playground firsts: swing

the last thing a banana sees

grandparents, coughing, and a weekend roadtrip

March has been pretty crazy.  We just wrapped up about a month of visitors, which has been nice if a little hectic.  Unfortunately, Sam and Cal were dealing with viruses of various description for a lot of the month, and snot and coughing don't make for really fantastic photo opportunities.  Sam's parents got the short end of the stick on that one, and it was nice to have the help while Sam was feeling like crap but we didn't get to go and do a whole lot.  We did have a nice time visiting with family while they were here though (Cal's early birthday pics, below).  Sam, her dad and Cal went to Wales for a weekend while they were here but incredibly didn't take any pictures.  (I know, it's insane).

Toward the tail end of my parent's week here, Sam started feeling a little better and we took a short road trip to Wiltshire.  We saw Stonehenge on the equinox, when they open it up for a few hours around sunrise so that you can walk right up to the stones instead of just walking around.  That was pretty awesome.  We also headed down to the coast and toured the mightily impressive HMS Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar.  We also saw some Cathedrals. 

So, to sum up March so far: lots of visitors, visiting with family (all of us), lots of sneezing (Sam and Cal), a few bonks on the head (Cal and Nick), only one weekend where we really went and saw anything touristy.  We took a lot of pictures that weekend though, and they are here.  Here's a sampling.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Sorry we've been on a blogging hiatus.  We're still in the midst of our hosting duties.  We'll catch up soon!

wait a second, could it be?

One year ago today, Calvin surprised us all with a dramatic appearance.  Right away we knew for sure that we'd just added one more guy to our wolf pack.  Three of us Moeckels, running and crawling around Britain together.

Grantchester is an artsy kind of place and I commissioned a special project from a guy down the street to celebrate the occasion.  Happy birthday, Cal!

added later: Sam saw this and told me it was too weird, so here are some less stupid pictures of Cal's early birthday party last weekend.

 

Balloons!

 

Skeptical about the cake at first....

 
 

tasted good though.

 

This looks like we're all sitting around laughing at him, but he was just tired.

 

Knocking down his new blocks.