Olympic Ceremony's Best Kept Secret

The opening ceremony was excellent!  Of course our favorite parts were seeing Rowan Atkins with the London Symphony and meeting the newest Bond girl, the Queen!

The British media has been speculating for months who is going to light the torch.  The Olympic committee and Lord Coe have been completely quiet on the issue.  So much so that it was getting annoying!

So, this is the story that is not so known around the world! (our friends heard it on the radio Saturday morning)

About 2-3 weeks before the ceremony, the 7 teen athletes were asked to participate.  They were athletes that were nominated by past Olympians as a nod to the future.  They were not told what they were doing until they showed up.  Many of them had their families with them, except for one of the guys.  He canceled going with his family on vacation to Greece to stay and participate.  So, his family went to Greece.  The other participants that had their families with them were sworn to secrecy on the issue.  The kids who's family went to Greece?  Well, he could not tell them what he was doing because he was sworn to secrecy, so he told them to be sure to watch.

The family watched the ceremony and had given up, thinking that they missed him and then, they saw him, lighting the torch!  Imagine their surprise when they saw him!  We heard that there were definitely a lot of tears.

All in all the opening ceremony was truly spectacular and in true British form.  I was glad to see the more and lesser known parts of their culture represented.  The story of one of the the 7 teen torch lighters, makes the ceremony a bit more amazing....  it was truly the candle on top of the cake, just in a caldron shape.

Olympics and the Ticket Fiasco

So... the Olympics are in full swing here.  But for months the talk of the Olympics have been a point of contention among our UK friends.

Before we arrived there was a lotto system in which the residents of the UK asked for tickets.  It was poorly done with many residents getting lots of tickets (that all had to be paid for at once and one had to take all or nothing) and too many getting no tickets at all.  My friends were furious.  I learned quickly that it was a taboo subject!

As the games drew closer, tickets have been released, and more people have had the opportunity to buy tickets, including many of my friends.  I have not purchased any tickets and at this point, I may have well missed our chance to go.  We really wanted diving tickets.  The kids have little interest to see anything else and I have to admit that I am not excited to pay an exorbitant amount of money to drag them to an event.  Also at this point, we are trying to do a bit of sight seeing as well.  We head to Paris this week!

Right now there is a big outrage among the public in the UK right now because of the number of empty seats that are at the events.  The BBC talked about it for a good 10 minutes and Lord Coe who is in charge of the Olympics here in the UK has promised a through investigation.  Right now they are having the Army step in to take the seats.  In case you have not heard, the army was recently called up to come and do the security since the private contractor was unable fulfill their contract.

All in all it is a huge disappoint to see those empty seats.  I know that many residents of the UK were so disgruntled with the ticket system, that many people have left the country on holiday.  I imagine that if they are watching the events and seeing those empty seats, they have to be even more incensed about the whole thing!  What a shame, especially with the UK tax dollars that have gone into the preparations for this grand event.

Rhodes Greece

Since our trip to Greece was truly a vacation, I really don't have many things to write about.

The weather was hot and dry.  When the wind blew, it felt like we were in an oven.  The sky was a beautiful blue, though some days when we were at the sea, when we looked across the bay that we were in the land on the other side looked hazy.

The kids were in heaven because of the kitties that we saw all over.  They were friendly enough that the kids were able to pet them some as well.

We saw this little kitty in the restaurant the night before we left.  She was precious!

Here are the boys walking down to the beach.  We walked the beach in the evenings.

The beautiful sunset

My oldest making his vacation grimace.

This was taken at the kids favorite restaurant.  Yes, those are real grapes growing from the ceiling@

My youngest snuck in this photo at the last minute.

The sun hats that I bought came in very handy!  This was another on of our favorite places to eat.  We went there twice.

Rhodes Greece--The HOT

Greece was a big destination spot for us.  But with all of the political unrest with the austerity measures, we totally choked about going to Athens.  Instead, after some intense searching and countless cross checks on TripAdvisor, we ended up in Rhodes, Greece.

It has been a cold and miserable start to the summer, apparently even by English standards.  We have heard many apologies from our English friends about the crap weather.  So, I wished for sun and heat and I got exactly what I wished for!

