Memorial Day Party at the Hatch's.

Santana, Cruz, Diego, Wesley, Burton, Oscar, Tyler, Ella, Marin and Jolie on the ground.

Camping with Dad

The Fathers and Sons, time honored tradition happened this last weekend. Nathan was extremely brave and took the oldest 4 boys. I am so proud of him. They did great and had a wonderful time.
Our next door neighbors Pat Abeita and his son Joseph went also and that is the reason I have pictures to show you. Thanks Pat!

I figure Nathan will be taking 4 next year and maybe in 2011 he will take Y. By then the boys will be so old. Ty will be 11, Oc 10, Wes 8, Burton 6, and Y 3. That is crazy. They are such fun boys. We are enjoying them so much. Every moment is special.

Brighton Holiday

We went down to Brighton on Thursday to stay the night. I wanted to go there because, characters in my books go there for holiday. So I had to check it out.
We walked alon the water and there was a Pier with a carnival at the end. We didn't go over to it. We wanted to see the town. But there it is.

It was by far the coziest room we had. The Royal York Hotel. The staff was very good to us and the room was great.

While walking around we found that we were hungry before dinner. So we popped into a place called Nandos for a morsel of something. The hot chocolate was so so so good.

This was the mural art that we found on one of the streets. We thought it was pretty awesome.

We were walking past this theater and 7 Brides for 7 Brothers was playing, so we got tics and went to the show. It was really fun. The lead was obviously Irish or Scottish, the western accent was a little off. But it was good. The theater was 200 years old.

Funny story about this dress. I got a really pretty top for my sister Amanda but I wanted to pretend that this was the top I got her. So I sent her the picture and told her that I got this for her. "It could be your new 1st date outfit" I said. She was a little worried but was trying to put on a brave face. Then I told her I was kidding. I don't know, it would get some attention. I should have got it for her.

One of the streets in Brighton. Makes me think of my characters there on holiday. Staying near the shore for their health.

Hampton Court Palace

We went on the train to Hampton Court Palace.  It is where Henry the VIII lived with his 6 wives.  One at a time, most of the time.  Later William the III also lived there.  We learned alot.

The Gardens and grounds were just beautiful.King Henry even came and visited with us lowly peasants. 

More illegal Pics inside the Kings residence

In the Privy garden of William III.  This part of the Palace wasn't here when Henry was king.  Notice my far off look.
Now Nathan and I are King and Queen.  
The Garden was so amazing.  The Wisteria smelled heavenly.
We look a spin around the grounds by horse drawn carriage.  And then we were done.  It was a wonderful day.  Just perfect weather. 

Wicked in London

We arrived at the Victoria Station and right out side the doors was the theater for Wicked.  Yay.  We got there an hour before the show and got tickets.  40 pounds each.  Great seats on the floor near the stage right. 

Me and Elphie
Nathan and Glinda
We're all green, now we finally found the place were we belong.  
The set was just like Gammage but London.  And they all had accents when they did the speaking parts.  Really cute.
Loved it loved it.  We are hoping to see Lion King or something while we are here.  

Cheers.

Windsor Castle

Tuesday we were up at the crack of 9:00 to get on the train to Windsor Castle. We didn't make it there til the 11:30 train. Takes us a while. These are the trains in England. They are so simple and clean. Getting around is so easy. We are just loving every min. We are the wide eyed lookey loos on all the buses and trains. Subway there isn't much to see.

When we got off the train to Windsor there is this wonderful road that follows the wall of the castle. There are shops and restaurants and a full out door shopping mall. It is charming to say the least.
Windsor Castle. The Queen was there as you can see by the flag flying in the round tower. We didn't see her. Weird. The castle is just massive.

I love taking illegal pictures. Haven't been caught yet. Maybe when I do get caught, Nate can take a picture with some one elses camera, of me in the stocks. This is St. Georges Hall, where the queen does her grand scale entertaining. 160 people are seated at table her to eat. It is really cool.
St Georges Chapel. This is the pipes for the organ. Wow. It was pretty impressive. I think that is what they were going for.

This guy freaked me out. I could seriously get no closer to him. It was like standing next to a corpse. It was spooky or something. I can't describe how it felt. He was more of a cardboard cut out than a person. Then he moved to march around. yikes.Cute little shops right out side the exit for the castle. We got some stuff for the boys.
Then we searched for food. We found a little sandwich shop. There are lots of sandwich shops everywhere.

A walk in the park

A walk down the street from Nana and Bumpa's is a park called Ruskin Park. On the way there we got to see some great old houses.

The park was so pretty with the sun going down and grey skies make everything so much greener.
This walk way was right out of a book. Just gorgeous. I don't know what kind of trees these are. I want to figure it out though.
This tree was huge. It was amazing. We physically loved the tree. It loved us too.
Nathan was trying to climb it.

Big Hug
I wanted to get under this tree. Like a big umbrella. It was totally open inside. The boys would have loved it.
They had all these flowers that I have never seen before. Granted I don't know very many flowers. They were so pretty.


This is Nathan running through the park. I wanted him to run all over and I was going to splice it together and speed it up. Like a proper brit comedy. But he only would do this one. I will get him yet. I guess it would be funnier if I was the one running.