An Update on Emma

Hello everyone.
I just thought I'd do a quick update before class about some recent news in my life:

- Elizabeth is moving into her student residences today, and starting university on the 3rd September, doing a 2 year course in a culinary degree. She gets a chef's uniform, has to work in the Uni restaurants and everything. After 2 years she can continue working towards a 4-year degree or go out into the big wide world.

- The twins are starting middle school this year - back to the bottom of the pile!

- The twins also both passed their second royal ballet exam (which is not easy by any means). If it was scored in the same way as AP scoring, with 3 being 'pass', Heather got a 5, Alice a 4.

- Kenneth got all A's this last year at the Royal Grammar School - no small feat in the private British education system. He scored top in his class on many of his exams, and top 10 in his class on pretty much all the rest.

- My dad, showing he is completely insane, bought himself a title - he is now Lord H*dcr*ft - no joke. No land or power comes with the name - just the title. The family line it belonged to died out, and that apparently means you can auction the title off. (No, I don't know if it now stays in our family after he dies, nor whether it would go to the eldest child (me) or the eldest male (Kenneth).) The title, if I remember correctly, is approx 700 years old. (I may be wrong.)

- In a further display of insanity, my dad bought four baby geese this week, for reasons I don't know. They live in a little run in the back garden. Go figure.

- I got a Garmin satellite navigation system for my birthday! Yey. I am excited about it.

Oop. Class time. More later.

To the Potato Land

Hola friends. I'm half asleep at the moment, so excuse me. Fell asleep watching an episode of my new 'Planet Earth' series : ). Well, off to Ireland tomorrow. Hopefully we won't get bombed. Chances seem much slimmer nowadays. Tomorrow to Stranraer to the ferry to Ireland, then to our hotel, the next day to wherever the Giant's Causeway is, then the day after, to Carick on Shannon to get our boat. A week on the boat, then the drive back. I'll be back in Texas on the 15th of August, for those curious.

There's a Hartlepool game tonight, but I'm very tired (see above) so I think I'll stay in with Kenneth and the twins, and watch tv or something. Anyway, I thought I'd send a note of my intentions to you all via my blog, so you know I'm not lost away somewhere in Ireland, kidnapped by the IRA. However, if you do see that I get kidnapped, please send money, or whatever they want. I'll pay you back after I get back to the US.

Well, I think that's all from this half-asleep brain at the moment. I'm off to see what trouble Kenneth & the twins are getting up to. Libby went to register at Newcastle College for her culinary class today, but messed up by mentioning she had an American passport, and now they're all in a ho-hah about her not being down as an international student and trying to get free education illegally. (For reasons unknown to me, she did not tell them that she does, indeed, have a British passport.) I wonder if maybe that naivity is somewhat my own fault - I was the one who through the years took care of all our customs and immigration snags and problems, and sometimes made mistakes and learned quite quickly what to say to appease those angered by my duality (of citizenship). Though, she has had plenty of time in the past few years to go it alone through the airport maze, and she certainly could have learned plenty by paying attention. And as the eldest, until she turned 18, I had to be the one taking charge, as it says on the forms. Oh well. I will ponder on that further.

I look forward to my return to the US, though it shall be super-busy. I know my mom has plans for me already, and I have to get ready for school, ensure I'm in all the right classes at the right time, tidy my house, have a party, and then go to school. Wish I had more of a break before school started.

Well, I said I was finishing this long ago, so may the rest of your summers be fun and happy, and I shall see many of you soon, or at least, I better. Bibliotheque!

PS - Ireland has potatoes. You have no idea how excited I am about this. I don't think they get purple ones, though. I only ever saw them that one time in Ecuador.