We left a cool and rainy England in the afternoon.  I had layered my dress with leggings, a cardigan, and a scarf.  The temperature when we left was not even 16cel.  We arrived in Rhodes after a 4 hour plane ride.  It was dark and the temp was 38 cel!  I immediately unthawed and started taking layers off and packing them in my purse.

In the craziness of our arrival, Sean asked me where the camera was, so I pulled it out of my purse.  When I went to put it back, I missed my purse and did not notice.  I lost my camera on the night that we arrived.  Ugh!

We boarded out bus 24:00 and took an hour ride to our resort.  We arrived and checked into our hotel.  It seemed nice enough, so we settled the kids into their room (2 rooms away) and went to sleep.  We were awakened early in the morning by our youngest sons.  We got everyone ready and head out to check out the stores and find the beach.

Here are some pictures of the hotel that were taken with my iPhone.  Not too bad really!

Our hotel.

View from our balcony, note the cloudless sky and the rest of the resort.

One of the many rocky hills on Rhodes.  This one is also from our balcony.

The bus driver advised us to buy bottled water.  We normally do not buy bottled water, but we did take his advice and it was very cheap, about $3 for 6 liters.  We grabbed some things for the bakery and store and then headed down to the beach.

Before we went to the beach Sean made a big deal of saying that he was not going to be stuck in the room with anyone that got sunburned (looking directly at me!)  We left the beach and everyone but me was crispy (haha!).  We had reapplied suncream, but even with our best intentions, we missed spots and everyone but me had some really red spots.  I managed to avoid getting burned by using the suncream and staying under the umbrella.  Yeah me!

The sun was definitely unrelenting.  There was really never a cloud in the sky the whole time we were there.  The sky was a beautiful shade of periwinkle.  But it was a nice change from all the rain that we had been getting in the UK.

We found out the hard way that walking with shoes on was a necessity.  Even though the stone walks were all light colored, they were hot enough to burn your feet.  I had made the mistake to walk to the room to get something.  As I was trying to unlock the door, I was almost crying because of the burning sensation on my feet.  I quickly stepped in a small bit of shade practically in tears and ready to go back and grab my shoes.  My oldest son saved me and opened the door while deftly hopping back and forth on his own bare feet.  How awesome was that?!?!

We also learned when we were on the beach to walk in the water.  The sand was scorching!  But the water was beautiful!  The temperature of the water was perfect.  Between the heat and the sun, I definitely spent time in both the pool and the sea.  You know that it is hot when I get in the water!

The London Eye

So, school is out and we had sometime before we hit our vacation destination spot.  What to do, what to do?  Why head to the London Eye!  :)

Taken from the bridge leading to the Eye.  Behind me is Parliament and Big Ben!

My oldest son was terrified of going, but with the assurance of a great auntie that also hates heights, I decided that he should try and face his fears.  Here he is trying very hard to avoid them.  I did get him to open his eyes but he refused to move from his spot.  

Millenium Bridge!  The clouds were gorgeous and we were blessed with a clear day!

 The Gerkin is on the left.  The London skyline is not particularly impressive, but at least it was a clear day to see it!

Parliment, Big Ben and the bridge from near the top of the Eye.

Mark, Liam and Cian enjoyed the view.  Mark and I did get a little queasy though.

After subjecting Colin to the heights and making him face his fear, I let him pick our place for lunch, so to the golden arches we went!  It was right next to our next destination, the London Aquarium.  I have to admit that I was impressed with what they have offered.  The National Aquarium in Baltimore has to be the best one that we have been two, and the London Aquarium is our second favorite.  Some of the sharks looked rather mean in the big tank and we were thrilled with all the turtles!

Here are the kids at the Aquarium!

Royal International Air Tattoo

What can I say, we had a busy weekend!

We ended Sean's birthday weekend by going to the Royal International Air Tattoo.  It is the world's biggest international air show that was held at the RAF Fairford at the US Air Force Base.

As you can see we can clean up quite nicely when we try!  (and we are all quite dry which is apparently a lot harder then one may think!)




