Mt Vernon in the Fall

Today we paid another visit to Mt Vernon Estate to see the fall colours. The crowds were right down so we finally got to see the inside of the mansion (on previous visits, the line has been 1-2 hours). We also enjoyed the new museum and the kids played at being the Washington family.

Fall Bike Ride

This afternoon, with the sun shining, we decided to take a bike ride to the local park. The leaves there are just as impressive as they are in our street. Being Australian, we equate sunshine with warmth. WRONG. It was bitterly cold coming home. But I still managed to get a video of riding up our street. And Gemma is getting too small for that bike, so we shall shortly get her a bigger bike with which she can more easily keep up with the rest of us with gears.

Fall

The leaves are changing colour late this year, apparently due to the dought that has been plaguing much of the US this year. Here's some shots I took today of the trees around our house and up and down the street. It's incredibly colourful. And we got here just in time. The spectacular deep red tree dropped 90% of its leaves within hours of me taking these photos. usually the different colours appear at different times, but the delays this year means that all the colours are appearing at once. Not looking forward to cleaning up the leaves when the trees are done!

Thanksgiving

Today, the 4th Thursday in November, is Thanksgiving. Our neighbours kindly offered to feed us turkey and all the trimmings. We were suitably stuffed by the end of the meal as is the tradition.

European Vacation

We're home. After 16 days in the UK and France. We had a fantastic time. And in the coming days/weeks, I will fill in the details. Here's a few photos of a few of the places we visited.

We got to the following places:

London Bus

London Underground

Tower of London

Harrods

Hyde Park

Big Ben

Westminster

Westminster Abbey

Trafalgar Square

Picadilly Circus

Australia House

British Museum

Royal Observatory (Greenwich)

St Pauls Cathedral

Stonehenge

Roman Baths

Devon County

The Milky Way

Clovelly

Widemouth Bay

Bude

Salisbury Cathedral

Hampton Court Palace

Eurostar and the Chunnel

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tour

Seine River

Arc di Triomphe

Champs Elysee

Place de la Concorde

Sacre Couer

Musee D'Orsee

Musee Louvre'

Paris Metro :)

We had a Ball

Tonight we attended an official function at the Westin Hotel, a Black Tie Ball. The kids had never seen me in a Tuxedo before (the last time I wore one was Russell's wedding 14 years ago), but the photo on the wall behind us has me wearing one at our wedding!

We had a great night, mixing with some of my colleagues and people from a number of countries. However, by 10:30, the only people left were Australians, our guests had obviously had hard weeks. We partied on until well into the morning.