An overnight trip to York

Ed's sister Hilda and her husband, Wes came to London to visit for six days. On the second day we decided on the spur of the moment to pack a bag for overnight and drive up to York. We had heard that York is nice and has this old wall around the city.
On the way we saw a tall cathedral coming from a small village. The town is Lincoln and has the beautiful cathedral in it.

This is the inside of the cathedral.
Here is the wall surrounding most of the city of York. Of course York has grown so there is city on both sides of the wall.
Another view of the wall.

Looking at parts of the city of York and it's large cathedral.

Peace Garden in Bitche & Bodensee lake

The Monday after family day, we went to see the Citadel and Peace garden in a village by the name of Bitche which sounds like Beach when the French say it. But sounds like it is spelled when you don't use the French accent.
I don't know what this garden was called. The peace garden was a series of separate gardens, each with a theme. On this one, the walking path was made up of broken blue glass. The edges were not sharp and it was about three different shades of blue. So it was like I was walking on water. The blue glass things above my head had at times some mist coming out of the tubes to represent either clouds or fog? It was cool.
Then we took a three hour drive to southern Germany to Bodensee lake with another cousin and his wife. This is B&B we stayed in.
And this is what we saw when we came out of our B&B. It was a beautiful lake.

Another view of one of the harbours.

Winery Tour & Family Day

The day after Erica's 80th bday party we had a tour of a local winery. Here we are getting ready to see the introductory film.
This is our tour guide showing us some of the storage and processes.

And at the end of the tour is the tasting!
Ed's nieces, Sophie and Laura (Sylvia's daughters) were able to make it to the weekend for Erica's birthday party and Family Day. Family day used to be an annual (now every two years) reunion of Ed's mothers siblings and kids and now their kids. It's always held on the family farm in France. This is the first one I have been able to be at.

With that many people there is plenty for a football (Soccer) game.

Ed's mother came from a family of 16! There were nearly 200 people at the event.

Esther Misrahi

Esther Misrahi was a 20 year old member of the Wood Green Mennonite Church. She had a recurrence of cancer that originated when she was 4 years old. Her father died around five years ago from the same type of cancer.

These are pictures that were taken near the end of April 2008 after she had gone through nearly a year of chemo and radiation. Kathy, the wife of the director of the LMC put together a quilt of blocks that people who knew Esther gave to Kathy and it was made into a comforter.
Here Esther is holding the book that tells who each block is from and a little writing from them to her. She was having difficulty talking both because the radiation had made her throat and vocal chords sore and because she was a bit overcome.
Easter died on July 11, 2008 and she will be greatly missed by her family and friends. Please keep her mother Lesley and her brother Adam in your prayers.

More France pictures

Here's another castle we saw on the Rhine during our cruise.

Ed's mother celebrated her 80th birthday with her siblings and a few of her children & spouses. There are 11 siblings out of 16 remaining and they were all there. It was a wonderful meal.
Here is an old church on the Rhine valley.

This is Ed's brother Philip and Phil's daughter Nichole.

A week with family in France & Germany

This picture somehow got deleted when I was uploading. It should have followed the boat picture.


After working until 11pm at least one night, Ed and I finished one of our semi annual mailings so that we could go on a week's vacation. Ed's mom turned 80 in May and she was having her celebration with her siblings and some of her children in France where she grew up.

Ed and I flew to Baden Baden and were picked up by his sister Hilda and her husband Wes then we drove to Wissembourg, France and checked into a quaint B&B. After a nice breakfast of breads, cheeses, meats, juice, coffee, & fruit, we met up with Frank & Erica (Ed's parents), and Phil, Renee, Tyler and Nichole (Ed's brother and family) at the family farm in the Alsace. We drove about 2 1/2hrs north to a place on the Rhine where we boarded this boat and took a cruise on the river where there are a lot of castles along the Rhine.
The villages were all very quaint and there were many castles along the way. We cruised about 2 hours or so, stopped and got off the boat and had a nice lunch outside.
After lunch we got back on the boat and traveled back but it took more like 4 hours going back. The weather was great. Not too hot but nice and warm and sunny.

Some of us had some ice cream afterwards.

I have many more pictures to show but I'll go slow and do a day or two of our trip at a time!

Next up will be Erica's 80th bday dinner celebration......a tour of a local winery....and family day activities!

Eating after a day of cool stuff

This picture should actually have gone after the others but I didn't get it in the right order. After the day of all the things I described below, we ate at Wagamama's........good food!

More Tower of London

On Tuesday, we took off for a tour of Lloyd's of London. This was set up by Phil who works for Goodville Mennonite Mutual and Lloyd's re insures Goodville. It's complicated but we got a free tour of their building. I wasn't able to go but the rest did and they said it was really fantastic. Much better than they thought it was going to be. You'll have to ask them about it.

After the tour they got a free lunch which over looked the Tower of London then I met them at the Tower and they gave us free tickets to the Tower of London. Here's the group after going through the main tour, seeing the crown jewels, and having gone through a couple of the other towers.
This is the group after seeing the torture tower!
Kevin, Nichole's bear got to see everything for free.
Dorothy and Kelly weren't close to London Bridge but decided to sing it anyway.
This is one of the beefeaters. They start the tours and give a lot of information about the tower.