A4 Update - February 2016

February can be drab, but we have some incredible sunrises & sunsets.

The kids had two days off this month due to inclement weather. One day was from another ice storm, and the second was for a horrendous tornado outbreak in the Mid-Atlantic states. Wake County schools announced a three-hour early release at 10:30am on the day of the tornadoes. Everyone was nervous as a day of decision to release students early is not an easy task for a school district to undertake.  

Matt traveled a ton in February.  This time all in the USA.

The family went to a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game, and it was a ton of fun! The audience was engaged during the whole game. We even saw the Stanley Cup at the ceremony celebrating the ten year anniversary of the Hurricanes Championship.  

Holly started volunteering at Youngest Kiddo's school. She is starting in the library and hopes to get into the classroom soon.  

Speaking of Youngest Kiddo, he needed new shoes. Apparently his size 13 trainers no longer fit his size 3 feet!  Going for parents of the year on that one. 

We continue to make the house our own. Matt installed a new Elfa organizer in the master closet, which is phenomenal. The painter started at the end of the month to bring the house out of the mid-1990's. The electrician made sure all the proper outlets were GFCI connected. The fireplace technician cleaned up the unit to remove about 20 years of dust and insects. 

To round out the month, the laborious task of furniture shopping is in full force. Ugh.  

The highlight of the end of the month was an excursion to one of the many nature preserves in Raleigh. This town is full of parks. The kids loved jumping over the fallen trees and throwing rocks in the lake.  

The warmer weather is moving in, we've already had a few 70 degree days.  

A4 Update - June 2015

Yeah, yeah, I'm a little behind.

Oldest Kiddo went on a three day school trip.  She was completely wiped out from canoeing, climbing, abseiling (rappelling down a rockface), mountain biking, and a whole lot of friend time.  

Holly happily finished working on the school summer fair; it was a full time job for a while.  The school community had fun, and there was plenty of Pimms all around.  

The kids had a day off from school, and we left the city limits to pick strawberries.  

Matt's sister and her husband visited The Manor for a week, and it was brilliant to have them here.  Oldest Kiddo was sick for some of their visit which hindered our ability to tour with them.

London experienced summer with a heatwave of above 85 degrees.  When you don't have air conditioning, it's awful.  Thankfully it only lasted a few days and then we went back to the low 70s.  

Let's see what July brings!

Time In the Moat at The Tower of London

Britain is commemorating the centenary (British for 100 years) of World War I in many ways this year.  One of the most overt rembrances was the Tower Poppies installation at The Tower of London.  Each poppy on display symbolized the death of a Commonwealth soldier during the war.  Volunteers spent many hours assembling an astounding 888,246 ceramic poppies to plant in the moat.  The installation started in August, and the final poppy was planted on Armistice Day (Veterans Day in the USA).     

If you've seen any of the photos I liked on Instagram, you'd notice my slight infatuation with the Tower Poppies.  Check out some of the photos by Historic Royal Palaces, Levanterman, and TheLondonHeli on Instagram for more amazing shots.

The Tower Poppies from The Shard's observation floor

While on our expat adventure, I've been fortunate to view the poppies several times as the installation grew.  As the installation grew, so did the number of tourists.  Toward the end of October, the huge numbers of people visiting the display often required the Tower Hill Underground Station to close due to overcrowding.  

On an overcast Saturday in November, I was a part of something extremely special.  I spent the morning in the moat of The Tower of London removing just a small portion of the 888,246 poppies.  Each one of these beauties was purchased as part of a charity fundraiser to benefit several charities.  

I was astonished at what it took to make the installation possible.    

• The poppies are ceramic so there is an element of fragility.  Each poppy was allocated to a paying customer, so each broken poppy ate into the charitable profits when it needed to be replaced.  
• Each poppy was comprised of six parts!  The ceramic poppy was sandwiched between four different sizes of rubber washers.
• To finish it off the poppy was perched upon a metal rod.  

After our group leader gave instructions on how to dismantle the poppies, everyone got to it.  By that I mean taking selfies.  Holy moly, I think some volunteered so they could take pictures for the entire shift instead of actually getting their hands dirty.  I suppose when working with the public you get what you get.  Once most of the group got their fill of photos, it was down to work.  

I was super happy that I wore my wellies

We took turns unplanting the poppies and safely organizing the parts.  The poppies went into their original box, and the metal rods were bundled into groups of 30.  The most tedious of the jobs was sorting the four rubber washers.  Just when we thought we'd made a dent in the pile, someone would pour on their group's stash.  Some of the metal rods had started to rust and the washers were stuck so it took strong hands to remove them.    

The poppies harbored the perfect environment for some massive worms!  All I could say when I saw these birds was Mine! Mine! Mine!

 

Our leader was thrilled to share that we'd unplanted over 3,000 poppies!

The only way out at the end of our shift was to walk all the way around the moat.  I could not have been more excited about the walk.  Truly an experience I will never forget.