Brittany and Normandy

Happy Easter everyone! We were very lucky to get to travel to France for the 4 day weekend and stay with our friends, the Des Courtis family, at their home in Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, France. They warmly welcomed us into their family even though we crashed their Easter holiday and made them speak English all weekend! We have promised to make Theo learn French to make up for our failure!
Saint Briac was beautiful and the weather was perfect. Theo spent all day at the beach or in their enormous back yard playing with his toys. He was in absolute heaven!


Saturday we rented a car and drove to Normandy. We stopped quickly at St Micheal's mount (Mont Saint Michel) which is a famous abbey built on an island. When the tide is down you can access it from the road and when the tide is up it is an island. It was formerly a famous spot for pilgrims. There is now a road where you can access it at all times of day but it is still an amazing site.


We met our tour guide in Bayeux and he took us around Normandy. I strongly recommend getting a guide because the area is huge and you could drive around all day not knowing exactly what to look for! We visited the German cemetery first. Most Germans were killed in battles or by the French underground resistance so they were buried quickly in shallow graves around France. This cemetery is where their remains have been moved and they are still finding new bodies each month.


After the German cemetery we visited Pointe du Hoc, the point between Utah and Omaha beaches where the US army rangers were in charge of scaling these enormous cliffs in order to capture the German cannons so they couldn't fire on the beaches during the invasion. The area was heavily bombed prior to the operation and there are enormous craters where the bombs landed. It was amazing to see. The cliffs were basically 90 degrees vertical and the Rangers climbed them using small pick axes and their bayonets!


Next we visited Omaha beach where the most casualties during D-day occurred. This was primarily because the planes in charge of bombing the area before the ground forces arrived missed their targets so the Germans were unhurt and completely prepared for the invasion. The beach has returned to it's original purpose as a seaside resort and is absolutely beautiful. There are still many reminders of the US casualties, however, including a memorial and the provision of several German bunkers in the area. The main road by the beach was named for a US army platoon that lost the majority of it's members in the first wave. There is also a small stone in someones front yard that marks the spot of the first American cemetery in France.



Lastly we visited the American cemetery. It was a gorgeous day; blue sky and sunny, and the white crosses against the green grass overlooking the ocean was stunning. The cemetery is the largest US cemetery outside of Arlington and is used for US armed service men and women killed in France from 1941-1945.


After Normandy we returned to Brittany to spend the rest of the weekend with our friends. We enjoyed delicious French home cooking, went out for crepes and cider (2 Brittany specialties) and had a lovely and relaxing weekend.


Miss you all!
Love, Sarah, Shane and Theo

It's a...

boy! Yes, we have the beginnings of a basketball team :o) Theo is quite excited!
Love, Sarah, Shane, Theo and baby boy T4!

Finally done!

I've been working on this hooded scarf for Theo for forever! Turns out knitting takes more time when you have a little one :o) Anyway, i wanted to show off a few pictures of Theo in his scarf (just in time for summer!) and him playing with his dad. If any of you are beginning baby knitters I strongly recommend Debbie Bliss beginner baby knits book. It is really easy and has adorable ideas!

The hooded scarf!

With pocket!

Headed to the park!

We love the sandbox!

Isle of Skye

Our first vacation without Theo! Last week, after celebrating our 5 year anniversary on March 11, Shane and I hopped on a plane to Inverness, Scotland. My parents came over to stay the 4 nights and 5 days with Theo. It was sad to leave Theo but we were excited for some R&R!
Once in Inverness we rented a car and drove the 2.5 hours to Kinloch Lodge on the Isle of Skye. Along the way we drove over Skye Bridge which connects Skye to the mainland, and visited Eilean Donan castle. The castle is beautifully situated on the Atlantic with a view of the Cuillin Hills (the mountain range that covers the island).


Kinloch Lodge is owned by the MacDonald's family, a clan from the Isle of Skye that can trace their lineage back to 1140! Clare MacDonald is a chef in her own right and has several cookbooks available for sale. A few years ago she hired Marcello Tully from London to be the head chef of the B&B restaurant. A daily 5 course dinner is included in the room price and the restaurant got a Michelin star a few years ago. The food was AMAZING and after 3 days we really had to leave or we may not have fit into our small house in London!