So, we got up early after our party and headed out as soon as we were ready.  The air show started at 10am and it was almost a 2.5 hour drive.  We ended up getting in around 10:30, just in time to watch the South Korean Air Force Aerobatic Team the Black Eagles.  This was the first time that they had performed in the RIAT air show and one of the first times they have performed outside South Korea.  They were fantastic!

This is the Black Eagles.

We also saw performances by the Knights from United Arab Emirates, the RAF Red Arrows, the Swiss Air Force Patrouille Suisse and the Jordanian Falcons. 

The Red Arrows.  I was particularly looking forward to seeing them!

The Swiss Team.

We saw a Spitfire in May.  Here are two Spitfires with the only flying ARC Lancaster.  Very cool!

After the air show ended we walked down to see the B-2 Stealth Bomber.  I have seen one once in the air.  I was in my car between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.  It was awesome to see in the air and very cool to see in person.  This is the "Spirit of New York".

Since we are huge fans of TopGear, there was no way that we could leave without taking the kids picture in front of the display.  It was a flight simulator, this was one of several that were on the site.  

All in all we had a good day.  There was a little rain on the way there, but it cleared up nicely and the show was able to carry on as planned.  On our way out we admired the Cotswolds area of England.  The houses and buildings were quite charming and most were made with a very pretty tan colored stone.  The gardens are beautiful and right now the roses all over England are in full bloom.  They apparently love this cool, rainy weather!

Olympic Torch Run and Continued Celebrations

Our birthday celebrations were not over yet though.  We started Saturday by heading to Bishop's Stortford to watch the Olympic Torch run.  As we were getting ready, Sean noticed that his mother was taking her rain coat.  It was pretty hot though and he discouraged her from taking it.  I had thought that she was still going to take it but apparently she ended up leaving it.  As you can see from the pictures below, she was sorry that she listened to him!

In true English fashion, the rain came in and it got very chilly!

Here is everyone, a bit soggy and cold just before the torch came through.  As you can see, two of the boys did not bring any sweatshirts at all, they were definitely chilly and damp!

As it so often happens in England, the rain was short and the sun made an appearance as the torch was going by.  It was a short parade with about a dozen vehicles that preceded the runner.  We were very happy that we were able to get a spot to watch, we were rather late in getting out and after our experience in trying to see the Jubilee Flotilla, I was worried that we would miss being able to see it.  As you can see we found a great spot!

The torch runs were very well planned, I read that the runs were planned to be with in 30 minutes of everyone in the UK, so that the opportunity was readily available for everyone to have a chance to see it.  A girl in the boys' school ran the torch for 300m later in the day.  Because we had to finish getting ready for further birthday festivities that evening we were not able to see her run.

We finished up some errands and shopping in Stortford.  We then headed home to finish up with party preparations.  We had about 30+ people coming over to help Sean celebrate.  Of course we had some mishaps.  That door that my oldest son broke?  Well, it is not fixed yet and it ended up on the ground.  Unbeknownst to us at the time, there was a causality, one of the kids was in the way and got a few scrapes.

The kids played Rock Band all evening and we got to see some very interesting performances along with hearing A LOT of Queen.  I think that Bohemian Rhapsody was played many times in a row!

Remember that trip to Costco?  Well, my mother in law talked me into getting twice the amount of salads that I would have gotten!  I have a lot of food left over and since we are heading out to Greece on Saturday I have been sending it in with Sean to work.  Monday he took in cupcakes, carrots and hummus.  Today, he took in cucumbers and orzo salad.  I am not sure what I am going to send in tomorrow, but Grandma Bearys baked beans were a hit and they have been highly requested as has the recipe!  I also have two huge containers of coleslaw and potato salad.  They are all going in with him this week.  And alcohol, did I mention the alcohol?  

Let me start by saying that I told anyone that asked to please just bring themselves.  Apparently, the British have a compulsion to bring something. I bought 2 cases of beer, one case of cider, one case of Shiraz and 2 bottles of Pimms.  Almost everyone that came brought something.  I am not sure that I don't have more beer in my fridge then when I started.  No joke!  I have the same amount of wine even though one bottle was partially consumed.  I do have almost one bottle of Pimms gone and I have now gained about 6 bottles of some very nice Champagne!   I also ended up with some beautiful flowers and an orchid. :)

We now need to have an empty my fridge party.  We have some drinking to do!  Party at my house!!!

