I just lost the whole write up of our trip - urg!!!

Well - you'll just have to be satisfied with a shorter review since I don't have the patience to rewrite all that. It was a great processing time though.

December 21 - left Kandern drove to Calais France. stayed in a hotel right across the street from the English Channel. found a star fish on the beach.

December 22 - took a speed ferry across channel (took about 1 hour). drove on the left side of teh rode through fog to Retford, England where we stayed in the home of Nigel and Helen Spencer (they stayed at our house). got the key from a very friendly neighbor, settled in and found a grocery store. this store was owned by walmart and was very reasonably priced.

December 23 - markus and i went back to do a realy grocery shop while the kids stayed home and watched english cartoons!! We bought all our food for the next few days and found some real canadian treats. later we drove to another town to see their castle.

December 24 - sunday - we went to an assemblies of god church in the morning and our kids loved it. it was very informal, a lor of families, adn interactive learning. niklaas said that was the kind of church he would like to be part of. we went for a walk. in the evening we went to an anglican church for a litergic candle lit service. it was very good.

December 25 - missed all of you very much - talked alot about our christmas together last year! we opened gifts in the morning - the kids really wanted to go back to the aog church, but we didn't get reay in time. watched a movie, played games, went for a walk, ate turkey and cranberry sauce (i forgot to make the dressing) - everything that always happens at christmas, but without other people.

December 26 - drove out to the sea and walked along the shore. ate fish and chips.

December 27 - went to sherwood forest and saw an 800 year old oak tree like the one robin hood worked out of. matthew and emily shot some archery there. matthew popped a balloon.

December 28 - left Retford. stopped at Nottingham. went to the robin hood center - did not get to see the museum, but there was enough other stuff there to keep us all happy. went to the movie eragon (a book niklaas got for christmas). emily and i went to happy feet instead. very exciting to be at a real movie theater. got to delanies very late.

December 30 - oxford/stonehenge/windsor castle day. i loved oxford and could have spent all day there. the tolkien and lewis history is huge. we stopped at the eagle and child pub where they met every tuesday for 21 years for their tuesday lunch hour reading club. went to the alice in wonderland store. stonehenge is amazing. there is soem astrology type story that goes with this huge rock formation. everyone else said this was their favorite part of teh day. windsor catle was a dissapointment. it was very hard to foind and then it wasn't even lit up. the flag was up so teh queen was home. we ate at pizza hut across the ctreet from it and hoped for a view of it while we ate, but a mcdonalds truck stopped right in front of us to unload it wares next door.

December 31 - bought tickets for a 48 hour bus tour. a tour where you can get on and off tehbus whereever and for however long you want. we first stopped at speakers corner to hear an evangelist preach. then on to the sherlocks holmes museum and store. the museum costs extra so we just looked in the window and went to the store (a personal favorite). stopped at hamel's toy store (8 floors high). then went to harrods. in the evening we played games, watched a movie and went to bed around 11:30. markus and i didn't got o bed until 4:30 when the party upstairs finally stopped. we are definately small town people.

December 1 - continued our 48 hour bus tour. stopped at hamley's again so emily could buy herself a sticker making kit. matthew and i went to starbucks down the street. saw the london eye - the worlds largest ferris wheel, saw big ben and the beautiful parlimane tbuildings its attached to, drove over london bridge and saw the tower bridge. drove past the london dungeon and london tower. got on a ferry (part of the bus tour) and saw many interesting sights with funny commentary from the guide. got of the next bus at buckingham palace - a disappointment to us all. decided it was to complicated to see the changing of the guards (which we had seen in Monaco) so didn't do that. back to harrods where niklaas bough himself a make your own monoploy game. then home.

December 2 - left England via the chunnel. got home at 4:00 am.

I'm going to send this one and then do another one so i don't loose anything.

teresa