28 July 2013

Around West Sussex

A mom that I met at school lived in Maryland for 13 years.  Her kids were born there, so their kids have dual citizenship.  They loved living in America and miss it a lot, but they felt they needed to return to England to be near family.
We have some great and funny conversations about language, life in England as an American and life in America as English.
We dropped the kids off at school and were on a mission to find antique shops and other cute shops with places to stop for tea and coffee.
We were led astray a bit and did not find what we were searching for, but we drove through some quaint towns and my friend showed me some local hotels where we can enjoy cream tea (in America we might know this as having afternoon tea, complete with small sandwiches and desserts).
The first quaint town we found ourselves in was Lindfield.  

 A sweet little town with a quaint pond at the end of the main street.


We looked in the few shops they had.

I loved this door with a big key!


Beautiful stuff!!

We then decided we needed a morning tea break.  Often times these cute little shops will have a small seating area for tea, coffee and cakes.  Sometimes lunch items as well.


We did a bit more driving around and stopped in Cuckfield (pronounced Cookfield) for lunch.
This was set up in front of a little French bistro.  So pretty!
  

Below, the South Downs in the distance.



I loved the old homes around here.



The hotel/spa in Cuckfield, Ockenden Manor.


It has such an old world look!



My friend, Lisa, really wanted me to see South Lodge Hotel.


It is quite grand with sprawling grounds.  I felt a bit out of my element, but the servers were so nice and  we enjoyed a cup of tea/coffee on the veranda.  They gave us some little sweet treats for free!  I guess that's what happens when you go for coffee at a grand hotel!


It was a fun day of exploring our county and gave me some ideas of places to take visitors when they come.  So come on friends!  Let me personally show you around our part of England!

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Posted by at July 28, 2013 5 comments:
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24 July 2013

Last Days of School

We've just now finished up our school year.  My kids have finished well with good marks and we're looking forward to starting the next school year at the SAME school.  Karis has commented on that several times that it's nice to be going back to the same school we just finished, even if we haven't been here a whole year yet.
We've had lots of activities these last couple of weeks.
We've had 2 sports days.  First was Brennan and Reegan's.



Ha!  Pass the ball!


 They didn't win any big medals or anything, but they had fun!

The following week was Karis' sports day.  She did really well coming in first in one event and second and third in several events.  She is so competitive, but she didn't get upset at all when she didn't place or get first and seemed to have a great time.
Getting ready to go.

Why does she look about 14???!!



She won first place in her group of 5 for the over-hand bean bag toss.


The big winner with all her place stickers.  My little athlete!

 Brennan & Reegan's year classes spent time learning about real life superheros and then spent some time creating their own superhero.  The kids (aka, THE PARENTS) had to design and create a costume out of rubbish and then show it off in a fashion show.

Because they worked so hard to create a superhero, I thought it would be fun decorate a shirt as a keepsake.



We searched google for some costume ideas for Brennan and we went with a combo.

On the runway!


Brennan is Lightening Liter.  He is wearing an umbrella cut in two to make bat-like wings, a jet pack from 2 liter bottles and flames from a grocery sack, complete with a pipe-cleaner mask with lightening.  I love it!  His costume was a big hit.


 Reegan is Super Puppy and is wearing a cape made from a plastic disposable tablecloth and pipe cleaner mask and necklace.  Not so much from rubbish, but cute none the less!



They did a little posing for me afterwards.

Brennan loved these umbrella bat wings!  You can easily use a broken umbrella.  I didn't have one so I made my way to Poundland (the equivalent of the Dollar Store).  I giggled a bit buying an umbrella in 85+ weather!




Cute girl!!



One more show for daddy once he got home.

Our last event was an art show and open house.  The kids didn't get to pick what subject they would draw for their art, it was chosen for them, so it wasn't their favorite.  Parents could buy their child's artwork that was displayed in a special frame.  No pressure to buy are anything.  Yeah right!  Ha!

They did a great job and I now have a nice frame to display their art!
Karis loved her teacher.  I have to say, she had a good one!  Ms. C made learning fun and it was evident!  Karis is going to miss having her, but she'll still see her around school.
One of the other students made her this "hat."  She is such a good sport!
For teacher gifts I decided to go easy and order some cookies from my friend, Helen, (that showed us our beach).  Just this year she has started a cake and cookie business, Hetty's Cake House.  
She is so talented!! 
I made these "thank you" cards.  I saw something similar on Pinterest and made it specific to us.

Karis preferred this one I found on Pinterest.


It was a good {half} year!  Friends were made by all of us and we all really like the school.

Now it's time for some Summer fun!!  Soon we're off to Scotland!!  Woohoo!!  Can't wait to share those pictures with you!
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Posted by at July 24, 2013 4 comments:
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Deeper

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