My mid August update

I am sorry again, but this summer I really don't have time for posting long reports here. I wrote a little bit longer Scotland one in my German blog. This is where you can also find some Scotland photos. I am sorry for not posting it here, but since so many more people are reading the German blog and most people reading the English one may have someone to translate the German one as well I decided to keep this short.

As mentioned the last time this summer we have a lot of visitors. Actually we don't have very many days without somebody staying with us. After Tori left my brother and his family arrived. Uwe could only stay for three days and had to work for most of the time, but I did trips with Silke, Nico and Alena. We went to Cambridge together and took a punting tour on the river Cam, we went to the old Anglo Saxon Village, hired a row boat in Brandon, visited Norwich and took a day trip to London. Nico learned so much about London at school that now he wanted to see the major attractions himself. Since we've been there for only one day we had to decide which attraction we wanted to have a closer look at and the kids wanted to go to the London Dungeon. That was fine with Silke and me too, until we saw the line and heard that we had to wait for almost 2 hours to get into it. But once we were there we could't tell the kids no and therefore we lined up and waited. It was okay, we spent 2 hours in the dungeon itself. After that we had the time for a short sightseeing tour on a bus so that Nico could see the other attractions like Picadilly Circus, Travalgar Square, the Tower and the Tower bridge, before we had to get to the bus station again and get on our bus home to Thetford.
The kids also enjoyed playing with Amber. Actually I think for them that was the highlight of the whole trip. They walked her (together with an adult) and played with her in the evening. Amber had a good time, too, before she had to go on the long trip to Minneapolis where she stays with Ric, Tina and their kids right now. Dave and I need to go to Maryland next week and we have no dog sitter here anymore. And we also decided having the movers here and staying in a hotel for some nights is so much easier without a doggy around. But we miss her very much and can't wait to pick her up in Kansas in 1.5 months. A big thank you from here to Tina and Ric as well as Jim and Erika for taking care of Amber during that time. It helps a lot.

But back to my visitors. After Silke and the kids left Juergen and Ingrid arrived. They spend their two weeks summer vacation here in England and we decided to go to London first. Not for a day trip, but for three days. The swine flue seems to be widely spread here in England and especially in London. It is in German newspapers almost every day. Therefore I expected it to be kind of empty there. But the opposite is the truth: I have never seen London as crowded as this time. Way too many people for me ;o) We were not able to get into any of the major attractions, the lines were just too long. We went into the Towers, but didn't see the crown jewells or the white tower because of the lines. But we spent a great afternoon in Notting Hill, went shopping at Harrods, took a bus and a boat tour and walked from one end of downtown London to the next. We had a great time. But I also enjoy being back to quiet little Thetford. Hmm, maybe I should get used to bigger towns, now that our move to the D.C. area is close.

Back to Thetford I picked up Marcus and Eva who spent a weekend with all of us. We had a lot of fun. We again went to Cambridge and the Anglo Saxon village with them. And we also visited the queens summer home in Sandringham. Now is my last week with Juergen and Ingrid. It is 10 am now and I think they are still sleeping. This is why I finally found some time for this short update. Today we will go to Newmarket and look at the national stud. I reserved a tour for 2pm, so maybe I should wake them up and make some breakfast. I am a little bit hungry, too.

On Saturday Dave and I will fly to Maryland. We want to look for a house to rent. I really hope we will find something. I will keep you updated.