Happy birthday, Grana! Many happy returms of the day!

It is sometimes hard to believe how grown up she has become.  Nine years have gone quickly, and it is a pleasure to watch her grow and change.

She had a couple of friends over for a birthday dinner and some games.

I think they had a nice time.

A few days after her birthday, we went with a some other friends to Alton Towers, our local theme park.

River went on all the scariest rides, including “Air”

and “Oblivion”.  She had a brilliant time!

The kids painted pots and planted “kinderplants” for the local nursery.

An unusual amount of music was played during the party.  An impromptu orchestra formed, rehearsing a spontaneous composition.

There was also some game playing.

And until the rain sent everyone back inside, some outside adventures.

I also got nice cards from the Perry’s and lots of good wishes from friends at facebook.  Thanks, everyone!

We spent the day in London.  We took the underground into Picadilly Circus and hopped on one of the tourist buses.  We’ve been to London a handful of times now, but we’ve stayed underground and popped up at our destination like some burrowing mammal.  It was fun to see how different parts of the city connect to each other and the commentary was quite interesting.

We just happened to sit at table number 7 for lunch.  Que fortunidad!

One might notice that she is wearing the hat knit for her by her wonderful auntie Karen.  She loves it!  Thanks, Karen!

We got off the bus at the Tower of London.

Sage has been interested in Victorian times and the eponymous queen.  She particularly wanted to see her crown:

Queen Victoria's Small Diamond Crown

We went on the tour with the Yeoman Warder (aka beefeater) which was very interesting and entertaining.  We enjoyed his stories of prisoners, executions, and ravens.  The crown jewels were pretty amazing.  It must be pretty crowded there sometimes since they have a conveyor belt to funnel people past the display cases.  We went around about eight times!

From there, we got on one of the river boats and headed back to Westminister.  We got a good commentary on the buildings along the banks of the Thames.  One of the buildings, our guide joked, was designed by an unemployed window cleaner!

Back ashore in Westminster, we checked out Parliament and Big Ben.

We waited across from the London Eye before catching the bus around the West End and then back on the tube to head back home.

It was a long day, but I think Sage enjoyed her birthday!

We arrived just in time for a New Year’s party at our house in Holyoke.  The party was so much fun!  Thanks to everyone who made it out despite the snow storm.

We had 14 kids spend the night!  And they all got to sleep by about 22:30.  It helped that we started celebrating the New Year with Greenwich Mean Time and every hour thereafter.

Some people came all the way from Hawaii!

I really feel blessed to have so many good friends.

It was a great night!  We really enjoyed our time with everyone, and although we didn’t get nearly enough sleep or enough time with anyone, it was so great to be there.

There were sixteen people here for Christmas this year, but Gail and Dave’s house accommodated us graciously.

This year, we decided to do portraits.  The kids all wore their matching red Christmas outfits.

I thought the formal portraits came out pretty well.

Dana, Dave, and Gail

Molly, Sage, Andrew, and River

Alice, Andrew, Frances, and Sebastion

Evie, Deana, Cass, and Henry

Some old high school friends of Molly and Frances got together for a post-Christmas brunch.

But my favorite portraits were the more casual type:

Fireworks are exploding in neighborhoods all over England today.

Most folk are either celebrating burning Catholics in effigy or that someone had a pretty good go at blowing up parliament, depending on their perspective.

But there is plenty to celebrate for those of us who are perhaps a mite less cynical than we were yesterday.

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Yes, we can!

The aerial view of Derby was beautiful, too.

Apparently, about 30,000 people gathered at Stonehenge last night to celebrate this astronomical event.  There are some interesting pictures from the BBC and on flickr if you want to get a sense of what it must have been like there.  I think it was pretty different from our experience there last September.

I managed to go back to sleep for an hour or so before we rolled out of bed for Speech Day at the kids’ school.   I enjoyed watching them sing and recite poetry with their classmates.  River has been singing those songs for weeks now, so it was nice to see it all come together with costumes and piano accompaniment.  They all did a great job!  I tried to take a few pictures with my mobile phone, but none were worth sharing.

Image courtesy of tarotastic via flickr.