A Taste of Summer in February

I think these pictures tell the story of our picnic at Fort Fisher quite adequately. We drove through The Tides on our way home.

Christmas in England

Since it is already February, it is high time I update the Massey Blog. This year we flew to England. We were excited to reconnect with lots of family, and to meet Roxanne, born to Ed and Carrie, and it did not take long for Meg to hold Gemma, born to Rupert and Keryl just days before we arrived.


Emma and Harrison had slightly different approaches as we waited for our flight from Wilmington to Philadelphia.

We recovered quite quickly from jetlag and spend the good part of a day visiting Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends. The location was very industrial and gritty, Didcot Train Station is dominated by an enormous coal-fired power plant. However, the trains were all authentic steam engines with antique carriages. The doors were old polished wood with worn leather handles. The Fat Controller made sure we safely boarded Thomas, who shunted us a short distance in a cloud of steam. We hopped out and met a Santa so creepy that Emma instantly decided he was an imposter - but accepted his present anyway.




We braved frigid weather to visit Oxford a few times, replenishing our wedding Denby plates, exploring the Covered Market, and visiting Christ Church Cathedral and University. Emma and I had recently finished reading the first Harry Potter book, after which we watched the movie. Emma was excited to see Christ Church dining hall(aka Hogwarts). This next photo, taken in the Covered Market gives a new meaning to organic meat! They even had a wild boar hung up, but I decided to spare you guys that gory image.



Mostly this vacation was about spending time with the family.


Milo, Emma, Isaac



Emma enjoys holding babies just as much as her mother.



Erin had really grown up and photos of Emma at her age look startlingly similar. She managed to continue sucking her thumb while holding Gemma.



Freda and Dan rent a fantastic old place with tons of character. It is in Woodstock and has three floors, each level about the size of an average bathroom! Dan proved an excellent pilot of a remote control helicopter that miraculously survived repeated hard landings and the trip back to the States. We decided to eat a late lunch out with Freda and Dan and ended up driving a good deal further than we intended ... in England it is hard to find lunch served past 1:30pm. Eventually we were served at the Red Lion - a rather pretty looking pub close to Banbury.



We were spoilt rotten with LOTS of cakes and tea. I decided that everytime we were offered tea, I felt about ready for a beer!



Since last Summer Jason and Lydia have embarked on a long distance relationship. Jason visited England for Thanksgiving and was back again for Christmas. Lydia comes to Wilmington this week ... we love seeing more of her, and hope the relationship continues strong.





Max and Lola are very sweet with baby Roxanne, and Carrie appears remarkably relaxed considering she has three under the age of 5. Not sure where Ed was in this picture!



Ah, ha, here he is. We went, en masse, to Minster Lovell which is a village with extremely expensive old cottages with thatched roofs and manicured gardens. The children fed ducks on a fast-flowing stream and then they discovered a nativity scene in an old church. Beside the church are the ruins of an ancient monastery.






It looks like it is really dark, but the camera really accentuated this by throwing out a flash. The dove cott is an interesting building ... dedicated entirely to housing doves, I am not really sure if the eggs were harvested or whether the monks liked to be surrounded by doves??? The one door into this structure looks like it is made for hobbits.





I don't seem to have any photos of Russ, but we saw lots of him with Pip and the lads. Milo and Isaac are growing up fast and have plenty of energy ... Harrison wanted to do everything they were doing.





It is funny how one remembers things as children. One of the tables here used to be our grandparents - I always thought it was a huge table and now it seems so much smaller. We managed to cram a LOT of family together for festive Christmas meals.

So, you didn't think you would really escape without the wild boar image, did you! It looks more impressive if you enlarge it, and it makes more sense if you realize that the head is cut off.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year! The celebrations have been delightfully merged this year as we enjoyed a very special Thanksgiving in Virginia this year that included a wonderful feast as always, and also a visit to a Christmas Tree farm that happened to be located providentially close to a winery. After decorating a beautiful tree we opened presents early, since we are in England this year for Christmas.



Mary Alice skipped right past these Charlie Brown trees and explored this gorgeous mountain side very thoroughly and after finding the perfect tree, she single-handedly dragged it back to base camp with astonishing ease.



Meanwhile Nate and Emma engaged in an intense competition to see who could roll the furthest down the mountain without their parents intervening.

While in Virginia, we also enjoyed a walk along Burke Lake ... here are a few photos that I liked.







One day before flying to England, I dropped Emma off to school and then prepared to do the same with Harrison. I soon realized that a few of his classmates were potentially contagious with a variety of nasty sicknesses and since I had the day off, I quickly decided that we would have a day playing together. We started off by building a train track in his bedroom, and then we headed out to look at the new Baish landholding in Tidal Walk (we are very excited about this new development).

Here is a view of Tidal Walks' access to the Intracoastal waterway


Here is the Baish lot, with the water just visible in the background



Here is a better view of the water, which Harrison managed to sit down in when his boots got stuck in the sand.

Halloween Weekend

Well although I love Halloween as much as Sarah, I was not as involved this year since I was in Ashboro at a conference until about 7:30pm Halloween night. Our porch, however, has had a definite Halloween theme for about a month and "cricket" adds to the ambiance so well.



Meg was fantastic - she sorted out Emma's masquerade ball dress and Harrison's pteradactyl costumes, took Harrison to a pumpkin patch with his school, and when I caught up with them trick or treating on Friday with some of our friends, she had a stroller equipped with chilled beer! I don't seem to have good photos of Harrison in character - he looks a little like a pear below, but it really was quite a cute outfit. I was proud to note that he manfully drew the line at wearing the hood for more than about 30 seconds.


So Harrison is actually riding at the back of this little trolley and there is another boy in his class who may have curlier and crazier hair than his! Meg informs me that in the past few days that I have been gone, the parents finally caved and cut his hair - we may have to consider that option at some point, but Meg has to psychologically prepare herself and there is a good chance it will be the end of the curls.

On Saturday I took the children to a birthday party at the local gym.



Harrison's hands were clammy with sweat after his ride on the "air pogo stick". The ground was padded underneath but he didn't know that ...



... and then we mucked about beside the intracoastal waterway at low tide in the late afternoon for a few minutes before picking up Levi and Liza for a sleepover.





Yeah, so Harrison is wearing brand new $50 stride-rights here



It was the first time Levi had had a sleepover so his parents were rather excited. It was nice for Harrison to have some company and everyone enjoyed playing in the garden and roasting marshmallows over a fire. I retired upstairs to play a videogame as soon as the children were settled into a movie ...

time flew by I guess because when I came down everyone was asleep, including Meg, with Levi happily sleeping next to her. I did not dare move him!

Today was windy but beautifully sunny so we all kayaked over to Zeke's Island, off the end of Fort Fisher. A hermit lived there for years until he died, but we could not find any evidence of a hut or anything. I think a movie was made about him ... I must check it out.

Meg heads off to San Francisco early in the morning for most of this week ... she will be greatly missed by us all.