Windsor jubilee pageant

Saturday night we got to attend the Windsor Castle Diamond Jubilee Pageant! This is one of many events to commemorate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this year, and hopefully not the only one we'll participate in. With the London 2012 Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, this is an exciting time to be in the UK! Union jack flags are flying everywhere.

The pageant celebrated some of the locations around the world the Queen has visited during her reign. It was a great evening that also included performances by The Tenors and narration by Alan Titchmarsh and Angela Rippon. The following brief video shows a Haka dancer from New Zealand whom the audience loved because of the way he jiggled his bare cheeks to the rhythm of the songs (sorry, that part's not in the video). This is his bow upon leaving the stage.

In addition to New Zealand we like the performance from Africa (including some West End stars singing from The Lion King). We saw these performers before the show. That headdress is really something. 

The performers from the Indian subcontinent were colorful and beautiful, and we loved the dude who followed the dancers around and threw what looked like poppadoms in the air, cleaned them up again, then threw them in the air again. It was entertaining.

The performance from the USA had a western theme with this cute stagecoach and a very talented lasso group. 

By far the most impressive act, and one of the more impressive things we've seen in our lives, was the Russian performance. The horses were moving at their top speeds while riders did stunts like hanging upside-down from the side of the horse or climbing underneath the fast-moving horse. It was crazy-cool--we were totally wowed. It was too fast-moving to get photos and I didn't get videos of the really impressive stuff, but here's a video of something cool (though much slower-moving).

Singin' in the Rain

 Last night I saw Singin' in the Rain in London's West End with my friend Becky, and it was great! They flooded the stage a couple of times and splashed people in the first few rows (not us!), and the dancing was the best I've ever seen. Amazing.

Then we went to Chipotle for a delicious late-night burrito before the long ride home in the middle of the night. Definitely worth losing a few hours of sleep!

17 months

Gavin is now 17 months old. This post contains the best photos from the past month.
He's getting taller, finally growing some hair on top (instead of just the patch of frizz at the back), and he has now been to 19 countries. He has 12 teeth, and for the most part he's a delight to be around. Right now his favorite thing to say is thank you, but he also loves to say dad, cheese, high-five, please, more, no, Jesus and bye. Activities he enjoys include dancing without inhibition (and sometimes without music), making animal noises, identifying his body parts, poring over his many books, making vehicle noises, sucking his thumb and playing outside.

pastry heaven

 I'm having to re-think the top 3 most delicious things I've ever eaten because of this cinnamon Danish pastry we shared in Copenhagen. Its not just the most delicious cinnamon roll I've ever had, it just may be the best thing I've ever eaten. It was that good. It's worth 2 photos, so here it is again.

 The next pastry was in Sweden and it tastes remarkably like a family recipe I like to make called, of all things, "Scandinavian almond pastry." I'll have to ask my Mom where the recipe came from (or you could always leave a comment, Mom). It's delicious, and who knew we were making something so accurately named!

You'd expect delicious Danish pastries in Copenhagen, but nothing prepared me for how amazing they would really be. There was also a rhubarb cream Danish pastry that was incredible (not pictured).

Copenhagen

We had a great time in beautiful Copenhagen. I love the colorful houses in the above photo! And below is the famous Little Mermaid statue.

Speaking of statues, one of the Copenhagen highlights was seeing the original Thorvaldsen Christus statue, along with the 12 apostles. The Christus is so beautiful!

Here are a few more Copenhagen photos.  A separate post will follow highlighting Danish pastries. 

a bit of Sweden

 We stayed in Malmö, Sweden, over the weekend. It was a pretty little town and a nice base to visit Copenhagen, Denmark and also nearby Lund, Sweden.

Malmo has a few nice parks Gavin really enjoyed. This big slide was a favorite.

We're glad we visited Lund, but it was rainy and not very lively on a Saturday. Here are some photos of the town  and university.

 Lund has its own unique sausage that apparently can only be found in Lund. Jacob and I felt there was a reason you couldn't buy it elsewhere, and we didn't even finish ours. But there was a huge fan among us. He ate an entire sausage himself. A really big sausage. And loved it.

Springtime walk

Gavin and I took a beautiful walk to a neighbouring village this morning. The path along the river is always pretty, and today was no exception. In addition to the duck we shared the path with above, we also saw lots of super-cute little ducklings. I love to see these fuzzy little ones floating in the water.

Where there were no ducks the water was still, providing really pretty reflections.

In the part of the river nearest our house a family of swans has a nest every year. Gavin and Jacob have been walking over almost daily to check on the progress of this year's eggs. The mom was still sitting on them today.

As you can tell, Gavin was pretty thrilled by the experience. He LOVES birds.