This weekend, Jen and her friend Kathleen drove to Toronto to see the best band in the world-GREAT BIG SEA! Jen has been following the band since about 1999 or so and has seen the band in concert in the US and Canada a total of about 7 times. The band is from Newfoundland and play a sort of rock-folk kind of music. The concert was at the Molson Amphitheater and was completely sold out. The band was, as always, incredible! Every concert is memorable in some way. This one, oddly, was memorable because of the tram ride back to our hotel. Leaving with thousands of other GBS fans, Jen and Kathleen found themselves singing GBS songs with a tram full of strangers from one end of the line to the other. Every time the tram stopped to pick up new passengers, the poor people getting on looked so confused as to why an entire tram full of people were singing in unison at the top of their lungs. But that's what Great Big Sea does to people--it makes them happy and friendly :-) Since it would have been a shame to go to Toronto and not do some touristy things, Jen and Kathleen spent Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum. It's a neat museum in a very unusual building.

Saturday was spent walking around town, including a stroll to the waterfront.

July 1st is both Derrick's sister's and Derrick's dad's birthday. On the day itself, we drove up to Lapeer to celebrate Jamie's 21st with her (we'll be with Rick on Sunday). Jamie's dad, Derrick, Jamie's mom, Jamie's boyfriend's mom, Jamie's boyfriend, Jamie, and Jamie's sister are all pictured here. Jen was the photographer. We had delicious steak, fries, corn on the cob, all sorts of other side dishes....

and ice cream cake

and yes, she's 21 :-)

This weekend, Jen traveled to Rockford, Illinois for her youngest sister Kate's bridal shower. Meg flew to Detroit and drove with Jen, and it's a good thing they had each other's company for the 9 hour drive! Thank you Chicago traffic. The weekend was tons of fun, and the bride-to-be seemed to enjoy herself. Jen and Meg got a chance to see Kate's wedding dress in person, but we decided Kate might be mad if we posted those pictures here too :-)

Here is the beautiful bride-to-be, holding the "bouquet" made for her by Jen and Kate's mom as she unwrapped her many, many gifts... for those of you who don't know the tradition, this ribbon bouquet is then used by the bride during the rehearsal of the wedding ceremony.

A number of Kate's friends attended the shower, including Ginny and Stacy, as well as little Elizabeth, shown here

Kate cut her chocolate and raspberry cake, which was delicious

and the groom, Paul, arrived to open presents with his bride-to-be

We recently painted our formerly blue front door a nice bright red and our formerly yellowish fence a reddish brown...

Not great quality (caught on my phone) but worth it nonetheless!

Millie's look says, "Why is Chloe in my bed? Get her out. Get her out!" Chloe's look says, "Oh yeah, I'm in the dog's bed."

We're back--sorry for our long hiatus from the world of blogging--our camera broke over Christmas. But a new one was Jen's fabulous birthday present, so now the pictures can resume.

As we so frequently mention, life is rough for the Teal animals

It is only from time to time that one of the aforementioned animals does something that requires somewhat harsher treatment...

She says "Save me!"

Over Spring Break, Jen went to Beverly, Kentucky to work at the Red Bird Mission. 8 adults and 32 high school students from our church went down to serve the Beverly community by helping clean up property, build and repair houses and trailers, and meet and get to know the people who live there. This depressed region is the 5th poorest county in the U.S. and Red Bird Mission welcomes volunteers year round to help with their efforts. Below, you can see pictures of Jen's work group putting a roof on a porch, building a back stoop, and cleaning out a trailer on a site to be used for transitional housing. On Wednesday, our day of rest, we went to see Cumberland Falls, the largest waterfall South of Niagara and East of the Mississippi River. And you can also see that Jen made a good four-legged friend while on the trip.

On our last day in England over the holidays, we got to spend some time with our friends Tim and Betsy. You regulars may remember Tim and Betsy from Berlin in '05 and Kutna Hora, Czech Republic in '06. They are now living outside London and were the most gracious hosts for our last night in town. Tim is, sadly, not pictured, as he is the photographer. We began our little sightseeing day with a quick visit to the site of where the Magna Carta was signed.

Tim and Betsy drove us into Windsor to see Windsor Castle, one of the royal family's homes. But alas, it had closed mid-afternoon, so we missed the last entry. We did get some nice views of the castle even from outside the gates, though. We loved the little lamp posts with crowns on top, too.

Derrick, caught unaware in a moment of laughter

After our attempt to see Windsor Castle, we settled for a walk across the Thames to Eton and a stroll through the town, including a look at the "Crooked House of Windsor" seen below.

Over Christmas this year, we traveled "across the pond" to spend time with Jen's family in England. As a change of pace, instead of staying near Jen's grandparents, who live in Kent, we stayed in this lovely old vicarage in the TINY village of Priors Marston in Warwickshire. Once we finally found it (we had begin to think it was a magical village that only appeared once every hundred years out of the fog), we settled in nicely. The owners run the house as a B&B but offer a special at Christmas. We were treated as kings and queens! Three meals a day, home cooked, and we didn't have to wash up afterwards :-) There was a lovely little room called "the snug" with a huge walk-in fireplace. And it was topped off with David and Judith's sweet golden retriever, Poppy. As you can see, the weather in England was significantly warmer than here in Michigan, adn we had the chance to enjoy a day at Warwick castle as well as some nice walks in the village.

Jen's dad, Tim, outside the house.

We had two Christmas trees in the house, one here in the formal living room, and one in the snug.

On one of our walks, we headed down to the canal where we got to watch a few river boats come down the channel.

After we all arrived, a bit jet-lagged but excited to be there, we kicked things off with Meg's graduation ceremony. We should explain.... Meg just completed her Ph.D. But the trip had already been booked when her graduation date at the University of Nebraska was moved to the week before Christmas. So, we all surprised her with a mock ceremony. Everyone came over with their academic robes, and we smuggled in new robes for Meg on behalf of Jen's dad. There were speakers and trustees and even music...

and one very happy graduate!

Christmas Eve was spent at Warwick Castle. It's in very good condition, and we had lots to do.

Kate and Dave eagerly demonstrated the use of the stocks,

We all got to ice skate on an iced path around the castle gardens,

and here, we were all in line for Ebenezer's haunted tower, a really fun retelling of Scrooge's story inside one of the castle towers. Jen was absolutely petrified, while everyone else thought it was lots of fun ... good for scaring little kids.

Here, you can see Jen (left), Kate (middle) and Alison on a walk with Poppy.

Sisters? Noooooo

The men folk were all nicely dressed up for Christmas Eve, getting ready to have dinner before midnight mass at the village church, where we basically tripled the size of the congregation. (Tim, Granddad, Derrick, and Dave)

A very nice tradition to have champaigne before dinner on Christmas Eve. (Alison, Kate, Granddad, Jen, and Dave)

Tim and Meg really enjoyed the holiday, partly because they got to spend so much time together! (For those who don't know, there are some of the busiest people we know, and we were all glad to see them taking time off!)

Christmas morning, Kate played Santa and delivered all the lovely gifts. Here she is with Jen's aunt Sarah-Jane.

Grandma and Meg