enough about WordPress features… here are some pictures from our recent travels around France and England.

the other week we went to the Zoo de Champrepus, a zoo near our house here in La Manche (Basse-Normandie).  For a small zoo it was actually quite good; there was hardly anybody there, so we had a nice private tour of the grounds and managed to get up close and personal with some of the residents.

The arch at the Zoo de Champrepus

the highlight of the trip to the zoo was a visit into the lemur grounds within the Madagascar exhibit. You could walk right up to the lemurs and hang out with them, and they wouldn’t run away or otherwise react to your presence. The lemurs were funny; they would wander around the grounds when it was cloudy, but as soon as the sun would come up they’d prop themselves up to bask their bellies in it.

A sunbathing lemur at the Zoo de Champrepus

meanwhile, here is a fellow making fresh crèpes for us at a weekend carnival that took place in the town of Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët near where we live. The most interesting thing about the carnival (to me at least) was how carnies from all over France came to set up their booths, rides and attractions inside the town. The side streets of Saint-Hilaire were overflowing with trailers and camper vans full of the workers running the festivities and their families. I know that my stalwart crew tends to move around quite a bit, but in comparison to these people we’re downright sedentary.

Making crèpes at the carnival in Saint-Hilaire-du-Harcouët

a few weeks ago we took a trip to England to stay with some friends of ours (the family of a high school friend from Toronto) who are living in the town of Reading. While we were there the families toured London and went to LEGOLAND in Windsor. It was a great trip; I’m sure it was refreshing for the kids to get to hear people other than their parents speaking in English to them!

one fun aspect of the trip was taking our car on the ferry from the port at Ouistreham (near the city of Caen) to Portsmouth in England. Even more fun was the trip back, where we got a cabin for our family of four on the ferry. The kids loved it… plus I got to take a nap.

Leaving the port of Ouistreham

while in England we traveled to the city of Bath to see the ancient Roman baths. It was fascinating to me to see structures so ancient, and to imagine what life must have been like back in the old (like, REALLY old) days. Callum, for one, really digs that sort of stuff.

The Roman bath in Bath, England

on our way back from Reading to Portsmouth to catch the ferry back to France we paid a visit to Stonehenge (yes, I did just link to that). After visiting the Roman baths (old) it was interesting to visit Stonehenge (even older). Architecture has really come a long way in the past few thousand years.

while visiting the ‘henge I conveniently forgot my phone in my car and was unable to take a picture of it. So when we got back to the car I snagged my phone, ran back through the tunnel under the road that leads to the site, and snapped a quick photo of the path leading up to it. It’s not much, but hey, it’s better than nothing. Maybe.

The path leading to Stonehenge

and as a parting shot here’s a picture of the best pub in Paris, where my friend and co-worker Ian and I visited during a business trip to Paris… the Great Canadian Pub!

The Great Canadian Pub in Paris

one of the highlights of our trip was visiting my sister Linda and her family in Tampa; we went trick-or-treating with my sister, her husband and their kids in their suburban neighborhood. My parents also came by for the occasion, visiting from Ellenton, somewhat south of Tampa and just north of Bradenton, where they spend their winters. It was very fun! Callum went as Luke Skywalker (Yvonne sewed his outfit for him), while Mia dressed as, yes, Darth Vader. Lachlan, who is 2, had a tiger costume he refused to wear, but fortunately he was sporting some surfer clothes underneath, so when he scampered up to the doors of my sister’s neighbors they thought he was dressed as a little surfer boy and as such got candy from the good candy bowl and avoided getting candy from the “bad candy for lamers without costumes” bowl.

here are a few pictures from the trip:

Callum in the line for the Test Track ride at Epcot, being a dummy. And by dummy I mean crash test dummy.

Amelia and Lachlan in the stick-your-head-in-the-totem-wall thingy at the Canada pavilion in the World Showcase at Epcot. Not sure how to better describe that.

four of us on the Expedition Everest roller coaster at the Animal Kingdom. If you look closely you can see me in the dark red shirt raising the roof near the middle of the coaster with Callum to my right, and Yvonne and Mia behind us.

Mia, who is 5, had a love-hate relationship with Expedition Everest. She rode on it, cried throughout the whole second half of the ride… then wanted to go on it again. Again she cried and said she didn’t like it, but afterward wanted to go on it a third time. After the third time she was done! Callum on the other hand couldn’t get enough of the roller coasters – he loved Space Mountain as well! Next time we go (though who knows when that will be) we’ll have to get him on the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster at the Hollywood (formerly Disney MGM) Studios. Though I don’t know if we’ll be able to get Mia to go on that one, and she certainly won’t be riding “that scary elevator ride”.

and here’s a photo of Mia and Lachlan doing some reading, the way humans were meant to – upside-down on the couch. Mia is a pretty voracious reader. I think Lachlan was just looking at the pictures – but hey, he’s only 2.

plus, I could really go for one of those big ol’ Stiegl beers right about now…

as far as life is concerned, things are status quo, and the new year is almost upon us. 2009 has been a pretty good year – the kids are great, Yvonne has been doing well, work is good (we had several successful releases of Blackbaud Direct Marketing this year, plus I got PMP and ScrumMaster certified!) and I’ve been getting back into playing and producing music, which has been a blast and I feel has enriched my life.

and that’s it for the annual recap – at least ’til this time next year!

the town of Folkston has a really great Railfan Platform with a radio scanner (to hear the engineers talking to one another), picnic tables, power outlets, and yes, Wi-Fi Internet. When we got there there were already three or four railfans down by the tracks with their cameras and tripods, taking pictures. Most of the trains have been CSX mixed freights or intermodals, with a few Amtrak passenger consists thrown in.

one cool application I downloaded this morning is the ATCS Monitor, a railroad data, CTC monitor and display. It shows real-time data of where trains are located north and south along the line, so we can figure out when trains will be passing by Folkston, and from which direction they’ll be coming. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

we’ll be heading back to Charleston tomorrow morning, after another noisy night (yes, the trains keep coming through all through the night, which would perhaps be annoying normally, but hey – that’s why we’re here). The kids have had a great time so far! And, well… so have I!