Life Back To Normal
Last week at this time, Warrick and I were driving home from Houston after picking up the girls from their long plane ride. Two days ago I was sent the last of the photos, which included their last day in England, and their final trip to London.
As is typical for those who travel, when you ask what they did, or what they saw, the girls intitially said almost nothing. It takes time to process memories and to think things through. So I am hearing more this week than I did last week.
This photo was taken in London:
And this one with Michael, their cousin, on their last day in the UK:
Labels: Hayley Teagan, Michael, UK, Warrick
Safari Park Antics
So the girls have been having a blast since they arrived in Europe. They spent three days in Paris, one morning at a local elementary school, an afternoon at
Bedford Oasis Pool, an indoor water playground. The piece de la resistance so far has been the day they spent with my brother and his wife Jenny and our nephew Michael at
Woburn Safari Park.Here you drive your car through the grounds and see lion, bears, zebras, hippos, giraffe and other wildlife in a fairly natural setting, but the best part (according to my girls) is when you get out of the car and get to interact with the monkeys and lemurs, wallabys and other small mammals. As you can see from the photos, great fun was had by all!
Teagan meets a monkey
Jenny and Michael with the lemurs
Hayley befriends a wallaby
Labels: Hayley, Safari Park, Teagan, UK
The lennon side of the family
This blog is about our family - specifically the life and times of the Smelker kids, but I wanted to take a moment to introduce my nephew. My brother Peter and his wife Jenny, have an 18 month old son named Michael, born on February 22nd, the day after Teagan (so much for not having another event in February! My parents now have 5 events and we have 9!)
I have not met Michael yet, but he is so cute! I showed a picture of him to Warrick the other day and he said, "Man, that's me!" And apart from the fact that Michael is a tow head, I can certainly see the resemblance. He also has scrapes on him because he is fearless like Warrick!
I really hope Peter and Jenny can make it over here sometime soon.
Labels: Michael, UK, Warrick
I Knew It Was A Good Name!
Four of our five kids have distinctive English/British names - Warrick (although not spelt traditionally) is British - there is an Earl of Warwick in Warwick Castle in Warwickshire. Teagan is named after an Irish queen of the same name, Hayley is obviously English, and Garrick is an old English name meaning to defend. The only non-English name is Carson, and actually it is Scandanavian.
Anyway, my parents wrote me the following email this morning:
When we got to North Shields, which is where the Newcastle Ferry port is located we mooched round looking for somewhere to have lunch and drove past the pub in the attached photo.
Thought you might like to see it.
Here is what they saw:
Labels: Garrick, UK
