Pictures from Normandy, Omaha Beach and the Cemetary

Some of our students saw the Queen-but we saw 1000's of nude bikers.......

We went with David and Sally to London for a couple of days, we saw the Crown Jewels and Tower of London and did the City Bus Tour. The weather was so nice all weekend! It was the Queen's birthday so she was out but we knew that would be crazy to try to get involved in. But several of our students just fell into the right spot and got some great pictures. WE on the other hand saw many many many people on bikes with out clothes from the top of our double decker bus. I could go on about this but I guess I won't. Yuck- ugly naked!!! For you Seinfield watchers.

David and Sally and Amber went on the London Eye (the really big ferris wheel), Ashlyn and I went in the National Gallery and Jonathan went on a Beetles Walking Tour. After all that we left David and Sally in London since they fly out today and we came back to Oxford. It will be nice to be home for a few days before we head to Italy

France-I think I could live there!!!

We just got back from 4 days in France, 2 nights in Paris and 2 nights in Bayeux. If you are ever going to Paris I would highly recommend you find a way to see this little town also. The french country side is unbelievable, it was soooo beautiful! 

Our first 2 nights spent in Paris were so fun, we started off with a Fat Tire Bike Tour, as soon as we get started we ended up in a race to stay ahead of all the streets being blocked off because the US President was being "shown the town" There were police everywhere and all the streets were blocked off. The cool thing is we did not have to fight the car traffic much at all and the police were telling us to hurry up (because Obama was coming up behind us.) Our guide took us over to Notre Dame and we were stopping to get Ice Cream while we were stopped  the Presidents motorcade drove right in front of us.  Then he took us to the Louve and the motorcade went by us again! It was quite exciting, I must admit though we could not see him because of the dark windows of his vehicle, but I am sure he was waving at us all, haha. We had a great time with the students that were with us. We finished off the bike tour with a boat ride on the Sein River and were back to our Hostel at 1:00 that night (the bike tour was supposed to be from 7-11:00 pm- it went long because of all the President stuff). The girls did great on the bikes and had more fun than any of us could have planned.

The next day we went to the Musee D Orsay, Notre Dame, the Louve, we ate some great quiche, pizza and had our first crepe this trip (it was the first of many in a few days). 

The next 2 days were spent in Bayeux, it is a small old town in the Normandy area. We spent the day with a tour guide telling us all about D Day, which happened to have had its 65th anniversary just 2 days earlier-which is why the President was in France. We went to several different beaches including Omaha Beach and also went to the US Cemetery. The weather was some of the worst I have ever experienced in England. It was so cold, wet, raining and windy. It is hard to even imagine what it was like for all those young soldiers on June 6th 1944.  At the end of the tour we all got hot chocolate and tried to warm up, our pants and shoes dried out later that night.  

We spent the morning shopping in Bayeux- Ashlyn and I picked out some really cutie scarves and Amber got a very pretty hair.....thing. 

It has been fun to have David and Sally along for the experience.

The Lewis' are passing through AND we went to the Antique market

Susan, Gayla, Ashlyn, Amber and I went to the outdoor Antique Market. I found some tea cups and saucers- I hope I can make it home with them in one piece!!! It was so fun to hang out the the girls and friends at the market square, the weather was so nice again (thursday). 

Pictures so far.................

Jonathan's parent's got here last night and will be spending a few days with us. I went on an Oxford bus tour with them this morning and got some great pictures of the city. Todays weather is a bit more typical Oxford weather-raining and colder, I guess it has to happen sometime. 

Day 2

The girls and I went with Gayla to the open market yesterday, I bought some little tomatoes, strawberries, cherries and a cucumber. It is so fun to mingle with the Oxford locals. Walking every where is such a different pace of life than what we are used to and we love it. Of coarse it NOT being 95 degrees makes that fun, I am not sure what the temperature has been but I would guess it is in the 70's (no TV for us either).  Also we went to a few shops and Ashlyn found some great cloths at a second hand shop (my little smart shopper) haha. At the end of day our sweet friends from Abilene got to our place (Michael, Susan, Barrett and Ethan Lewis) they are going to be in Oxford for a few days while they finish up their stay in the UK. So fun to hang out with them-  we talked and ate Cadbury liquid chocolate and cheese and crackers (Jonathan says the cheese tastes like it has vanilla in it-BUT it doesn't) I think drinking all that Diet Coke has finally ruined his taste buds!! 

The Stewart's are in Oxford England!!!!

I have created a new blog to document our 2009 trip to England. I can't promise it will be entertaining or even worth reading but if you want to see what is going on with us for the next month you can check here.

We got to Oxford on June 2nd, The first day we moved into our living space which is on the 2nd floor of house 9. Here is the funny thing, in England they call the bottom floor the ground floor, the second floor the FIRST floor and the 3rd floor the 2nd floor. But I do not care what they call it I have been climbing 3 flights of stairs quite often and I have tired legs at the end of the day! haha, maybe they will be in better shape by the end of this journey (in spite of the chocolate and bread I plan to eat while we are here).