Following The Steps Of Merril Streep, Daniel Radcliffe And Angelina Jolie...Wearing Wellies.

It was the last day of 2015. The Watsons decided to leave their cozy home and go explore in the woods an hour away in this freezing weather. WHY? Because they had been spending too many days inside eating, celebrating and playing board games and foosball. Everyone needed to get out!

To make a day trip successful they recommend the following:

Plan at least a day ahead--set the time to wake up and location to visit 

Plan your meals--will you pack lunch or eat out?

Describe the day trip to a "boring" castle, estate house, field, mountain, whatever, in the best light possible to the kids. 

Do not bring electronics if the drive is less than two hours--books, coloring, music, SNACKS are great. Well, that works for the Watson kids...but they are older and are very experienced travelers...and their parents are mean. 

Okay, we are ready.

I was looking for a place visit that was part of the National Trust since we have the membership. And I found this place, Ashridge Estate, only about an hour and 15 minutes away drive from us. Nowadays, this estate is a huge property, with miles and miles of trails and a few ancient monuments. National Trust website gives us a few quick historical facts about it:

--Ashridge began life as a monastery founded by Edmund of Cornwall, nephew of Henry III, in 1283 to house a holy relic. The monks were known as Bonhommes or blue friars because of the colour of their robes. During the 13th century a deer park was established with the ancestors of the Fallow deer that still roam the estate today.

--Ashridge House was popular with Royalty from 1290 when Edward I held a parliament in the monastery. After the dissolution of the monasteries Ashridge became the property of Henry VIII and his children.

--Thomas Egerton, chancellor to Elizabeth I, bought the estate in 1604. He added domestic wings to the ancient monastic buildings.

--The Ashridge Estate has been adapted by its many owners over its history. Around 1760 Capability Brown, a famous landscape architect, worked on Ashridge's parkland creating the Golden Valley. His work was continued 50 years later during another phase of redevelopment by one of his students, Humphrey Repton.

--The Ashridge Estate passed sideways though inheritance to the Brownlow family in the 19th century. Under the third Earl Brownlow the estate developed and many famous people stayed at Ashridge House.

--During both World Wars the house was used to train and billet troops. In the Second World War it became a convalescent home for St Albans Hospital.

The funny thing is that we didn't really see the house or anything. We came here for the WOODS. This property is a very famous filming location. Some of the recent movies that were filmed here are "Maleficent", "Into The Woods", "Harry Potter And The Deathly Hollows" and "Les Mis".

We had our wellies and our winter gear, so we were plenty warm. And for the next three hours or so we plowed through mud, not caring how messy we'd get. That's what we call "FUN"!

The boys while still nice and clean with their almost sparkling clean wellies.

Katya is feeling the bitter cold wind. It got a lot warmer once we entered the thicker woods.

Could we stay here for a while?

Finding a walking stick was part of the fun.

Awesome forest, even in the wintertime?

The forest is awesome, the trees are awesome, the mud is awesome. Everything is awesome!

These two were trying to find the deepest mud possible. 

Katya was not too far behind. 

Mark got stuck once. And then he fell down or something and mud got into his eye. That was not funny;).

Yay! She let me give her a hug! Little hedgehog Katya who really values her personal space:)). Gotta take what I can get and squish her.

Robert was indeed on this outing, but somehow managed to stay behind the camera the whole time. 

One great thing--when we were driving home, all kids agreed that this day trip turned out way better than they thought it would be. Score!

Lyana.

Mark Is Seven!

Mark had really-really high hopes for Santa. He was counting on him to bring this foosball table for Christmas so that Mark had his birthday get together with a couple of boys to play foosball inside and football outside (since it's England and people play football in whatever freezing weather it happens to be).

So right the week before school got out for Christmas break, we gave out three invites to his birthday get together. We couldn't call it a party since it wasn't really anything fancy, but it still was special to Mark. He invited three friends: Seth, TJ and Alex. Only Seth and TJ could come because, understandably, everyone is quite busy during the holiday season. 

