A trip to Wales

So when you drive from England into Wales all of a sudden all the signage is in two languages: English and Welsh.
I need to say what led us to go to Wales. Every year at the end of August, there is a Christian Arts Festival in Cheltenham on the grounds of the horse race track. Most of the others at the Centre go to it and help man the London Mennonite Centre's stand. Most of them camp on the grounds with port a loos and no showers, etc. That's really not our thing so we drive them there, help to unload and take a long weekend vacation. It gives us a chance to get away from the Centre and everyone else to air out so to speak.
We decided this year to visit a part of Wales. The Gower peninsula has a number of great beaches and castles to explore. We stayed in a small Hotel called The Shoreline Inn in the village of Mumbles. This is a shot of the street standing on the sidewalk right outside of the Hotel.
This is the view across the street from our Hotel looking at a nice kids playground and behind the playground is the Swansea Bay. Swansea is a bigger city just North of Mumbles.
The first day we arrived was a very nice day with blue sky and pleasant temps. The is the Bay with some sail boats and fishing boats anchored.
We walked around to get the kinks out of our legs. About 1/2 mile up the bay is this pier with a restaurant where we ate two different nights.
After a walk we took some time to relax by watching a bit more of the Olympics then headed out to find a fish and chips shop. To date, it was the best fish and chips we've ever had. We ate it in a park and just enjoyed how calm the night was.
I have a lot more pictures and stories but will save them for the next few entries.

Daughter #2 is 23!

I don't have many pictures on this computer of Erica but this is a good one taken at Emily's wedding in Oct 2006. She turned 23 on 15 August. Wow that went fast! My favorite story of Erica is when she was about 4 years old. She was over at Megan Gerbers playing for the day and I went over to pick her up to take her home. Pam and I went into the bedroom where they were playing and of course the room had toys and clothes strewn all over the place. Erica had her socks off (the usual) and so I asked her to find her socks and put them on because it was time to go. She was sitting on the floor and started to look around to locate her socks. She picked up a sock and said "is this my sock?" Then she held it up to her nose, took a sniff and declared... "yeah, this is my sock." I can still see that scene vividly in my mind.
We picked some strawberries about a month ago and the place we went had what they call "table top strawberries." The plants are in containers about four feet off the ground which makes for easy pickin'.
Here's a picture of Harrods. Harrods is a department store in London that is famous. It's always very busy but mostly with people gawking at the prices. When we went there the first time, I looked a a scarf.....well I passed it up as it was 250 pounds which translates into $500. There are always lots of high priced cars, limos, and taxi's outside having escorted the rich and famous to Harrods. They do have anything you could possible be looking for, even polo equipment.

Wood Green Mennonite Church Fun Day

Our church has a fun day now and then where we just get together and eat and play games. One of the games was a digital camera scavenger hunt. This is our team. We couldn't think of a catchy name on short notice so we were just the Team USA/MMN/LMC (United States of America/Mennonite Mission Network/London Mennonite Centre.)
Here is one of the three table games that was going on. I was in the library playing scrabble in which I came in 2nd out of four! Ed was up in our flat taking a nap.

More doors of London

In my previous entry I said that I didn't have any pictures to post as we haven't taken any pictures lately. Then I remembered that I haven't shown all the doors of London pictures I have. So here are five more.

August slow down

June and July have been really busy for us with activity at the Centre as well as family visitors and doing some traveling. So I had plenty of pictures and stories to blog about. Now the month of August the Centre is closed to meetings, seminars, etc. So it has slowed down some. I have kept the guest rooms open and they are full this whole month. It keeps me busy doing the laundry, cleaning rooms, keeping breakfast items on hand plus answering the phone and the other office work there is to do. So August at the Centre isn't much of a slow down for me. We don't even go into Central London as August is peak time for tourists. We have a son of one of Ed's cousins here doing some work and visiting London and he said it's really difficult to see things at the museums as it is so crowded.

The one very good thing is that we rarely get even close to 80 degrees. Usually it's around 70 to 76. Actually that's good as it is humid here and when it gets past 75 and the sun comes out, it gets really sticky. I suppose that's why we like the Colorado Rockies so much where the air is cool and dry.

Ed hasn't been wielding his camera lately so new pictures will have to wait until we go on a long weekend to Wales the end of August.

Air Race on the Thames

I can't believe I actually got to see this. I had seen the ads for it and knew tickets were 35 pounds! Phyllis, Felix, and I visited the Docklands Museum in the same area and heard the planes roaring, the sound rattling between the buildings. Felix and I decided to try to get a glimpse of the action. Phyllis decided to go home.

We headed toward where the sound was coming from over bridges and under train tracks, skirting canals and harbors until we got to the edge of the Thames. There we found a jetty that took us out to the river. Since the gate was open and a few other people were there, we joined the party. There were about 10 planes that took turns running a slalom course of large blow-up cones in the river. The planes are small but very fast. 155 pics later, here are two favorites

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.

Visits from some Shirks

Life at the LMC has been hectic recently. With summer comes tourists and other kinds of travelers such as pastors on sabbatical. This keeps the guest rooms (which are few) full. So it seems I am constantly cleaning a room, doing the laundry, making sure there is enough food for their breakfast, etc. The latest couple from the states were Dave and Mary Miller from State College, PA. They attended East Goshen Mennonite when we were there back in the late 70's, early 80's. We did some catching up and had a good time visiting with them. He is traveling and studying on a Lilly Grant and has been taking in all things anabaptist. He was able to get in on a quarterly Root and Branch meeting as well as the monthly Highgate Churches together meeting which also had Dr. Chris Hewer who was the Administrator of Interfaith Relations to the Bishop of Birmingham. He spoke on ISLAM: IF I CARE, I WILL TRY TO UNDERSTAND.
The other fun thing happening here is that two of Ed's sibs have come to visit with their families. Phil, his youngest brother from Lititz, PA and their kids Tyler and Nichole arrived on Thursday, then Dorothy, the youngest sister, came on Saturday with her two girls, Lynn and Kelly. We enjoyed a nice meal together which started with appetizers in the garden.....
then the main in the kitchen.
Topped off with some card playing before bedtime.