Kinloch Lodge

View from our window!

After all the eating we had to get out for some exercise! We first drove up to Portree, a small town on the northern part of Skye with an adorable little town square and village. From Portree you can drive around the Trotternish peninsula for amazing views. Along the way we stopped at the Old Man of Storr - a hike up to a group of rock formations, the most prominent being named the Old Man of Storr. It was a beautiful hike, even though the second 2/3rds of the path was covered in snow!



After our hike we continued up the Trotternish Peninsula to Flodgiarry Country House Hotel (for lunch - of course!). It is the ancestral home of Flora MacDonald, the famous rescuer of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1746. We had a small lunch at this beautiful country home and Shane had the best fish chowder in the world!

Our last day in Skye was full of whiskey tasting. We did a small walk near our hotel after breakfast and then headed to Talisker, the only distillery left on the Isle of Skye. Their whiskey's are known for being very smokey because of the peat that is used to dry the barley in the early parts of the process. After a thorough tour and tasting session we managed to buy a few bottles before leaving. Next we headed to the south of the Island and stopped at Eilean Iarmain, another beautiful country home, that has a small whiskey shop. They sell Gaellic whiskey, a new company that began about 40 years ago. They buy scotch made by distillers on the western coast of mainland Scotland and bottle and sell them. We had a very nice tasting session here as well, tasting the 8 year, 12 year and 21 year old single malts. Next door to the whiskey shop was a wool store that sold men's Harris tweeds. It was a good stop for Shane!

After a wonderful 3 days of driving, walking, relaxing and eating, we headed back to Inverness. We spent the night in Inverness, visited Loch Ness and searched for Nessie, before heading back to London. Our little guy did very well in our absence and my parents thoroughly enjoyed their week with him. It was a great trip but after 5 days it was good to have our family back together!

Inverness Castle

Love, Sarah and Shane
(see Facebook for more pictures!)

And then there were 4!

Hi everyone!
Theo wanted to show you a picture of his new sibling! He or she should be joining us around Sept 3 of this year. We are very excited to welcome another little one into our family and Theo is looking forward to being a big brother!

Love, Sarah, Shane, Theo and T4

On the move!

Hello everyone and sorry for being such a delinquent blogger! January has been a very fun month in the Tintle household. Beginning in mid-Dec Theo started crawling backwards. He continued to do this for nearly a month and we were quite confident that his wiring was wrong and he would just move backwards his entire life! However, one day in late Jan I had just finished talking on the phone and I set it on the ground. I looked up to see Theo, with his entire focus on the phone, moving towards me! It was amazing. I moved the phone and he did it again! I then tried it with a toy and he went backwards. For an entire week he would only crawl forwards for electronics - phone, computer, blackberry - but for everything else he still went backwards! The best was he seemed to find crawling amazing and would laugh every time he moved forward. It was great b/c you always knew when he was on the go! Sadly for us though, this slow moving only lasted about 2 weeks. He is now completely on the go and starting to pull up on furniture. He, of course, can't get down so he just crashes to the ground when he lets go but it doesn't seem to bother him. He is loving his new freedom and we are scurrying to baby proof around him!!

Besides new movement, Jan also brought Theo's grandparents for the weekend. It was very fun to see my parents and for them to get to spend time with Theo. We also had another house guest, Zac, who stayed with us on his way from London to South Africa. I just received an email from him saying that he missed Theo :o)

That is all for now! I will try to be better about updates. Feb is bringing us lots of fun guests from the US and in March Shane and I head for Scotland!!

