English Visitors!

     This week is rather special in that we have guests scheduled for dinner every night from Wednesday to Saturday.  Those guests run the gamut from neighbors who live just down the street to visitors from England. 
     We get to start with the English visitors first.  Tonight one of Tim's old work colleagues from his RAF days came to dinner.  She had come to San Diego on business, and Tim managed to persuade her to come eat at our house.  Brave woman!  I had never met her personally, but she had been a great support to Tim in his last job, so it was nice to meet her at last.  And it was so nice for all of us to have someone connected to our past life in England in our house. 
     She has moved to the US for a time as well, so we commiserated about the challenges of moving from Britain to the US.  At dinner we ended up taking about the royal family and the royal wedding, and the kids reminisced about what we were doing on that day (I made them a royal tea party with little canapés and cakes and tarts, etc.).  We talked about what a mistake it is for Britain to continue to cut its military forces.  And, because we're parents and the kids were there, we also talked about minions and Frozen and the Lego Movie.
     Then I had the distinct pleasure of sitting up with my sobbing seven year old while she finished off her homework for tomorrow.  This happens a lot in our house, actually.  There is a lot of sobbing over unfinished homework late at night.  There is no sobbing over unfinished homework right when they get home from school, of course.  The sobbing begins the minute they realize they are up against a wall and running away from me is no longer an option.  Aaahh, joy.