Hi everyone!
Yes, we're still here! It's been quite a busy month here in London. We started the month with Michael's birthday and a family visit to the Royal Academy of Art for the David Hockney exhibit.
If you are here in London, this is a must see. David Hockney is a master at landscape paintings and we were all in the mood for spring's long awaited arrival touring the exhibit. Some of the works are just gigantic, with multiple large canvases put together to cover an entire wall of the gallery space. The exhibit also includes a large gallery of Hockney's iPad drawings enlarged to poster-sized prints...all done on the app "Brushes". They are absolutely amazing...and unbelievably realistic for digital creations. I also just love how an artist in his 70's embraces modern technology...way to go, David! We have been having fun with the Brushes app for about the last year now and it's great fun! I especially like how the kids' creations are saved in a gallery within the app along with the ability to press a play button to see how each piece was created.
Here is Julianna's rendition of a photo I took on the slopes of Tignes a few weeks ago...this one is aptly entitled "Ski Blizzard"
Speaking of skiing..we loved our visit to Tignes/Val d'Isere in France this February. We started the week off with temperatures in the single digits...way too cold for my skiing taste! Luckily, the weather improved as the week went on and the last three days we enjoyed a much more reasonable 30ish degree weather. Wednesday brought on a big blizzard on the slopes and yes, Michael had us skiing down natural half-pipes with virtually zero visibility. Here are a few snaps from the afternoon...
hmm, virtually no other skiers in sight...maybe that should have told us something!
and as the weather improved, so did our moods...
the kids finished off the week with a medals ceremony at the Club Med. They were both pleased to find out they "graduated" to the next ski level...
and just because the party never stops for these kiddos, they both performed in the Friday evening kids show with over 100 other young skiers. It's actually amazing they didn't collapse on the slopes on Saturday...
Oh wait, is that Julianna? I think she did collapse!
We have been keeping busy here in London with plenty of winter activities. The kids have been keeping up with tennis (and no joking, the lessons are outside...brrrr!). Evan continues to dedicate endless hours a week to his love of soccer. He has a game this Saturday morning in Regent's Park and we will all be there to cheer him on...Go Hampstead (again...brrr, it's dipping down to freezing in the coming days)! Julianna has been hard at work working on a fundraising project for the World Wildlife Fund and she is quite the animal activitist these days. She actually asked me if she could sponsor the cost of a dog adoption for her birthday gift (that would be a dog adoption for another family, not ours. We're still saving a new dog until our time abroad is over).
Michael headed to NY this past weekend and the kids and I took in the musical Shrek (what a great show) followed by dinner in the very decorated Chinatown. It's just amazing how many lanterns decorate the streets for the Chinese New Year festivities...Happy Year of the Dragon everyone!!
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Holiday greetings from Michigan. We're having a great time pretending to be tourists in our own home town. So far this Christmas season we've been to the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Roma Cafe in Detroit, the Ivanhoe (aka the Polish Yacht Club), a visit over to Windsor, Slow's in Detroit for delicious BBQ, the Motown Museum and out to Ann Arbor for last night's game against Penn State. Fun times all around! We head back to the UK in just 3 more days so we're off to fit in a few more visits to friends and family before our departure. Happy New Year everyone...be back soon with updates from our winter adventures abroad!
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