Impressive, isn't it?

Celebrating Sean's Birthday--Jelly Belly Style

My husband Sean celebrated his birthday on 6 July.  It was probably one of the coldest, wettest birthday's that he has experienced.

He worked and the boys had their last day of school.  My mother in law and I headed down the M11 to Costco in Chingford to get supplies for the party on Saturday evening.

Remember that even the simplest tasks can be a pain here, and going to Costco ended up being one of those simple things that just got harder.

We grabbed all of the items that we needed and then headed to the till with a cart FULL of food.  We got there and everything was rung up and packed in the cart.  I handed them my American Express card to pay for my purchases and in good card fashion, my purchase was flagged.  I was politely asked if I had an alternate way to pay for my purchases, which panicked me a bit.  I immediately checked my email and determined that it was indeed a security flag.  I was then herded to a phone with an employee.  The appropriate phone calls were made and it was determined that it was indeed me making this HUGE purchase.  It went through and from there it was a count down of frantic car packing to get out of there on time to get the boys, we were going to be late!

We did have in our favor that the pouring rain of the earlier morning had slacked off to a light sprinkle.  I had to bring the car up to the loading area and it was there that we figured out that the back hatch of the car no longer would stay aloft on its' own.  So, my mother in law held the hatch as I frantically stuffed things in the car in a semi organized manner.  After we were loaded we headed up the M11 as fast as we could to grab the boys.  Then we headed home to unload the car and clean the house.

 My youngest son had a disco to go to later that afternoon.  I delivered him to his disco and then finished some of the cleaning at home with my mother in laws help.  She is really good at organizing the kids to put their things away and since it was the last day of school there was a lot of things that made there way home.  I was relieved to have her handle the boys because, as she learned, it is easier to herd cats then to get my kids to clean.  They did a brilliant job and the house looked fantastic!

We then went to retrieve the youngest Beary and then headed to Franco's to celebrate Sean's birthday.  Franco's is the best Italian restaurant that we have found in England.  It is run by an Italian that has had quite an interesting career.  He worked on a cruise ship off the US West coast, along with a few other travels and he is now in England with his restaurant.  We had a lovely dinner and they brought out a piece of tiramisu with a candle and sang "Happy Birthday" to Sean.

We headed home and gave Sean his gifts.  He did not get many as his big request was to go to a beach, so 14 July we are heading to Greece!

Here he is with 3 of the boys checking out their gift to him, a huge jar of Jelly Bellies!  Please note, these are not the preferred brand of jelly beans, Brach's are the best according to Sean's grandfather Nicholas Bagnato.  But in a pinch, Jelly Bellies will do!

Sean's sister did remember how much he loves Brach's sent him a bag for his birthday.  I have a feeling that it will go with us to Greece perhaps, has candy and will travel!  :)

Independence Day at Buckingham Palace

My mother in law planned her third visit around my husband's birthday.  She has always spent his birthday with him and was not about to let something like being a long plane ride away stop her!  So, when she made her plane reservations to come over, I immediately booked us to visit Buckingham Palace and the Royal Mews.  When I was making the reservation I thought it fitting that we would be visiting Buckingham Palace on the 4th of July!

So, my mother in law arrived on 3 July and we headed into London on 4 July.  This picture was one of the first things that we saw in London.  On a hunch I took a picture.  I have seen a lot of Chihuly, he has a very nice exhibit in the Indianapolis Children's Museum, and this looked like his work.  When we got home I found out that it was indeed done by Chihuly!

We headed straight to the Palace to see the special exhibit in the Queen's Gallery, the Leonardo Da Vinci the Anatomist exhibit.  It was fantastic!  In the 1700's the royal family acquired Da Vinci's medical papers. The exhibit explained his work in detail.  The text below is quoted directly from the information about the exhibit.