The boys had a lot of fun playing foosball, and Mark was happy to be winning a lot of the time;). 

After running around playing outside for a bit, the boys came inside for some easy lunch. We had pizzas and grapes and cucumbers. 

Robert made simple cupcakes, just as Mark requested. BUT they were not a hit with the British boys at all. They took one bite and said they didn't like them:). Interesting, isn't it? Oh well, more leftovers for us. 

Back to this cute kid! 

Turning seven is so exciting! 

And so funny! 

A few of his favorites are:

• Favorite color-yellow.
• Favorite movie-Fifth Harry Potter.
• Favorite subject at school-science.
• Favorite Song-Gold by Imagine Dragons.
• Favorite ice cream flavor-lemon.
• Favorite dinner food-Japanese curry.
• Best friend-Seth.
• Favorite book-Ready Freddy.
• Favorite place he’s travelled to-Spain.
• Favorite animal-snake.
• What he wants to be when he grows up-Pianist.
• Favorite chore-washing the walls.

And our annual picture with mama.

Mark got an funny Kevin night light. 

And a calculator so he stops using the one on my phone for his imaginary math problems. 

He's been really into coloring books that are not character coloring books. He picked these ones out on amazon--the pattern kind.

What could it be? A Ball! A special ball for his favorite outside game--Four Square.

Happy Birthday, our sweet and funny boy:). You are definitely growing up, but you are still Markovka to us:)

Updates

Just a quick summary of our November/December stuff:) 

We stayed home for Thanksgiving Day this year. First time in four years:). It was fun and relaxing and simple. The boys went to school both Thursday and Friday and Katya just hung out with us. We had dinner at the Sawtry Village Hall with about 40 other friends. It was fun:). Then on Friday we went to Cambridge in the evening to go ice skating. Here is our crew on skates...on a melting ice in the middle of Cambridge:). Robert is NOT the penguin. He is taking the picture.

By the end of the night it was raining! We wanted to show the kids the haunted cafe in central Cambridge and get some hot chocolate, but the place closed at 16:30. What a shame...We had to get hot chocolate from Starbucks instead. 

The kids have been playing board games a lot. This is Alex and Mark playing Risk with their own rules, early in the morning so that they don't wake us up. 

Speaking of sleep, it has been amazing to sleep in on everyone's days off. Even if Alex still wakes up at 6:30-6:45 and Mark wakes up around 7:30, they manage to be super quiet getting breakfast and reading or playing till we wake up. Several times, Robert and I slept till 9 am this Christmas break!!! Sounds lazy..but we all know it's just a couple of days a year. I didn't even mention Katya just now. She simply doesn't wake up unless I wake her up:)) And then she stays up late, till midnight sometime. She just reads, writes, organizes her room, who knows? She is such a night owl...

One more thing about Katya--she got her braces off! Again. Last November she got them off right before the movie started filming and then she had to get them on again. Finally, she got her teeth all straight. I just need to find a good picture of her soon. 

She also recently auditioned and got the part of Alice in Alice in Wonderland play that the school will put on this March. She has a lot of lines to memorize, but she will be perfect! We are all very excited for her.

Alex took his Grade 3 exam in piano and passed it with distinguish remarks. The funny part is that he got the same score exactly as Katya did when she took that exam. Not to downplay this achievement, but seriously, if only Alex took piano more seriously and practiced longer each day, he'd be on Grade 4 or 5 by now. But at least he still likes the piano.

And that's pretty much it for now. Gotta run to pick up the kids from school.

Lyana.

Christmas Morning 2015

Santa was very-very busy the night before Christmas. I mean...getting this gigantic foosball table inside our house was not an easy fit. Still not sure how he managed to do that, he must be very clever. But this is what the kids woke up to--an awesome fancy foosball table (with telescopic handles, of course). As if we need more STUFF in our playroom:))) 

For the first time in six months, Mark was mesmerized with the foosball table and didn't have the magnetic pull to go straight to the piano and play it. That is why a week after Christmas we moved the foosball table upstairs to the boys' room.

