Family Photo

Here is a Family Photo, taken in Tacoma, WA at Joel and Mandy's wedding.

New beginnings!

We gained a new family member in August in the form of Mandy who married Joel, Jason's brother. We enjoyed the northwest and getting to know Mandy and her family. Congratulations guys.







Here is Dayna on her first day of third grade. All dressed up in her new "first day of school outfit." Thanks to Aunty Sara's birthday present to her.





Here is Dirk on his first day of Kindergarten. He was very eager to go as you can see. He is excited about learning how to read. Funny thing though, he didn't seem to care about having a new "first day of school outfit." Boys definitely have some good points too.







Here is Kiera on her first day of Pre-school. She is going to the same preschool as Dayna and Dirk. She is standing next to one of her friends.

The first week in the Mother country

This is my Nanna, She will be 83 this year and can't travel to the the USA anymore so we went to see her.


This is the house I lived in in England. I took a picture for posterity.


We spent our first night in England with the Ashtons. It was a great reunion of children and we really enjoyed seeing each other. We really appreciated their hospitality and the fact that they let us come back for a night after Dayna threw up the first time!!

Our blog of our trip would not be complete with out a picture of the car that carried us 2000 miles. We crammed our whole family in here and Jason learned how to drive left handed and navigate his way through "skinny lanes" and multiple roundabouts. So, here's to the Peugeot 407!



On our first Sunday in England we went to church in Wynchcombe with Aunty Carol. Dirk and Dayna joined right in with the children's worship time during church and in the playing around after church. It was great to be enfolded by another congregation so far away from home.
At Sudely castle near our lodging at Hunting Butts, (yes that was its name), Dirk picked up a "mate" and his Dad to sword fight with. There was a huge wooden fort for them to run around on and defend, a good time was had by all.
We visited a beautiful villiage in the cotswolds called Bourton on the Water. We had a little rain but really enjoyed the miniature village and beautiful surroundings.

Icecream is the same in any language. There is always the promise of icecream whenever grandpa Roger's around.
My Parents very kindly took our children for three days whilst we went to Wales to celebrate our tenth anniversary. Their couple of days commenced with a trip on the Cheltenham steam train.
Our week concluded with a trip to Oxford. All the Grown-ups were enthralled, the children were not. We parted ways with my parents and left for our grand adventure in England and France.

Week 2 part 1 "Look kids, Big Ben Parliament"

Our first week on our own began with a cheap hotel room. Our mornings began with cereal and push ups as demonstrated here by Dirk and Kiera.











Kiera was not impressed that the children were speaking "English" and would not play with anyone. Dirk and Dayna found some playmates and we enjoyed a nice picnic and walk on the grounds of Hampton Court Palace. That evening we checked into our Legoland hotel where we had the worlds largest hotel room. Very nice.














Lego land was a huge hit with our children and Jason. Kiera went on most of the rides with Jason, Dirk went with me and Dayna was independent and went on her own.














Dayna took her first driving lesson and on the other side of the road none the less!













Dirk's goal was to go as fast as he could. He claims however not to have crashed into anything.













Dirk and Dayna really enjoyed Driving school Kiera just crashed constantly. Kiera's favourite ride was Fairytale brook with the story of little red riding hood. She was totally enthralled by "the leaf boat ride." Behind her is Hansel and Gretel and the gingerbread house.










Dirk loved the rides at Legoland and the castle and the show and the whole thing. His favourite was the ride at Pirate Falls where you splashed into the water.











Mini Land in Lego land is definately my favourite. If I had known what our following day in London was going to be like, I would have taked the kids pictures by mini Parliamen, Tower of London and the Eiffel Tower and called it good. "But it's the experience", you say... Well I guess, I just refer you to the last picture for Dirks take on the whole thing.





















The tower of London and the Tower bridge were two of our three stops in London, the third being buckingham palace. It was hot and the kids were not impressed they did enjoy eating a picnic supper on the banks of the Thames right by the tower of London.












Here we are on the sightseeing bus on our way to the Tower of London and Tower bridge. Kiera took a 1 1/2 hour nap on the bus!










Here is a picture of Kiera attempting to console Dirk who was tired hungry and really sick of walking. I think for future reference, we'll call it the "why we decided not to go to Paris", picture.

The Trip: Week 2 France (Where are we now?)

Our trip to France began with a beautiful sunny day and some great views of the white cliffs of Dover. After the congestion around London and the jam packed toll bridge over the river Thames it was a relief to be in the open air.













