Hatfield House Battle Proms

On Saturday, July 21st, Charles surprised us with tickets to the Hatfield House Battle Proms. I was so surprised and excited. I live for these events!  It took place on the grounds of the Hatfield house said to be where, beneath one of the ancient Oak trees, the young Elizabeth I heard the news of her sister Mary's death and her accession to the English throne. Everyone brings a picnic and sits in the field around 4:30pm in the afternoon. Many people have quite a fancy set-up bringing tables, white linen table cloths, champagne, candelabras and all. We just had some picnic blankets but a VERY GOOD picnic prepared by Charles.

While waiting for the actual show to start we were entertained by Napoleonic re-en actors at their encampment and  The Rockabellas.

There was a Napoleonic infantry and cavalry display

 The world renowned Blades Aerobatic Team performed a very dramatic and amazing aerial display that kept everyone's attention.

Then the real show began with The New English Concert Orchestra performing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with LIVE cannon fire! Then on to the piece that gives the Battle Proms its name: Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory, more commonly known as the ‘Battle Symphony’, performed with 193 cannons, musket fire and fireworks. It was so fun to see the girls get so into the music waving their flags like mad and dancing around.

We went up close and saw some of the 193 cannons that went off during the performance.

The performance closed with the traditional sing-along, flag-waving proms finale, including favourites: Jerusalem, Rule Britannia, God Save the Queen and Land of Hope and Glory, and ending with a dazzling firework show. Hooray for the proms! I think we will have to be regulars at this event!  

Team GB or Team USA???

Tonight as we were watching the BBC news coverage while waiting for the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics to start. The BBC was highlighting several of Team GB's athletes. Abby started getting very excited and shouting out the names and sports of the athletes as the BBC was highlighting them. At first, I thought it was cute that she knew one or two of the British athletes, but then I quickly realized, she knew A LOT more than just one or two. She was naming off dozens of athletes and not only their names but the sports they played. I couldn't believe it. Her school and teacher have done a very good job of preparing these kids for the Olympics. I started to get defensive and grabbed the computer to look up some American athletes. She is American after all, I thought. We should look up some American athletes so I can help her cheer for the USA as well. The only American athlete I could think of was Michael Phelps. I told her about him and how he got 8 medals at the last Olympics. She was impressed but I couldn't name any other athletes and she went on naming more British athletes even ones from the past! She was so excited about them. I opened up the NY Times web site and started looking up American athletes. I realized I knew nothing about any of them and that it was not that exciting. Abby then grabbed the computer and started googling all the British athletes she knew. Wow! I feel like I have to cheer louder for Team USA just to counter her and remind her she is American. 

Which reminds me, just yesterday her and Sammy were talking about how they are English. I reminded them that they are not English but American. They protested saying they were born in the U.K. True I said, but nothing changes the fact that you have an American mother AND an American father. That means you are American. You are an American living in Britain and always will be an American. Lately they even sit around and play a game they have made up where they mock the ugly American accent. One of them plays the posh English girl and the other the ugly American girl. Sammy can do the ugly American accent in quite an exaggerated manner. It is pretty funny and ugly. Abby is usually the posh, sophisticated Brit who is teaching the American some manners.

And to think we have only been here one year....

Introducing....

 

Introducing Annie, the newest member of our family! 

Many of you are thinking - were you pregnant again and didn't tell anyone? No, not this time - though you are all justified in thinking that, since it has been known to happen before... Annie is 23 years old, from Vietnam. She is here in the UK going to university. She needed a place to stay for the summer and we needed someone to do cute, complicated hairstyles for three little girls. So it was a match! She has been living with us for about three weeks so far and things could not be better. We love Annie! We are glad you could be a part of our family. The only problem I foresee is that the girls will be completely depressed when she has to leave but that is not for another month and a half. So we won't focus on that bit right now.... 

Charles went to Germany and brought us all back these German football t-shirts. Germany was one of the finalists in the Euro Cup at the time. However, the next night they lost and were out. I think we cursed them wearing our shirts.

Annie's birthday was on July 7th. We celebrated with a big cake.

For the 4th of July we went to some American friend's house and let off fireworks. Annie had this lantern that the girls and her wrote all their wishes on and released it into the sky.

Annie played with sparklers for the first time on the 4th of July. Sammy is too afraid of sparklers now since she burned herself on some last year. She would not even come near them.

Funny story about the lantern - The girls and Annie have been writing down their wishes on the lantern for weeks now. They were so excited to launch it into the heavens and make all their wishes come true. They all had visions of "Tangled" in their heads. Just before we left the house, they all (at different times) accidentally stepped on the lantern tearing little holes into it. The biggest hole was on the top. We tried to fix it with tape. We launched it at our friend's house much to Charles relief. At first it did not look like it was going to fly but slowly it started to rise. It went up and flew over our friend's house but then we could see that it was starting to fall back down because of the holes, no doubt. We all went barreling to the front of the house. Much to our horror, it landed on the neighbor's roof across the street and looked like it was going to stay there, flame and all! We were all in a complete panic by this point. Visions of the neighbor's house going up in flames was all I could think of. Fortunately, it slowly slid down the side of their house and onto the ground. WHAT A RELIEF!!!  Good thing those neighbors happened to be out of town!

Alright, back to Annie. Here are some of the amazing hairstyles that she has done for the girls. Unfortunately, I have not gotten pictures of all of them. The girls love it because they go to school and get so much attention. Some of the mothers at their school have asked if Annie can hold some kind of class and teach them all how to do the various hairstyles.

Every night, Abby and Sammy are on YouTube looking up more hairstyles and deciding on which one they will have for the next day. Now I just need to learn how to do some of them but that may take a miracle. I can't even french braid!

Here is Sammy getting sock curlers. Did you know you can use your Daddy's CLEAN socks and curl your hair? Amazing!

Abby's sock curlers

Annie made Sammy's hair into a bow. Beautiful!

On a completely unrelated note: One day after school, Sammy and Alexandra put on these fancy hats and were walking the neighborhood. It happened to be the same day as Womens' Day at Ascot (the horse racing arena where part of the dress code requires women to wear very big and fancy hats).  A neighbor said they looked like they were ready to go. 

Notice Alex's wellies with her summer dress and fancy hat. I am so jealous how she can get away with that and I can't.

Walking the neighborhood

Alex discovered that she fits in the dryer. This is quite impressive actually since it is a European dryer which tend to be pretty small...

Last but not least, Sammy finally lost her first tooth. She has been waiting for what feels like forever. She has even lost a second one since this picture was taken. Hooray for money from the tooth fairy!

And one more of Alex "making dinner" with my onion goggles up side down, serving up dry pasta from the bag! Mmmm...delicious!