This exhibition is the largest ever of Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of the human body.  Leonardo has long been recognised as one of the great artists of the Renaissance, but he was also a pioneer in the understanding of human anatomy.  He intended to publish his ground-breaking work in a treatise on anatomy, and had he done so his discoveries would have transformed European knowledge of the subject.  But on Leonardo’s death in 1519 the drawings remained a mass of undigested material among his private papers and their significance was effectively lost to the world for almost 400 years.  Today they are among the Royal Collection’s greatest treasures.

This was the book that the collection was bound in, I believe by his last assistant.

When we were done with the exhibit we headed to the Buckingham Palace and the State Rooms.  The Palace is a fantastic place to visit.  Particularly since the Palace has only been open to visitors since 1993.  My mother in law had not had a chance to visit the palace since it had been open.  It is open sporadically though the year but the summer time hours are a bit more planned since the royal family spends part of the summer up in Scotland in Holyrood.

Pictures inside the palace, like all the other residences are not allowed.  So, we bought a official visitors guide, got our audio tour and headed in to see the State Rooms and the other rooms that were open.  We were also going to see a special exhibit for the Diamond Jubilee, it is the Diamond Exhibit featuring some of the fantastic jewelry and other pieces that are owned by the Queen.

When we were done with the tour, we ended at the garden.  There is a cute little cafe and we stopped and had a delicious lunch!  We shared a tuna sandwich, a clotted cream and fresh strawberry scone with tea to drink!  Yum!  Here we are on the 4th of July in the garden of the Queen in the cafe with our matching Union Jack scarves!  Quite smashing, right?

We realized that we were going to have a hard time getting the kids on time, so I made arrangements with the school to get me youngest one late.  In the meantime Sean called and said that he would get the boys, so my mother in law and I decided to head to Harrods!

Harrods is an awesome sight to behold, for sure.  It is also confusing and overwhelming to the non-shopper like me.  I did get to see some of the fabulous design houses like Missoni and Alaia.  If only money grew on trees!  We settled for finding the Harrods gift store and grabbed some things out of it.  We left in kind of a hurry as we were suppose to be meeting Colin at the train station.  As we were descending the escalator to find the way out, we were not paying attention and ended up in the basement to find this sweet memorial to Diana and Dodi Fayed.  It is really touching and I am glad that we were lucky enough to stumble upon it!

We made it back to the train station about 20 minutes before Colin.  He was returning from his practice Duke of Edinburgh expedition.  It started out really crazy for him, the first day both of his pack straps broke off.  This was a brand new pack!  But thankfully, it ended well and he was able to borrow another pack to get him though the rest of the expedition.  My mother in law and I grabbed him and headed home.  But we did not get to finish all of our Buckingham Palace tour.  We had missed the Royal Mews.  Darn, looks like we have another trip to London planned!

The Royal Mews holds the carriages and horses that the Queen uses.  She has quite an extensive collection!  She also has 3 cars that she uses.  We saw the 1956 Rolls Royce which was really cool!

This is the Wedding Carriage and has been used by most of the royal brides.  Princess Diana and Kate Middleton both used it.

This is the most magnificent carriage in the collection, the Golden Carriage.  It is an impressive sight to see, the figures on it are life size, so the whole carriage itself is truly massive.  It is also the hardest to drive and apparently has the most uncomfortable ride for passengers.   It was last out for the Queen's coronation and will probably not see service again until the next coronation.  It is a beast to get out, the wall under the windows has to come down for it to come out of the this room!

My mother in law and I had a fantastic time in London.  In fact, because we loved the cafe in the Palace so much we used our tickets (that are good for one year) to go back into the Palace so that we could eat lunch there again!  After a purposeful stroll throughAfter a quick bite to eat we caught the tube and headed back to the school to grab the kids.

The 4th really passed us over as a normal day for the rest of the family.  The kids spent the day at school.  Sean was asked by his co-workers of he was going to bring donuts in to celebrate.  He told them that if he was going to celebrate the 4th like he does at home he would not be working and blowing things up, neither of which happened.  My mother in law and I did have a great day touring the Palace and it seemed a bit ironic that we spent it in the Royal Palace!  

