End of the year accomplishments

The time has come for school to end...we are excited for summer!! Here are a few big moments that the kids have achieved.

Katelyn received top honor for Science and French II at the High School Award Ceremony
Last day of early morning seminary!!! Breakfast in hand to eat on the way...look at how cute she is. She absolutely loved seminary this year and was sad to see it end...dad wasn't sad.

Katelyn received her varisty letter in Track and Field at school this year. She ran the 300 hurdles, the 4x400 relay and the 400. The girls track team took 1st place at the European Championships. She had a great time this year running track and met great friends.

Aubrey had a field trip to the Science Center. I was able to chaperone and had such a great time with she and her friends.

Aubrey at her recorder concert. She loves music and has done great in school this year too.

Tyler was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. He was very proud of himself and we are all proud of him too. He works very hard at school. Here he is with his sister who was a National Junior Honor Society member and now a National Honor Society Member.

With his friend who also made it.

This was the candle lighting part of the induction ceremony. The school was awfully brave lighting the candles. We were wondering if there would be any hair or robe fires...darn it, none :)

Katelyn's choir performance. She had a great choir teacher this year. He really made music fun for them. I love seeing her sing in the choir...it brings back such fun memories for me.

Tyler started beginning band this year. His choice of instrument...the baritone (the largest instrument they have). Thank goodness he was able to keep one at home because he was deadly on the bus at the beginning of the year.

It was so fun watching him learn to play an instrument. His band teacher is fabulous!! They sounded so good at their concert. I loved hearing him practice the baritone, it is such a great instrument. He loved that class and will continue it next year.

We are proud of how they transitioned to a new school, church and life over here. People have been so friendly and welcoming to us and we are so grateful.

London Trip

Here are a few pictures from our trip to London...We had such a good time with the kids. It was so nice to read and hear English. Aubrey mastered the "Tube" and told us how to get places and when to get off and to "Mind the Gap". We have come to love public transportation...especially Kent. He loves being able to sit and look out the window instead of being behind the steering wheel and being told by 5 other people how to drive :) We ate fabulous food, and found a Gap store with a clearance sale going on...life was good.

Here is Parliment Square lit up at sun down...
In front of the British Museum...incredible museum!

Westiminster Abbey...we loved going through this building...so much history. The kids loved the audio tour guide. We also were pleased to hear the boys choir and the organ practicing for the Sunday worship service. That was incredible.

Gotta love the phone booths!

The kids loved the double decker buses also the taxi cabs and police cars...so British!

The Tower of London. This was such a fun place. We spent all day here. They had a special exhibit about King Henry the VII that was incredible.

Here is a picture of the Tower Bridge...fun to walk across

One of the highlights of the trip was Wicked! Wow, what an incredible play. Everyone was mesmerized. Even Alysse sat in her seat completely silent watching it. We were all familiar with the sound track so the kids had a feel for the story. I might add KENT loved this show and is now the one in the van wanting to listen to the CD! Who knew there was some "thespian" in him. I guess after 20 years of marriage I've rubbed off on him a little :)

After the performance we went backstage and took pictures and received autographs of these incredible performers. London is the Broadway of England!! This was Fiero...one good lookin' lad!

Changing of the Guard at Buckinham Palace. Alysse just wanted to see the Queen.

Buckingham Palace...

The inside of the Imperial War Museum. Tyler's in heaven! He loves history!The Imperial War Museum...this was a great museum and one of Tyler's highlights!

Paris with my BFF

Kent and I had the chance to go to Paris by OURSELVES! We had wanted to go back to Paris to visit the art museums by ourselves. We had so much fun together. It's always fun being with your BFF!
We had begun our art trip with a trip to the Musee d' Orsay. This beautiful museum is full of Impressionism Art. With collections from Monet, Millet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Vincent van Gogh, Cezanne, Gauguin...just to name a few. Here are a few pictures from the Orsay.

Above is by James Whistler entitled "The Artist's Mother". We had remembered this painting from our college humanities textbook. It was beautiful to see it.

I loved this painting. The tenderness of the kiss and the love shown among mothers and daughters. Plus look at that pretty red hair :)

I loved Jean-Francois Millet's work. This painting is entitled "The Angelus. He loved to depict peasant life, their day to day fight to surive, and of their labours. I loved the gratitude and humility shown in this painting.

Here we are in front of the Louvre.

I was so excited to go into the Louvre. It was my first time and one of those sureal moments of...wow, I'm really here in Paris going to enter the Louvre. I've studied the art and seen pictures of the Louvre and I was finally there. We had so much fun in this museum. You can spend a week in the museum and probably still miss something. We spent 10 hours in there, because we could (no whining). We bought the audio sets, which was like having our own personal humanities lesson. They were high tech sets that allowed you to take several tours from master pieces, to Italian artists, to sculptures, to antiquities. And we DID!! Here is just a bit of the great things we saw... (we have so many pictures)

Of course...the Mona Lisa. Okay some people are disappointed by the Mona Lisa...(it is smaller than you would think) but I wasn't! I thought it was incredible to be looking at a piece of art that I have only ever seen in a textbook. Once again, it was "wow, I'm in Paris looking at the Mona Lisa". And yes, the eyes follow you and the colors are incredible. The Leonardo da Vinci collections at the museum were amazing.

The Egyptian antiquities were amazing when you would stop and see the dates dating back to 3000 BC. This is a picture of the Sphinx (2620- 2500 BC). Their collection was like none other. We kept thinking it would end and it didn't.

This was one of our favorite sculptures (there are many to choose from) called "Victory of Samothrace (190-180 BC) this along with the "Venus de Milo (another favorite) were found in Greece.

The Hills Are Alive...

The Abbott's love a 4 day weekend!! In a recent weekend we went to Salzburg Austria.
The snow capped mountains were beautiful and the frozen waterfalls and icicles were amazing.

This is a picture of the Salzburg Cathedral. It was here that we were trying to teach our children about architecture, telling them that the architecture in this city is Baroque...to which Aubrey responded "Oh that is sad that all the people here are poor" She thought we said "broke". It does sound similar :)

Salzburg is famous as the home of Mozart. This is the house where he was born. Alysse had definitely had enough...amazing you can sleep in a stroller on cobblestones.

Tyler and Katelyn in front of the Salzach River. This river separates the old town and the new town. The new town was rebuilt after WWII. The old town survived WWII. Behind Katelyn and Tyler is the old town.

This is a picture of the Hohensalzburg Fortress. It sits magnificently atop a hill. We had such a great visit. This is truly a fun city to explore. We are hoping to go back in the summer with Grandma and Grandpa Byers and take the "Sound Of Music" tour and see Eagle's Nest.

What we've been up to!

Okay, we didn't send out a Christmas card this year, not realizing you need to order them in October. We did want to update you on what is going on in our life. So we've joined the blog community, so you can see our beautiful faces and see where we've been.