Happy 7th Birthday Lilian!

Saturday was Lilian's 7th Birthday!

And here is the Birthday Girl!

After starting off her morning with a round of presents (very similar to William's kick-off) Ms. Lilian enjoyed a special breakfast of fresh baked muffins and bacon. It was the last package of 'the favorite' muffins from America. :(
















Six girls from Lilian's class came over to our house for her birthday party at 2:00pm. Seven girls for Lilian's seventh birthday!

The girls decorated boxes for an Easter egg hunt. The weather cooperated (mostly) so Fiona could hide eggs in our back garden and the girls could hunt them.

The egg hunt was Lilian's creation (OK, Fiona had quite a bit of influence on the plan) -- eggs with points, eggs with chocolates and eggs with little marble eggs inside. The girl with the most points got first pick of the Polly Pockets that were for the prize bags (naturally the girls got to keep the eggs, chocolates and marbles too).

Fiona made Lilian a Barbie Birthday cake! Her dress is a white cake with pink buttercream frosting (with raspberries mixed in). It was pretty yummy!


And Lilian helped with the sprinkles and decorating Barbie's dress!




The girls also jumped on the trampoline, made sidewalk chalk drawings, had a 'guess who' quiz on each other and played Twister! The girls really seemed to have a fun afternoon.

The six girls that were guests at the party :

Sarah & Jordan

Oliva M & Annefien

Katherine & Oliva L

William managed to entertain himself with seven girls getting a bit silly during a birthday party. He was amazingly good. (At least as far as we know.) Of course he was (literally) sitting on his hands some of the time, but it was what he wanted to do.

What does the weather 'mostly' cooperated mean? Well it means not raining long enough to wipe off the trampoline and hide the eggs and then didn't rain until after the girls were ready to go back inside. But it hailed just after the girls went home. The sun was shining and little hailstones were falling at the same time. It makes life interesting!

Bugsy Art (and the Cat Update)

My niece Julie Petty sent me this wonderful drawing of our cat Bugsy.

Wow! Isn't this a wonderful drawing?

I'm amazed by it.


Bugsy at the window - colored pencil on Somerset White Velvet - approx 9 x 13


This is the photo she took last September as a reference shot for her drawing. I think she did a great job capturing Bugsy in both the photo AND the drawing. Thank you Julie!

The Cat Update
Bugsy and 'sister' Zoe (we got them at the same time, but they are only siblings in the adopted sense) have been living with Kendra and Bob back in Minnesota since January. (Kendra is a neuropsycholgist that works at the U with Fiona.)

From all accounts Kendra and Bob and Bugsy and Zoe have all been having a wonderful time together. (I don't know if Kendra and Bob plan to get cats, but from reading the e-mails of how much they've been enjoying Bugsy and Zoe -- I'd be surprised if they didn't get some!)

The cats are scheduled to come 'across the pond' on April 23. (I think) Then I think we'll be 'all settled in' here.

A Day with Mike and Linda Davies

Back in February Fiona, Lilian and William paid a visit to Fiona's godparents Mike and Linda Davies while Chuck was away in America visiting his mother. Fiona started to write this, but it took us a while to get this posted.

This is Mike Davies, Fiona's godfather...

and this is his wife Linda, Fiona's godmother.

Mike and Linda have three donkeys. Yes, three. The story goes something like this. You see, they got a donkey to keep this horse that they had company, because the horse got quite lonely when it lost its mate. Then the donkey got quite lonely when that horse passed away. So they wanted another donkey to keep the first one company. But the donkey they found was one of a pair. Either take both or no deal. So they have three donkeys. PS Lilian is feeding the donkey a peppermint in the photo. (I wish I were creative enough to make this sort of thing up.

Here is Linda with one of their two lovely dogs. I don't believe they get peppermints as treats. (but you never know, maybe they get cookies...)

The brave soul out in the water is kite surfing. Even in a wetsuit it must be a bit 'refreshing' to be in the water off Portsmouth in February! The large cresent shape you see in the sky would be the kite that is pulling him along the surface quite quickly.

William's 4th Birthday!

