Life in Chester

I had a great time in Chester with Marie and John. We went out to eat at The Church Bar and Restaurant in Chester.  The menu might not be the greatest, but it's got to be the best locale ever.  It's in an old church and is absolutely beautiful.  Lots of food and drink on this trip!!!!

Spent a lot of time with the new babies

and we took Sophie out and about

Rich and Jude took the girls out for a walk-those babies are less than two weeks old.  They take on way more than I'd ever have been capable of!!!!!

We all went out to lunch on my last day in England.  OK, so this crazy family can pack up twins less than 2 weeks old and take them to a pub for lunch.  And no one cried!!!!!

 Daddy duty!!!!!

 But still able to drink a pint (with a little help)!!!!

 The twins and Daddy, all looking great

Last Photos from Mum and Dad's House

Marie and I went through the things in Mum and Dad's house. We kept a bunch of the old photos and some of all the cross stitch pictures, but not much else.  They had so much stuff in the house, but we kept very little.  Neither of us have any room for it.  Marie had decided to get a service to come in and empty out the house, I am so glad she did that, I think it would have been so distressing to empty it ourselves.  It really did make it so much easier for someone else to come in and take everything out of the house.
Michael has been coming up to the house and looking after the garden every week.  It still looks really good, even though it's nothing like it was when Mum was alive.  She would have loved to know the fuchsias are still flowering and looking great.

Lots of bushes still alive in the back garden, but no colour, Mum would NOT be impressed!!!!

Lots of apples on the tree this year.  Such a shame

I took a few pictures of the house once everything was out of it.  Mum designed this fireplace and loved it when it was built. 

Wardrobes in their bedroom, I expect the new owners will tear them out

Dining room

Looking out onto the conservatory

Through the conservatory into the garden

Kitchen

Trip to see Tom and Georgie

I went home to see Marie's family and to help her sort out Mum and Dad's house.  I flew Finnair to Manchester-definitely found a new "worst airline ever" candidate.  I got to see the new babies, they are so good right now, just sleep most of the time.
Marie and I drove down to Oxfordshire to see Tom and Georgie.  I don't think Marie sees much of Tom any more.  We met them in Burford-I haven't been there for a long time and it's another beautiful Cotswold village.

We went out to dinner with them and watched Georgie eat a crazy amount of food.  That girl can eat!!!!  She ate all of these side dish vegetables along with roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and potatoes

We stayed the night in a hotel and then drove up to Loughborough the next day.  Marie and I had breakfast in Moreton-in-Marsh-yummy!!!!

New family members

There are two new members in the Lavelle family. Jude was scheduled for a C-section Friday morning. Imogen Holly was born at 9:50AM at 5lbs 12 oz. Bethany Jessica was born at 9:59AM at 5lbs 1 oz.

Do No Harm

Do No Harm is a movie exploring Physician Suicide that features a lot of the work that was done at SLU by Stuart Slavin when he was Dean of Curriculum.  The student who committed suicide had lived in St Louis County and his family were at the showing

After the movie, there was a panel that answered questions.  It's a very timely movie and something that needs to be discussed, but only if we can come up with ways to support our physicians in meaningful ways so that they don't feel so hopeless.  I do not see significant strides towards this at the moment, unfortunately

October trip to MBG

We had a beautiful day to go to MBG.  Once again, it was just me and Arline, Ben is definitely leading the college life!!!  They have taken all of the plants out in front of the Linnean House.  It's a shock when you see them all gone when it was so lush at our last visit

The "tree of the month" is getting overgrown by the branch on the other side of the walk!!!!

We went in the Climatron.  This is one of my favourite plants in there

Behind the waterfall

The Climatron never fails to have a beautiful bloom to photograph

Yard Sale!!!!

We missed the 3-City-Wide yard sale last year, but we had saved up a bunch of stuff to try again this year.  We pulled everything out and set it all out on the patio.  We had a couple of good buys, but it was pretty quiet apart from that.  We didn't make as much as we might have hoped, but that wasn't our goal.
Benefits of our yard sale:
We made $125
We got rid of a bunch of things so have more storage room now
We gave a bunch of things to a couple of local charities
I got to spend a lot of time with Sam, which was priceless