sierakowiak68

OK, here I am at last with an update. We are all well. Hurrah! Dan is still working way out of town someplace but it's going well evidently. Harry is fine and still at the same place of work. Anna-Louise has passed grade 8 Trumpet and is still with the same boyfriend. Rhys has passed grade 8 in both piano and violin and grade 2 in flute and also some ballet and tap exams and is still writing his everlasting novel, which we still haven't read. BJ passed grade 4 violin and is quite dedicated, amazingly. The Trips passed grade 3 piano and are still dancing. Octavia has started to learn the violin, help!! Krista and Klara were 4 in December and are making Lego houses everywhere. Peter is getting all over the place and is a fantastic talker and never stops talking, in fact. Finally, Zinnia is almost 7 months old and is perfectly lovely. She can sit up beautifully and steadily but has shown no sign of crawling yet which is a relief, actually.

Great news from my brother Georg. Helga is pregnant. She's 43 and Henrietta is 7 1/2. They have been wanting another child for literally years. So far all is well and Helga is fine. We are so happy for them. Another cousin for our gang. They were here at Christmas. It was lovely to see them. Georg and I were very close when we were young and have remained very close all our lives.

I am well. It was my birthday Jan 6th and we went out for dinner. Julian and Alex babysat. They are still in the U.K. and are set to become British Citizens. Skye is now 12 years old and is quite grown up. Anyone that thinks being raised by two men is detrimental in some way should meet her. She's a credit to them both. She and Rhys are, it seems, still engaged. Hmm.

Dan has joined Wills fishing club. This involves going out with a bunch of other men and one lone woman and sitting on stools by a river not moving for hours on end. They throw the fish back after weighing and photographing them. People are sometimes a bit weird. Better than drinking and pub crawling though.

Aron, Dan's brother, is very worried about Trump. He and Sophia don't want their two children, Olivia who will be 7 in April and Daniel, who is 5, growing up in a racist, fascist country. We are worried too. They are thinking quite seriously of moving to Canada. What can you Do?

Anyhow, best wishes and love to anyone who reads this. Have to deal with some crying. Peter has, it seems banged his head. Love to all.

Well, here I am at last. Sorry for the long delay in updating. Anyhow, we are all well and here is the news.

Dan has bought a new car. It's some type of Ford and is called Monty. Dan named it himself. Enough said really. He's now working on a Barn conversion in Buckinghamshire. It involves a lot of traveling so we don't see him too much. Just early morning and late at night. Weekends off though.

Harry is well and still working at the same place. He is happy and is hoping to get the go ahead to go to the Seminary next year. There's been some meetings and discussions. I won't bore you will all the details. He was 22 on June 14th. Frightening that he's so adult.

Anna-Louise has a new boyfriend. He's called Harry. Oh my goodness. It's short for Henry actually. The logic of that escapes me somewhat. He was evidently named after Prince Harry. She will be 18 in October. That will be her last year at Schule. She took a number of exams this year and passed them all with high grades. We are very proud of her.

Rhys was 10 on June 21st. To celebrate we had an Archery Party. Bit alarming that. Loads of kids firing arrows. Of course, being us, everyone had to dress up as characters from Robin Hood. I was so huge at the time I just sat in a chair and watched. It was a great success all round though and the food was fantastic. Rhys is the same Rhys, of course, busy and into everything. He's still writing his epic novel. No idea when it will be finished, if ever.

BJ passed another Karate exam and, much to our surprise, another violin exam, grade 3. We are stunned, to be honest. He's getting quite tall now and his hair appears redder then ever. He stands out in any group, you can always spot the hair.

The Trips did well at Schule this year, all three of them. They will be 7 in November, time goes so fast. They all passed Grade 1 Piano and are due to take Grade 2 any moment. There's a bit of fighting over who's best. It makes them practice though. Despite having Dan's ears they are all immensely cute and their curls cover the ears anyhow.

Octavia is still very chatty, shades of Anna-Louise here, and bossy. She likes to be in charge. She'll be 5 later this month and we are having a traditional party in the Church Hall with old fashioned games and stuff.

Krista and Klara will be 4 in December. Their hair isn't as red as BJ's but it's still mighty red. They have Dan's ears and my lack of nose and are quite alike but not identical. They are very chatty now and it's quite noisy in our house most of the time. They are inclined to shout which irritates Dan a lot, the trouble is, if you ignore them, they just shout louder. We are trying to get them out of this, but so far it's not having much success. They are gorgeous though.

