Leaky Charm: Pantos and Birthdays and Oxford Oh my!

Happy Birthday Anne Elyse~

I can't believe it! Anne turned 11~ She is SO excited~ and even more excited to turn

12 next year so start attending young women's. What???

She had a fun day with her birthday request of french crepes and smoothies. After breakfast, I was able to take Anne, and her two friends (Anne Frost and Annie Petchey - yes, all Annes', so Spencer calls them "Anne Sandwich"), to a painting pottery shop where they all picked out anything they wanted to paint.

They all chose to paint a mug.

It was so fun listening to them chat and giggle about everything. They sang to the

background music and seemed to have a great time together.

I have to say, I love this age. These little girls are so cute and easy to entertain.

Panto - Beauty and the Beast

That evening I got tickets for our family to go to the Windsor Theatre and watch a VERY traditional English event, a live Panto. Panto's are only performed for about six weeks out of the year during the Christmas season.

This year, in Windsor, they performed Beauty and the Beast.

K, I'm not quite sure how to describe a Panto. So you think you're going to go and see a show you've seen a million times or at least know the story very well. And I can say there was a 'thread' of the story line in the show, but it is an event you have to experience for yourself. The audience is supposed to participate and it was so crazy and funny. We had NO idea what we were actually going to see. But we all had such a great time and the kids are already requesting to go again next Christmas.

Ringing in the 2015 New Year!

We had the Frost's and the Goodlet's over for New Years Eve, ate too much food and played some fun games.
Alyson brought over some floating lanterns so we lit them and sent them off at midnight. It was really pretty.

Spencer and Aaron Goodlet had a great "New Year's Day ride" the next morning to Windsor and back.

We finally got to try our first "British Christmas Cracker." It's a very popular English tradition to hand everyone one of these tubes that look like a big piece of candy. Everyone in the circle crosses their arms and grabs the end of the crackers next to them. Then you count to three and all pull the ends at once. All of the tubes "crackle and pop" and out fall different little toys and treasures. The one who gets the "crown" is supposed to be the one who gets all the prizes. Josh got the crown but as you can see, Ty hurried and
snatched a toy off the ground for himself.

University of Oxford

It was Yu Chen's birthday on Sunday so we decided to drive over to Oxford and walk around the beautiful campus and town after church then come back to our house for dinner and milkshakes.
Here are a few of the pictures of the afternoon.

Yu Chen has become such a dear friend. He is kind, funny, humble and an amazing example of faith. He has chosen to change so many of his past beliefs and practices in order to follow what the Savior has taught.
He is such an incredible example for all of us. Happy Birthday Yu Chen!

It was pretty chilly

The Bodleian Library - the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and second in size only to the British Library in London.