Elijah's birthday and football party

 

 

 

Of course the day started with presents and post before school.

 

I love it when children are thrilled to receive books as a present!

 

 

 We hired the local sports hall and Elijah invited 9 friends to play football with him for an hour. ( I still haven't had time to research and buy myself a new camera, so these indoor shots aren't perfect, but give a flavour of the event!)

 

 

 

 Lots of Chelsea kits made picking teams easy!

 

The sports centre is just behind where we live, so after football we walked back to our house for a birthday tea.

 

 

The boys had lots of energy and were very loud, but all behaved well.

 

Now a brief respite until Jemima's birthday!

 

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Many of you know that Jemima is very creative . She has been totally inspired by a school project learning about Picasso and Cubism. This is her self portrait in the style.

 

Birthdays and in between!

Life is always very busy in the Autumn in our house! This year not only have we moved house but countries as well, not to mention 4 birthdays in six weeks!

 

Jonah and Elijah have signed up for new football teams in our village, this is Jonah debuting for his team below:

 

 

Pete had his birthday....

 

And Jemima has come home from school with a new instrument she has the opportunity to learn in her class, as part of a music project run by the County Music Department!

 

She was also a super Red Riding Hood in her class performance of Roald Dahl's revolting Rhyme for National Poetry Day, and Elijah conrtibuted well to his class 'Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace' by AA Milne.

Jonah Celebrates his 12th Birthday

 

As his birthday was on a Monday, Jonah invited a few friends to come and chill at our house, last Saturday to celebrate his birthday. He had two friends he knew before and the rest were new ones he'd made at his new Secondary School.

 

 

Birthday morning on the sofa before school!

 

 Birthday Cake ( I cheated a bit by ordering an edible badge online)

We converted our dining table into a homemade table tennis table!

 

Our Pool table was outside on the patio.

And the Wii was set up to play Wii Sport.

All the boys took off their shoes without being asked and took turns participating in the activities without any problems!

 

A bit more grown up then Party bags!

 

The highlight was a NERF gun  game, all carefully planned with Pete adjudicating. Here is Jonah giving the instructions!

 

 

 

 

Food time, the first party I have ever done with no leftovers!

 

What a great bunch of friends Jonah has made- it was a pleasure to have them!

 

 

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland!

The long way home....

On Monday 6th August the removers arrived and  over the next three days, dismantled and  packed our belongings into a lorry and trailer.

 The dining table went fairly early.

Jonah hung on to the computer as long as he could!

 Pete escaped for a final evening of football, where he was presented with a FC Nürnberg Trikot.

 Our lovely neighbours, we will miss their friendliness.

 Final, final goodbyes

Where we spent our last night in Bubenreuth...

 ...the car was sold, so we began our long trip home on foot to the train station. A final walk through our home village for the last 3 1/2 years. Happy memories.

 Last walk past the school...

 one of the supermarkets...

 ...to the train station.

 

 Our first train was Bubenreuth to Nürnberg.

 

 

 Then Nürnberg to Frankfurt.

Then onto Brussels in Belgium, where we stayed on Thursday night to break our journey.

 On Friday we explored Brussels by underground train, beginning at the European Parliament in the Luxemburg area of the city.

 We looked around the visitors centre of the European Parliament...

 Not my best photos , but I like the idea!

 

 ...before walking through the city itself. A central park had a sculpture exhibition representing typical specialities of Belgium....

 

 Then we sampled a couple of the local delicacies for real!

 Our guitarist and drummer !

 

 Of course we had to see this little man!

 Then back to our trains...the Eurostar, one or the official partners of the London 2012 Olympic Games, that where happening at the time.

 After crossing another border and travelling through France we arrived in London, which was hosting the Olympics.

 St Pancras Station,London

 After a short delay at Passport Control we had only 5 minutes to catch our final train to East Midlands, where we were going to stay with Pete's parents'. It was a mad dash...but we just made it!!

 

 

Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland. Herzlich Dank!