I've taken tons of photos from the various Birthday Celebrations for William and I will post more later, but I wanted to post a few to give you the highlights.

William had a wonderful, wonderful birthday.

This was his reaction to the presents in the morning. Since we're here all the presents that happen with friends and family all came at once. Wow!



William enjoyed all his presents, but this electric guitar, microphone & stand is the clear favorite. He performed three concerts for us on Saturday alone. He loves his electric guitar from Christmas, but he wanted one with strings. He is fascinated by 'Imagination Movers' -- a Disney channel show features a band that solves 'idea emergencies.' William studies it all. "Is this thing on?" And he knows the lyrics to his songs . . .




On Saturday afternoon we had a Birthday Party at an indoor play park. It has indoor climbing frames, slides, ball crawls and the little ones really have fun! The noise is amazing!

We invited all the children in William's classroom at ACS (the "Puddleducks") and we had 14 children (some siblings of his classmates) that came to his party. It was quite the gathering!

















Thank you to all our family, friends and William's new classmates and friends that sent cards, sent presents, called, visited, came to the party, or gave William presents for helping to make William's 4th Birthday (and 1st in England) a special Birthday to remember.


Ladies and Gentlemen . . . IntroducingWilliam Rocks!

Springing Up in England!

Precious little flowers coming up all around.

Days growing longer.

Birds singing through the day.

Spring arrives!

March brings Birthday Celebrations to the Mpls Andersons!
Our own spring babies turn 4 and 7 this month. Stay tuned . . .

London: Victoria & Albert Museum

I really like this carving of "V&A" along the balcony in the lobby of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Trademark? Logo? Brand?

One Saturday morning Lilian, William, Fiona and I took the train into London and then the underground to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V&A does a neat program for children - you can check out an activity backpack that has materials for a child to explore one of the galleries. I think they have backpacks for five different galleries. The activity packs make the gallery experience more interesting for the children, which gives the parents some time to explore AND it lets the children discover that there are interesting things in the museum. Win-win situation. For the record, William was most interested in riding on the train and the underground, but that is helpful for future adventures around the country too.

William loved the train ride into London.
And the London Underground and the train ride out of London.
He tolerated the museum, but I can't say he liked it.

Lilian was pretty excited about the train ride too.

Fiona's nice purple specs
(A little less thrilled than the children about the train ride)

OK. Confession time.
There is a McDonald's in Waterloo station.
We used it to bribe the children to get out and explore London.
It worked. The children enjoyed both.
You use the tools you have available.

This is a giant piece (over 30 feet tall) of Dale Chihuly's glasswork that is hanging in the main lobby of the V&A. His glass work is beautiful and these giant ones are just awesome.

Here are a few other large Chihuly installations I really like. (Not photos we shot). First, "Sunburst" in the lobby of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. A gift from Cargill and Donna MacMillian. (Minneapolis says thank you!)



I spent a few days in the Bahamas at Atlantis a few years ago they have two other large Chihuly installations - "The Temple of the Moon" and "The Temple of the Sun."










OK, just one more. There is a Chihuly installation on the ceiling of the lobby of the Bellagio.

This is the official end of the memory lane tour of Chihuly glass Chuck has seen. Memorable work.

We now return you to The Mpls Andersons Abroad trip to the Victoria and Albert Museam in London and photos we actually took...

Fiona, William, Lilian (and the activity backpack from the V&A)

For the record, Lilian chose which gallery the backpack was for (really I had no idea what the options were) she chose the the glass exhibit!

Lilian as museum explorer and tour guide

Lilian drawing one of her favorite pieces in the exhibit

Victoria

Albert


A very cool glass staircase -- the railing posts are stacks of square pieces of glass with a chrome bolt down the middle that holds them together. The pieces are twisted just a bit, which makes the light reflect in quite an interesting way. Only after climbing the staircase did I realize that the stair treads and the mezzanine floor above are all made of the same glass.
Very cool.
William, Fiona & Lilian walk by fascinated by other things...


The railings at the edge the mezzanine level. This gives you a sense of the way the light plays off the squares that are 'twisted' just a bit from being in a straight even stack. The photo doesn't do it justice.