We haven’t had many road trips lately, so not too many notes from the road. But we are getting ready for more road trips – we bought a new car! Hooray! We bought a left hand drive (like they have in the US) in the UK (where they drive on the opposite side of the road), so it has been interesting getting used to it! I have to say though, it is still easier than driving a right hand drive on the wrong side of the road! We bought the LHD car since we plan to spend most of our time on the continent, where they drive on the side we are used to. In the meantime, we are just a bit opposite.
We love our new car (it is a Volkswagen Touran), it fits all 3 boys (and their carseats/boosters) in the middle row, so we can fill the back with all of our junk! (In celebration, I shopped on Amazon UK, so I could start filling up all that space with new stuff 😉 )
15 minutes of fame (or more specifically, about 30 seconds of very limited fame on a kids podcast):
I have mentioned before our love for the podcast The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian. On the show, they often share jokes submitted by kid listeners (usually with a space or robot theme like the show), and A & L submitted their jokes, which were played on a special episode. If you want to listen to the boys telling their jokes, you can listen to it here. Unless you want to listen to the first 10 minutes of kid jokes, you can skip to the 10:00 mark to hear the boys.
Things We Nearly Hit
As a result our trip to the Isle of Skye off the coast of Scotland, we have some new animals we nearly hit!
- Sheep. Lots of sheep. On the road, off the road, near the road. Sheep are everywhere. The boys like watching them try to run off the road. They just kind of slowly bumble away. C took L & N on a farm tour earlier in the month and the farmer told them they have to shave their sheep or they can’t get up when they fall over! Not super graceful creatures.
this sheep is moving about as fast as we’ve ever seen one move. It isn’t very fast.
this one is smart enough to be off the road
2. Highland Cattle aka Hairy Coos
These are cows, but look much cooler than your average cow. They are big and shaggy. These guys would have probably caused more damage to us than we would have caused to them, so we stopped and patiently waited for them to move to the side of the road.
3. Army guy in full camouflage and a neon vest
As we were driving down the road in rural England, we came across a man on the side of the road in a full camouflage outfit, right down to the camouflage helmet, with camouflage fabric spiraling out of the top of it. So this guy has gone to considerable effort to blend in to his surroundings, right? Well, this outfit was topped by a neon yellow vest. Like the kind a crossing guard (or “lollipop men” as they are called in the UK). So – imagine it. Kind of a cross between these two:
Bizarre right? It seems there was an army training facility nearby, so that explains the camouflage, but I suppose they don’t want to do too good of a job disguising themselves when standing next to a road in rural Britain, with cars zooming down those small twisting roads! Regardless, not something you see everyday, and thank goodness for the neon vest, so he can simply go on our “nearly hit” list.
Homeschooling
We have been homeschooling these last few months. I don’t think either C or I are particularly good at it, but the boys seem to be getting by. However mediocre we may be at homeschooling basic elementary-level reading and math, we are NOT AT ALL creative. Luckily, Dr. Google stepped in to save the day, and we found online tutorials with step by step instructions for drawing basically anything. N has been thoroughly enjoying it. Here he is with his very finest masterpiece. He actually has made about 3 books worth of similar drawings (cats, fish, German Shepherds, giraffes, soccer players, snakes, hamburgers, etc etc)
Though N is by far the most prolific of us all, each of us took time to do a few drawings!
Speaking of homeschooling – here is L’s homework page – kind of funny that he incorrectly answered the question on the best measurement for vacation – in our family, this vacation has been measured in months, not days!
More to come soon – after 2 months in the UK, we are heading to the continent – Belgium, Switzerland, France and Spain, here we come!
