Birthdays, Boats and Ice Hockey?

TODAY IS GER'S 71st BIRTHDAY ! Happy Birthday Husband. His birthday gift from me was that I let him live another day. Being here in England we had decided to forgo gifts and cards and that is exactly what I did. Abby made Ger a card yesterday that she couldn't wait to give him so he got that at dinner last night. This morning Kyle and Abby gave Ger 2 tickets for the Windsor boat tour of the Thames. So after we got Abby off to school we headed into Windsor to sail up river for 40 minutes. It was a cool, cloudy day that threatened rain but the ride was enjoyable and we, and the 3 other people on the boat, gathered all sorts of trivia about the area and the river. Did you know there are 44 locks on the river Thames between its beginning and its end? Did you know that Eton College is the second greatest land owner in England? Did you know the river is actually quite clean up here? It just appears dirty because the river bed is clay. I could continue but I don't want to bore you any more than usual. After our sail we walked over the bridge into Eaton and had a nice lunch at "The George", one of many pubs that line the street. We then stopped to pick up a few cupcakes for the birthday boy's celebration and headed home for a short nap before getting Abby from school. The timing was perfect because just as we entered the house with Abby the sky opened and it poured. In the six weeks we have been here this is the first real rain that we have seen. In order to entertain ourselves during the rain storm Abby and I got playing ice hockey in the kitchen. We had started our game this morning before school. There is a long center island in the HUGE kitchen and Abby and I had gotten to hitting a bottle cap back and forth with our fingers. That progressed to using pencils to hit the cap, which then progressed to a game with rules and scoring. Because it was morning we didn't have that much time to play so as soon as Abby returned home this afternoon the game was on. The pencils were replaced with Hockey Knives (the dinner wear knife is the perfect shape for a hockey stick) and the bottle cap was replaced with an ice cube. INSTANT ICE HOCKEY !! The game was on . . . complete with a dish towel Zamboni to clean the surface when it got too wet. WE HAD A GREAT TIME ! The kitchen floor and counter are the cleanest they have been in 6 weeks and grandpa got to celebrate his birthday with a second nap on the couch.

I am going to miss this when I return to my quiet life in Florida.