelling to Paris via Eurostar, going through the chunnel (which apparently doesn't get called that anymore). In Paris we are doing a guided bike tour, and possibly renting golf carts to tour Versailles. We then train back to England, rent a VW minivan (right hand drive standard transmission), drive to Wales, spend a day, get on a ferry (with a bunk room for us)(to get a feel for Grandpa Stapleton's emigration to Canada), and we will then road trip our way around southern Ireland. After a few days of that we'll ferry across a different route returning to England, visit a family history spot, see Oxford, and then fly home. I keep joking I need to find a way to travel by horse just to add yet another mode of transportation.


While we're in Paris we're having family pictures done. The blurry iphone photo above is Chloe's outfit. Everyone is set for clothes but me, and I'm hoping the sweater Kelly has sent me will tie in to the colour palette. (I'm sorry in advance for our Christmas card. I'm afraid the Eiffel Tower in the background is going to be pretentious, but I'm doing it anyways, what does that say?)


5. A few weeks ago Jaclyn taught Carmen how to apply eyeliner, which is OLD news in a different way.

7 comments:

Jill said...

Hey Barb, it's good to get an update from you!

Your upcoming trip sounds like it is going to be absolutely amazing...and how cool to have your family photos taken in Paris! I'm jealous but excited for you!!

Neighbor Jane Payne said...

Oh Barb! What a trip! I'm duly impressed that you booked it and outlined it all.

It's fun to hear an update.

Marie said...

Can Jaclyn give me an eyeliner tutorial? I've never really been into that. I like it on other people, but haven't made it part of my own routine.

I'm sure the trip will be fantastic!

Tiffany said...

Thanks for the updates! What an amazing trip--love all the different modes of transportation!

Kelly said...

You have to promise now that you will blog about the trip. It sounds amazing! I hope the sweater arrives soon. I felt a little helpless as I sent it off -- hurry, hurry! Tell Chloe that Emerson has that very same dress. Love it with the scarf!

LOCKHARTS said...

Your trip sounds amazing and I know you will have a great time. I don't have any tips for England or Ireland. But here are some things you need to know for France.

THE TRAIN TICKETS demagnetize if you put them next to your wallet, keys, cell phones ect. Keep them in a paper envelope or they will not work and you will be stuck in the tain station.
Otherwise the train is super easy to navigate.

VERSAILLES is our #1 place in the world to visit. It is amazing. It will take the whole day maybe two...and that's just the gardens. We loved the palace too, but the gardens are our favourite.

THE LOUVRE also takes a full day...and you will need to rent those info headset things...(Cory and I tried to share...it didn't work well)

I can't wait to hear about the trip! And let me know if you have any questions. I love talking about FRANCE!

michelle said...

What a fabulous family trip! I can't wait to hear all about it. We always use Paris photos for Christmas cards when we've been there that year. Why not? Who will be taking your photos?