Peter was 2 on July 28th. We had some friends over with their kids and we ate out back. It was nice and the kids behaved well. Peter, according to everyone, looks like a mini me. Poor little man. So he has the Jen lack of nose. Maybe it'll get bigger as he ages. He talks now a bit and can say quite a lot of words. His favorite word is nein. Everything is nein, nein. Dan told me he's gotten that from me. I didn't realize I said it so much.

Zinnia Maria is now 5 weeks old and is doing well. She's still a big baby and is bald but is very cute. I am fine now and Zinnia is a placid baby, which is good considering how many of us there are here.

Anyhow, will try to update a bit more often now I have gotten fairly organized again. You have to have a good routine with all of us around. Hope everyone is well. Love to all Jen.

Contrary to rumors we are all still here and all still alive. We are all well too, and I have reached the whale stage and can't see anything past the bump without immense difficulty.

Dan is doing yet another roof conversion plus making the garage two stories high. When he told us Krista wanted to know how they will get their car up that high. Klara suggested getting a flying car.

Harry is still working at the same place and driving without incident. He is a very careful driver, which is unusual for his age it seems. He and J are still good friends and see each other often.

Anna-Louise has passed grade 6 in Trumpet and grade 8 in both Violin and Piano plus grade 7 singing. She is 17 now and quite grown up. She is still seeing Hywel, the Welsh boy. She is lovely and no bother at all and we get along so well. It's like having a much younger sister.

Rhys has passed grade 7 Piano and grade 6 Violin. He's also passed several dance exams in both ballet and tap. He's now started to learn the Flute. (I play the Flute myself). He started last month actually. Anyhow, he's still writing what he calls his epic novel. I have found out what it's about. Evidently it's about a boy who dies and finds himself in another world where he has a lot of adventures. I haven't been allowed to read it yet but he told us he's writing Chapter 38 now. He will be 10 in June.

BJ was 8 in January. He's still doing Karate and people will be amazed to hear he has passed Grade 2 Violin. He actually plays tunes now that we recognize.

The Trips are now 6. They like Schule and are popular. The twins are doing tap classes and Aimee-Rose is concentrating, her words, on ballet. They are all still learning the Piano are are very enthusiastic but seem to be fairly untalented. I hope they don't want to start the Violin.

Octavia will be 5 in August. Everyone says she looks just like me, poor little thing. She's very intelligent and a bit bossy. She's liable to stamp and shout do what I say. She wants to order other kids about and they don't like it. However, she's improving and is definitively less bossy than she was a year ago.

Krista and Klara are 3 now. Hard to believe. They are small and cute with their red curls. They are full time at Kindergarten now and love it. It makes for a peaceful house when almost everyone goes off to work or Schule and I'm left with just Peter. He will be 2 in July. He's the most easy going friendly little one anyone could have. He is full of smiles for everybody and hardly ever cries or fusses.

Anyhow, Barbecue fans will be happy to know we had one on Sunday. It had an animal theme. That is, everyone had to come as an animal. Dan and his workers were Lions and I was a Cat. I think I frightened our own real Cats by attempting to meow to the tune of God Save the Queen. Dan and his men plus his Elvis Group, which is now called The Elvis Appreciation Society, sang Jailhouse Rock and danced. It was, quite simply, alarming, but the kids all liked it except Rhys who said it made his ears hurt.

Harry and J did a Guitar duet dressed as Mice complete with tails, and Anna-Louise and Carly did a Flute and Clarinet version of Let it go from Frozen. Anna-Louise arranged it herself and it was very good indeed. Rhys, BJ, the Trips, Octavia, Skye, plus Will and Anna's oldest three daughters and William and Minerva did a mass tap dance on the Deck. It was noisy and very funny to watch since several of the participants couldn't actually dance and they also had trouble with their costumes which were a mixture of Cows and Sheep.

Our neighborhood Opera singer sang and our Postman, who is Scottish, did the Highland fling. He was wearing his clan kilt plus a bear hat and at one point we all discovered that true Scots do indeed wear no underwear, but it was a very brief view luckily.

A small group of people who meet in our Church to discuss Foreign affairs, or something like that, who are all over 60, sang The White Cliffs of Dover wearing Rabbit ears, and two elderly men from around the corner of our road played something, no idea what, on some lengths of copper tubing while dressed as Rats.

We finished with the usual can-can and kicked our shoes off. It was a fantastic evening.

Hope everyone is well. It's lovely and sunny here.