Happy Easter everyone!

Life has been great as usual. Here's what we have been up to:

We had a stint with the school program in Caen, France to see the beaches of Normandy and to learn more about WWII & the D-Day landings:

In the background- you can see the left over pieces
from the landing bridges they made to get the gear to the beaches

Not normal hills- these are from aerial and naval bombardments

In Caen, France

Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

Steven in Caen. This is his smile when
I've taken too many picts of him :)

We crawled in and around a lot of different bunkers, went to beaches, museums, and cemeteries. Overall it was a fantastic trip!

Next came NewGrange. It's not too far from where we live- just over in County Meath. It's a prehistoric site that they date back to between 3100 BC - 2900BC. It was originally a burial tomb. There are several in the area, but this was the largest.  It is completely dark year around except during the summer solstice when the sun aligns with the roof-box. During the solstice, it lights up inside.

http://www.lookaroundireland.com/newgrange/passageway.htm

We have also had a few visitors recently. First was Steven's 5th grade teacher, Starr, and her husband Leon. We had a great time with them! Steven did his first walking tour of Dublin since we've arrived with them. I feel like we've toured everywhere but Dublin before then.

Starr & Leon Klube where it used to be part of the port.
The lines on the ground represent the eels that used to be in the port.

Next was Andrea, Steven's sister, who came to visit the end of March. We had a great time with her! Steven was able take her out to the west coast to see all of the places out there. We've been out there before, but it would have been fun for me now that I have a little Irish on me. (They mostly speak Irish in parts of the West Coast).

We put her to work the first day she arrived. We had a Primary Activity at church a few hours after she arrived. I'm pretty sure she was in charge of teaching kids to wash dishes. It seems like she enjoyed them though!

We were also able to take her to London. We really enjoyed it. Our friend Luke let us crash at his place in the Soho district. We were able to take her to her first Broadway shows- Blood Brothers (I would highly recommend it) as well as Phantom of the Opera.

On the walking tour, in London, on the parade grounds

On the pedal taxi's after a show

(PS Drea- sorry it took me so long to blog about you. You are def worth blogging about :)

Next comes our trip last week to Maastricht, The Netherlands. The pronunciation of which is still up in the air between Steven and I. This was part of his one week long course for the semester and it was on the History of Fortifications- which Maastricht has a long history of. Again, there was a lot of walking in, around, on, and thru tunnels and walls.

We really enjoyed this trip although the days were packed from sun up to sun down. It didn't hurt that it was in the mid-80's the whole time either! Steven and I have lost our vitamin D deficient looks (thankfully)!

The Class

Steven and Stephen M. in Belgium-
there are a couple of hundred
Belgian soldiers buried here.

Lunch the last day at the Chateau Neecanne.
That's right we went a Chateau and Steven is
wearing a Bodybuilding.com t-shirt!
Our whole group was underdressed though.

By far my favorite thing to go visit was the caves next to the old NATO bunkers. They belonged to Jesuits up until recently and date back quite a long time. There is speculation that the caves go back farther than the Roman empire.  If you only have a couple of hours- it's the best way to visit Europe. The Jesuits would go in and carve different things from around Europe, folktales, animals, cultures, etc. We were in there just over an hour and did not see nearly everything.

Represents the Syrian empire in BC times

Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs

There's a fountain and pool down there

Yesterday was Easter. We had a great time! Steven, Teresa and myself cooked for the good part of Saturday. I made my first ham from scratch. It was a success! After church, we had Kyle and YJ from Steven's program join us. We had a great time and even had a chance to end it with an addicting round of Monopoly Deal. 

Easter spread in a dorm size fridge.
I actually was able to fit another cake in there too!

Steven making his No Bake Cheesecake

The spread!