Love, Sarah

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Hello to everyone! We decided to cram one more trip into 2010 by spending Christmas in Vienna and Prague. On Dec 24 we headed to Vienna and thankfully arrived on time after a week of Heathrow being shut down due to snow (it snows here every year but they are consistently shocked by it!) In Vienna we attended Christmas mass at St Stephens Church. It is a beautiful, Gothic cathedral and the service was interspersed with classical music from a full symphony as well as amazing opera singers. It was quite impressive! After the service we did a walking tour of Vienna where we saw Stephansplatz (plaza in front of St Stephens); St Peter's church and the Holy Trinity Plague column, both erected by Leopold I for saving his city from the plague; Kaisergruft, the imperial crypt of 150 of the Hapsburg family; the Spanish riding school; the Monument against War and Fascism; and the Sacher hotel, home of the sacher torte which we stopped and tried - delicious! That evening Theo had a sitter so he could peacefully sleep in our hotel room while Shane and I went to a fancy dinner at Le Ciel :o)
The following day we visited the Hofburg palace which leads you through the silver collection of the Hapsburg dynasty, then through an exhibit on Empress Elizabeth aka 'Sisi' and through the imperial apartments. The Hapsburgs were smart and seriously decreased their spending and extravagance in the 18th and 19th centuries so there was no revolution like the one in France (although Marie Antoinette was from the Hapsburg family!) That afternoon Shane and I took shifts at the Opera seeing Der Rosencavelier, "The Knight of the Rose," by Richard Strauss. It was very good despite our terrible seats and only seeing half of the opera each! Afterwards we went to dinner which Theo slept through beautifully.
The following day we were picked up in our snazzy Mercedes minivan and driven to Prague. We drove through southern Czech Republic (Moravia) and saw the Czech wine country and some of the country side. Prague is a beautiful city, very colorful and lively. We headed to the Christmas market, which is rated one of the best in the world, and wandered through the stalls sipping our hot, mulled wine that is sold every 10 feet. We ended up that evening in the new section of town near Wenceslao square and had a delicious dinner of sausage and Prague ham at the market. The following day we had a guide who gave us a walking tour of Prague. We visited the old part of town and she pointed out the Astronomical clock (15th century clock that still works and has a small show every hour with moving pieces and the 12 apostles making an appearance), Tyn church, the museum of Czech cubism (Prague is the only city in the world where cubism is incorporated into the architecture), Bethlehem chapel (where Jan Hus, a protestant martyr 100 years before Martin Luther used to preach. His death sparked a bloody civil war ending in 300 years of Hapsburg/Catholic rule), Charles University (the first University north of the Alps, established in the 14th century), Charles bridge (named after Charles IV, the Holy Roman Emperor of the 14th century who is credited for making Prague an international, Renaissance city) and the Jewish ghetto (Prague lost 80,000 of it's 120,000 Jews during the holocaust. The old Jewish ghetto is now a classy shopping district but still has the oldest synagogue in Eastern Europe (1270) which continues to function for orthodox Jews, a Jewish cemetery and a memorial in one of the synagogues for all of the Jews who lost their lives in WWII). We then crossed the Charles bridge to the little quarter with it's water wheel, Lennon wall (someone placed a bouquet of flowers there after Lennon's death and it ballooned into a graffiti/paraphernalia wall of anti-communism thought) and the church of St Nicolas. It was a very informative tour and she took us through many of the side roads and narrow alleys that we would never otherwise have seen. It was also interesting to hear her view on communism in Prague. She told us that the buildings were falling apart during the communist years and many of the side roads and alleys were blocked off. She pointed out the Intercontinetal hotel that is in one of the buildings where communist officials used to stay. Apparently it is one of the nicest hotels in Prague but she refuses to set foot inside. She also told us that restoration commensed basically the day after the Velvet revolution with lots of public funds given by the Czech people. However the communist party still receives votes during the elections and up until the most recent election has been the 2nd party of the opposition.
Our last day in Prague we headed to the Castle quarter. The Prague castle is one of the largest in Europe thanks to no popular revolution and being spared the bombs of WWI and WWII. It contains St Vitus cathedral which holds the tomb of St Wenceslas, Prague's patron saint, the basilica and convent of St George and several other buildings that have served various purposes over the years. It is a massive complex that you could spend all day walking through!
That evening we headed to the airport and home to London. It was a wonderful vacation and we definitely recommend both of the cities if you are visiting Europe!
Love, Shane, Sarah and Theo

St Stephens Cathedral


Shane and Theo enjoying their weiner in Vienna!


The Astronomical clock


The 3 of us at the Charles Bridge