The Tales of An Anglo-American Mormon Family: October 2015

After Abigail's show, we were full into May, which means end-of-school-year pageantry, for all kids, all grade levels, and so forth. But before the last day of school, we had Memorial Day. It was rainy and cloudy, so it was just like a British bank holiday. I made Tim a really nice breakfast, but I can't quite remember what was in it. I know there were strawberries in a saffron syrup, garnished with mint. And I think I had broiled some smoked trout in milk with gruyere cheese on top, so he had a kind of smoked trout gratin. And there was also a homemade lavender and chocolate museli.

We had a church memorial service where all the service men and women showed up and participated, along with the boy scouts. They asked Tim to show up in his uniform, and I think he was only too happy to oblige ....

Soon the end of school was upon us. Here are the four younger children on the last day of school, hampers for teachers in hand ....

My 4 little kids on the last day of school with their hampers for
their teachers.

Samuel with his 6th grade teacher, Mrs. Worthen at his
6th grade promotion.

Eleanor with her 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Brown.

Verity with her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marshall

Georgie with her 4th grade teacher, Mrs. McNulty

Verity and Georgie also had an end-of-year dance recital. We thought it was just going to be another normal recital, but we were dead wrong. The dance studio put on not one, but two recitals, which were about three hours each. It just so happened that Verity was in the first recital, and Georgie in the second, so that meant I had to sit through six hours of, umm, kids dancing ... Anyway, here are Verity's pics:

Ballet

Tap

Soon after school ended we sent Imogen off to Germany on her student exchange, to stay with Emilia, the German student who had been with us in the month of April. We would lose her for 6 weeks - four in Germany, and two in England.

Our family with Imogen at the airport.

The summer was fairly scheduled. I put the four youngest kids on the swim team, really so that they could learn how to swim. So we had swim team practice every morning at 8am for an hour and a half. They had a few meets throughout the summer, and that was good for them to gain those skills of participating in a competition, etc. Here is Verity in a backstroke competition. She actually got pretty good at competing!

Verity at backstroke

Eleanor competes at swimming

Near the end of June Auntie Kate came from Australia to come visit us for a few weeks. We did lots of fun things with her when she was here. One of the first things we did was have a proper tea party! We got dressed up and invited some friends over. The menu included smoked salmon and egg and cress finger sandwiches, scones with cream and homemade raspberry and lavender jam, homemade lemon curd, Victoria sponge cake, and chocolate mouse cookies, among other things. We had herbal strawberry tea, and Georgie's famous homemade lemonade.

Our tea party!

The adult contingent at the tea party - does Abigail count as an adult?

Soon after Kate arrived we celebrated the 4th of July. The lovely Kennedy's came again to celebrate the holiday with us, so we had quite a houseful. We saw them first at Del Mar beach a few days before the fourth. It was a great day at the beach - the water was so warm the kids could play for hours.

At Del Mar beach with the Kennedys

Three inseparable girls!

Fourth of July morning we had a devotional breakfast at church, bright and early at 8am. Any later than that and it would have been too hot.

Gemma, Samuel, Robbie, Matthew, Rob and Josh at the Fourth of July breakfast

Then the party moved to Ramona Oaks park, to see the Ramona parade, and flag ceremony/variety show. An All American event, I'm afraid.

Bleakleys and Kennedys at the Ramona parade

Boy scouts et al at the flag ceremony

And fireworks in the evening ..

Eleanor and Georgie and Sophie

Verity and Emma

We managed to find other things to do with Kate, who is always up for sightseeing. She suggested going to the San Diego Mission, which was fascinating. The mission was where Father Juniper Serra made the first Catholic settlement on the West Coast in the 1700's. Much of the Mission burned down, but some of the original buildings have survived, and there are fascinating artifacts there.

Mission Chapel

In the Mission Gardens, with a statue of St. Francis

Tim and I also managed to get away with Kate for an evening and take her to my FAVORITE restaurant in San Diego County .... Jeremy's on the Hill. It's a small, intimate restaurant on the outskirts of the mountain town of Julian - only about 20 minutes away from our house. The restaurant is a small, converted house, and they haven't changed the inside very much, so you just feel as if you are eating in a dining room in a house. It reminds me a lot of a place called Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, which is a house converted into a museum. Anyway, they have incredible food there, and they have the philosophy of 'farm to table' - ie using local produce as much as possible, which makes me very happy. It is, really, my 'happy place' - I go there when I need an emotional boost. But this time we just went because we had to take Kate there. And she had the world famous brussel sprouts and avocado tempura with chili aioli, featured in the photo.

Dinner at Jeremy's - with roasted brussel sprouts and avocado tempura

We did lots of other things - hikes, trips into San Diego, trips to the beach, museums, and so forth. Things actually got quite a bit easier when we got year passes to the San Diego Zoo. I think it was about $45 a kid, but it was the best money we ever spent. It's wonderful going into the zoo and not having to worry about seeing everything at once, or pushing yourself to stay for 10 hours because you never know when you are coming back again. And the zoo is right by Balboa Park, so we would combine a trip to both places. One time near the end of July we went and rented one of those biking/surrey things: