Monday, April 17, 2006

American Easter

Church marked Holy Week with meditations each night, much in the same way as St Tom's - and they were awesome. A very different type of expressing spirituality to what the church is used to, but people responded really well to them and God was moving powerfully each night.

The Easter weekend celebrations started off with an Egg Hunt at church, where Daisy and Lucy also got to meet the Easter Bunny...

Then we had baptism services all across the weekend which were great, leading worship with a choir and brass section was fantastic, too! We finished off Easter Sunday at Kyle and Karen's house for lunch, to celebrate their son Xander's baptism - we are proud to be his Godparents :o)


The girls on Easter morning. Ahhhhhh....

Friday, April 14, 2006

Frenchies and Disneyland

We were all very excited to see Joy, Clynt, Matthew, Isaac and Caleb - particularly Daisy who was SOOOOO happy to see her best friend from England

Even if they did do strange things. We took them to Sedona and visited Slide Rock, a natural form in the river you can slide down. A meltwater river, can we point out. Here's Clynt jumping into a deep pool just down from the slide (Gareth refused as it was only about 65F outside and had snowed a few days before!)

We also visited Scottsdale for some shopping, and found this awesome sculpture (and only after taking about 20 photos did we find the sign that said 'Please do not climb'!!!)

And then, DISNEYLAND! A 7 hour drive, crazy LA traffic and finally we got there.

'It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya,
It pours, man it pours'


How true.


We got on tons of rides without queueing which was fab, and the kids were amazing seeing as we were all soaked. The sun did come out some of the time, though

Disneyland is quite an intense place - we all went a little doolally (is Gareth laughing or crying?!?!)


Of course, in Arizona it was sunny and warm, and it was lovely to see Phil and Mags and the beautiful Skye, who stayed with Nigel and Sue. This is more like it (you can't beat a spot of quality English tea)...

And here's a lovely photo of our gorgeous girls:

Grannies, Grandpas, Aunties and Uncles...


March was an exciting month with lots of visitors; unfortunately the weather didn't compy - Gareth's mum and dad went to the grand canyon where there was a white out because of all the snow! It was fun to celebrate Gareth's dad's and auntie's birthday in Arizona; here's a picture of us all in Scottsdale.

The unpredictable weather continued as it got hot enough to get the pool out... (It did eventually fill up after we found were the leak was!)