Speech Day and the ball

My friends have been talking about Speech Day all year.  So, the pictures that they painted seemed to make the day itself seem a little tame.  They uttered words like hot, miserable and spending the morning in the school gym.  Luckily, the weather was at least cooperative and while it was warm miserable was not an adjective that I would have used!


Speech Day is St. Nicholas's award day.  It is held in the sports hall aka the gym.  It is usually one of the hottest days of the year apparently.  This year it was not so bad, thankfully.  We delivered the kids to the school by 9:15am.  We drove separately because Sean was taking Mark to Gilwell (the Boy Scout mecca)  for a campout when we were done.  After we arrived I realized that I had forgotten Mark's permission forms to camp at home.  So I turned around and went 20 minutes back home to get it.  I arrived back to the school just in time for the official start.

The Headmaster and all the school governors filed in and the president of the governors spoke.  It was his last year on the board of governors and he was resigning as president.  One of the things that he had done while on the board was to put term limits on service.  He had reached his limit of service at 18 years.

Then the Headmaster was given the podium and after his speech he started with awards.  There are 3 awards given in each year.  They are as follows; Outstanding Achievement, Best Effort and Most Improved.  My two middle sons received the Most Improved award.

In the case of my 13 year old I strongly feel that a lot of his award hinged on the fact that he started 2 language courses from almost zero and really caught up to his class mates.  Another thing that really went in his favor was how well he did on the end of year Maths test.  He had told me during the second term he was ready for the higher Maths class and they were not moving him up because there was not room.  After chatting with the his Maths teacher (who is a dear man) he assured me that he would give my son challenging work and when the end of year testing came, he would test him with the higher classes test.  It worked well in my sons' favor as he scored higher then half of the higher level class and has secured himself a place there!  My 13 year old also has come out of his shell as we were told by two teachers that he really enjoys drama and doing plays.  I have to admit I was in disbelief as this is one of my shyest boys!  Wow!

My 9 year old, the other recipient of the award also worked very hard over the year.  He went from being behind because he had not learned his multiplication and division facts.  He learned all of his multiplication facts and started on division.  He also greatly improved his handwriting and has the best handwriting in his class.  He made great strides in his reading comprehension which has always been one of all of my children's poorest abilities.  We also learned that he is very talented in his artwork.




But after describing how hard they have both worked, it was probably based on test scores or how many levels they advanced!

We ended the day with the school ball.  We had a really nice time with our friends and I got to do some dancing!

Sports Day

So, the kids had Sports Day in school last week.  What is Sports Day?  It is kind of like Field Day.

The kids spent the day doing Track and Field events.  One thing that I learned is that my older three boys need training to run distances and my youngest son is not a sprinter!

It was of course one of the hottest days that we have had here.  It was bright, sunny and very windy.  I put on sun cream and I still managed to get a burn on my arms and neck and oddly on the back of my legs.

The parents group sold food and drinks!  Alcoholic drinks at that!

The kids competed with each other by year in their event.  They wore different color vests which divided them into their respective houses.

What I did learn was that my kids can jump!  All of them except for my youngest ended up competing in jumping.  All three of my older kids placed in the top 4 for the events.  My oldest two did high jump and my oldest placed 4th my second oldest tied for 2nd.  In the long jump my third son placed second and my second son placed 4th.  I am not sure exactly where my oldest placed.  My third son also did a running jump over a pole and tied for second, which is really impressive considering he is one of the shortest ones in his class!

It was especially cute to see my boys cheer for each other and then the other kids that they were competing against.  When my second son was doing the high jump, the other boys in his year chanted USA when he was up.  My third son and the boys in his year were especially supportive of each other when it was there turn, cheering each other on and chanting each others name.

My youngest son had the hardest time during the day.  He did not compete until the afternoon and he only did relays.  When sprinting is not your best ability, and you consistently loose, the fun kind of goes away.  This was very true for him and we had some tears of disappointment when the day was done.

We were never  so glad to get home as we were that day.  All the boys jumped into the shower and we all kind of melted into the couch.  We were tired!