I'll cut straight to the chase. We had an awesome Christmas morning:). The kids woke us up around 7 am and we got ready since sister missionaries were coming over at 7:30 to eat our junky sugary cereal breakfast with us and just spend some fun family time on this Christmas Day. And then we opened our presents:)

Katya's favorite gift was Robert's old phone that has no texting or calling capabilities--just music, scriptures and a camera...well, and a couple of games. She was begging us to give it to her for the past year. Since we feel like there is absolutely no need for a personal real phone at this point of her life, this is what she got. The note she is holding is a note from Santa telling her to discuss the terms of use of the phone with her parents.

Mark got a bunch of Ready Freddy books as he wished for them.

Alex really wanted this game, Guillotine--and he got it.

More dreams came true--colored sharpies:)

Not exactly what Robert asked for on his Christmas list but it was still fun:). 

It's funny that Alex had cream soda on his wish list. 

More tennis balls...from Katya and from Alex.

I got a nice mini food processor/chopper. It's been great! Zyliss is the brand and it's the kind that you pull on the string to get it to work.

By the way, this year, Robert and I bought ourselves a new laptop in November and we counted it as a Christmas gift to each other. With all our traveling, it's hard not to consider those as a continuous Christmas gift to our family:).

Back to Mark, who got Blokus! We love that game now. Alex is very good at it.

Of course, more nature disaster books, although I am running out of options here, so we might have to change the subject:)

More clothes for Katya. She also got a nice white fluffy bathrobe.

It is quite amazing to me still, but Mark actually asked for new Piano Music for Christmas. Crazy, right? He got it of course!

Alex was ecstatic about getting his coveted army guys set. He is very much into World War II and its reenactments . 

Oh, what could this be?

It's a tennis racket!!! Mark grew out of his first tennis racket. 

Katya also got what she wished for--a blue wallet with an owl on it.

A few new shirts for Alex. He actually seemed to be excited about his new gray fleece pullover. 

And then there was this...the elf pajamas...but Mark has been wearing them all over the place lately. And as you can see, he also got a new football. He is very excited to use it outside with the neighbors.

Alex's final present was a nice fancy scooter. It's a special scooter with bigger than usual wheels for a smoother ride. Now he can use it to get to school as well as his bike. Somehow Robert forgot to take pictures when Alex pulled out the scooter. 

I am sure I missed a few presents like more books for Katya, playing cards for Mark or headphones for Alex, but I think that was pretty much it.

I also gave Robert a couple more presents, one of which was a book about managing a dental practice. Robert gave me a packet of 5 pre-planned dates! That is so exciting as I get tired to always plan our dates:). So this is good. Very good. Now that we have a live-in babysitter, going on quick dates is a breeze.

Well, it was truly a great Christmas morning. Presents are not important thing but they definitely make life more fun and enjoyable:))

Merry Christmas!

Abbots Ripton Christmas Eve

In the past two years, having a huge dinner with friends on Christmas Eve. This year we had our dinner at Abbots Ripton Village Hall. I think six or seven families came, so we had a lot of delicious food to share. 

Of course, we had a bunch of children with us, so we organized a simple nativity performance AGAIN:)

Mark must have a "Joseph" face because he keeps getting picked to be Joseph in different settings:).

Alex was the narrator.

And Katya was one of the sugar-loaded angels.

The parents stayed ways away from the stage:)

And everyone had a good time. 

After dinner, we drove to our RAF Alconbury base gate and caroled to the security guards there. Kids love doing that. Then it was time to go home and get our annual Christmas Eve pictures taken (see the next post:)). It was later than we hoped for so we had no time for hot chocolate and a movie...but there is always next year.