The Long Family arrived into London while the Christmans were still occupying the guest suite at the Lodge. Eric works for the same company as John (Getco) but in the Singapore office. The office was kind enough to put the Longs up in a lovely hotel when they arrived. However, on Monday 1 March, after saying goodbye to the Christmans, we did a quick change of sheets and welcomed Eric, Emily, Kaya and Ashwin Long to stay with us. We were very happy for Emily to have laundry, toys and other distractions (my children) for her as we know quite well that hotel rooms can make a Mom and small children stir crazy! It was such fun for us to spend so much time with Eric and Emily's beautiful children. Kaya was just a baby when we left and we had never even met Ash! We really enjoyed seeing them and getting to know the kids so well. And our amazing Nilda allowed us to have a really fun evening out at the Getco Bowling/Karaoke Party! Thanks Nilda!
On Friday 5 March we said "Au revoir!" to the Longs. During a late night of wine drinking, John and I convinced them that a quick side trip to Paris was a must since they traveled all the way from Singapore! Despite the terribly cold weather in Paris, we understand it was a great trip!
On Friday evening after washing the guest room sheets again, we welcomed the Kennedy Family from Toronto. We know the Kennedys from Barrington but they are in the midst of their own ex-pat experience and have been living in Toronto for two years. In Barrington, two of the Kennedy boys went to school with Jack and Owen. Needless to say, Jack was thrilled to see Nolan again and Owen was almost paralyzed with excitement about being reunited with "Griffie!" (Griffin). Nolan and Griffin's older brother Devon was a great sport and played football with Jack and they all took turns playing Wii, Nintendo DS games, etc. The boys were in heaven! We managed to get all of the boys to an Arsenal match while Jane and I spent the afternoon shopping...it was a great visit, but too short! We hope they will come back again soon, especially because they have family not far from where we live!
Finally on Tuesday 16 March we welcomed Dorothy and Joel Chase from Warrenton, Virginia. My aunt and uncle stopped off in London for a visit after a trip to France and Barcelona to see their daughter (and my cousin...see earlier blog entry) Carrie, who is studying at the University of Barcelona. She is a student at Elizabethtown College and is majoring in Spanish so she spent a semester last year in Ecuador and has spent this semester in Barcelona. Dorothy and Joel had a rough trip! After getting stuck in a tiny little french town on account of snow and missing two full days in Barcelona, they arrived to London and my uncle caught a terrible cold and spent one full day in bed! They were scheduled to fly home on March 20 on BA...thankfully the strike did not affect their flight and they made it home without further complications! We had a great visit and enjoyed a lot of fun evenings together! We were glad our children got to spend so much time with them too since they were quite young the last time we were all together.
It is terribly quiet at The Lodge now! The kids are on Easter break and all they care to do is play Wii, watch t.v. and play football outside. We took a quick trip to York over the March 26-28 weekend (blog entry coming soon) and we will take a drive down to the coast over Easter weekend to visit Dover, Brighton, Rye and some other cute towns. John cannot take off much work during this break as we have our US trip coming up in July and a vacation planned for October. Plus, we haven't seen enough of England so we are hoping to venture out over several weekends throughout the next year and see more of this beautiful country, Wales and Scotland.
Our next visitors arrive on April 22 - we look forward to having Scott and Laura Simpson here to show them our life in London.
Cheers to all our friends and family...keep visiting us!!!
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