Happy Birthday Mia!

On Saturday, Mia turned 8 years old! We spent a fairly relaxing day together as a family...with presents first thing in the morning, a dinner out at one of Mia's favorite restaurants, and then an outdoor performance of the "Sword and the Stone" at Chatsworth. She's enjoying a day with her friends today: a trip to the cinema to see the Lorax, lots of girly play time, and a sleepover! 

Camping & Picnicking

Since it was a nice weekend, we scheduled a last minute camping trip in Bakewell, a short drive from home. Most camping in the UK that we've heard about is car camping on a farmers field. A bit different than what we're used to...not trees for privacy at all. But it was really nice to be in a nice big space. Since we were only staying one night, we didn't have a lot to bring (not that we could fit much more in our car), and it was easy to set up and take down our camp "site". We enjoyed a relaxed evening playing volleyball and frisbee in the big field of grass. 

In the morning we decided to go for a walk in Monsal Dale, on the Chatsworth estate. It was quite beautiful, though unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me to take photos. From there we went to the Chatsworth park to lounge by the river there, soak up the sunshine, and splash in the river. The day ended with a brief visit to the Chatsworth Farmyard...always fun for the kids.

A bunch of Chatworth bulls came over to check out the scene by the river.

Olympics Gymnastics Finals

We were so lucky to get tickets to teh Finals of Mens Gymnastic Floor excercise, Womens Vault, and Mens Pommel Horse.  One of Sean's former coworkers has a daughter that works for NBC and produced the gymnastics events.  She was able to get us some reasonably priced tickets (OK, they were at the top of the arena) that for some reason weren't available on the web to purchase.  This time the girls were much more interested in attending, so we all took the train down to London for the day.

On the way we made signs to cheer on Team USA, who were competing in the first two events.  We also were ready to cheer for Team GB, with 2 athletes competing in the last event, Mens Pommel Horse.  

Unfortunately, USA didn't earn a medal, but it was fun to watch.

USA's Maroney was favored to win the Womens Vault final and she came out with the highest score on her first vault...15.86!  Unfortunately, she landed on her back side for her second vault which lost the Gold, but at least she got Silver.

We came to understand how unforgiving Gymnastics finals are.  For the vault, you get 2 attempts though, one forward facing and one backward facing, and they both count.  Very different from some other events, like certain athletics events that allow you several attempts and you get to keep your best score. 

So we got to see the American Flag raised, but didn't get to hear our National Anthem.  By the way...Princess Kate is the third from the bottom left corner in this photo, in Navy Blue.  Yes, Kate and I watched Olympic Gymnastics together ;-).

The next event was a highlight for us.  Team GB had 2 men competing on the Pommel Horse and they both performed amazingly well.  The stadium was SO LOUD cheering for the home team. 



Kate cheers on Team GB...center front in navy blue.

 Team GB takes Silver and Bronze!

We had a little bit of time before catching our train home, so we walked around a bit and saw the Mall outside the Beach Volleyball Venue.

On the escalator at the tube station....on our way home.