France was fun and a nice break.













We stayed in this nice caravan in France near Soissons. There were activities for the kids, 4 pools, 2 waterslides, a chateau, an onsite bakery, 3 little lakes, need we say more? We had a great time the only bad part was only spending 3 days there. It was a nice break for Jason to drive on wider roads.














French s'mores a la Zylstra.

2 lady fingers with a liberal amount of nutella on each, a roasted marshmallow.
Need we say more?








As we had decided not to go to Paris because as Jason explained I would have a mutiny on my hands we went to Reims for the morning so we could at least say that we had seen something of France other than our campground. The Cathedral in Reims is historically where the kings of France were coronated. This picture is one of my favourites. Dirk and Kiera were fascinated by the colours that the stained glass windows cast on the cathedral floor and here they are trying to wipe it up. In Dirks words, "the windows painted the floor."



This is the spot where the WWI armstice was signed in 1918. We tried to educate our children a little on this trip. We even, (labouriously because every other word Dirk had a good question), explained the legend of the poppies to them.









Here we are in the ferry terminal on our return trip to England from France, eating one of many picnic lunches. Then we were off upstairs to buy icecream so we could use up the rest of our Euros. Little did we know there was a 3 hour traffic jam waiting for us on the other side!

The Trip: Week 3

Here we are at Butlins Family camp in the southwest of England. We enjoyed ourselves in the pool, at the shows,(we met Bob the Builder and Wendy!!), and on the amusement rides.










Our third week in England was spent, appropriately, in the Southwest of England. We left France on Sunday visited Bath on Monday. We spent the rest of the week at a Family camp in Minehead called Butlins. The kids really liked it. The parents liked France better. Our children went to their first, but hopefully not last, English Pantomime. We learned that the common greeting is " 'all right then!" pronounced "rat en." And of course we got to see the world famous redcoats as pictured with Dayna.

The Trip Week 4

Our England trip concluded where it began. We returned to the Midlands. The picture of the Dayna, Dirk and Kiera on the bench is on Cannock Chase, where I always enjoyed walking and picnicing when I was younger. We also had a couple of visits to Nanna and a party with the Wright side of the family. It was wonderful to see everyone again and reconnect. Lots of thanks to Aunty Pat and Uncle Len who hosted the event. And Aunty Chris and Uncle Phil who housed us on our return trip from Manchester.

Wales

We had a great time in Wales, but we still haven't sorted out the photo thing yet. We hiked up a couple of mountains on Wednesday and went out to a great restaurant that evening to Celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. The kids have been to Warick castle with my parents Dayna was enthralled with Lady Anne's room, Dirk got sword fighting lessons and Kiera got a magic wand. We have been having a wonderful time. It is good to be in England Again.

England

Hello,
We made it safely to England and have completed a couple of stops on our 'Tour' We are in the Cotswolds for a week with my parents. Tomorrow Jason and I go to Wales for a couple of days to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary!!! Hopefully we can figure out the photo thing tomorrow.
sian

3 years old!!

Kiera turned 3!!! The present that was the biggest hit, was the cash register from Aunty Sara, Uncle Mark and cousin Zachary She enjoyed having Nanna and Grandpa there for her birthday. We are heading into the last week of school here and getting ready for our big trip to England. Dirk has been accepted to Kindergarten and Dayna will go to 3rd grade next year. It will be nice to have them at the same school.
We finally had some rain last night. It has been about a month or so. Our garden really needed it. Of course today is beautiful and sunny again.

What we did today.

I cleaned the house. We took supper to and ate supper at a local homeless shelter. We set Dayna's captured lizards free and she cried about it for 10 mins. in the shower. She claims she loves them even though she hasn't/won't touch them or feed them (in 6 days).
Jason played in his first city league softball game last night. Dirk read the word Canada. And Kiera managed to get through the day with out making a big mess of something. All in all, a good day in the Z household!
I thought I'd include a picture of the area for those who haven't been. This was taken 2 miles from our house at the December Red Rock balloon rally.

And Pictures too!

So here is a Saturday afternoon project. Dayna and her friend built an animal exhibit.














Dirk and his friend built a truck exhibit.











I thought that I would add some photos to this thing, but I don't seem to be able to make it work and I was promised it was easy.
OK, So here is the Z fam. Dayna, Dirk and Kiera and the dog.