Morning All :) Paul nice accidental flower :) Marea,love your picture of the lily and larkspur,beautifull. Joy,what a beauty you have there.WOW!Loving the red in it. Ok heres whats blooming here in the north land. Blue Shimmers..I beleive anyways Chocolate lily Lent H Williamson Lost tag dwarf iris, Iris I got from Michigan Blub Comp..long long time ago Chocolate Lets Boggie Romeo...I beleive Pink Haze sib Raspberry Blush Unknown Red,could be Red Zigger,maybe Just like these two :) Another unknown One more unknown Peony Carol and Gold Has anyone heard from Ellen??She hasn't posted other then to ask to be in shade swap.Just wondering. Hope your not all melting in this heat. Jean

We have two kids and are departing soon for a trip to Europe, we will be in the south of France for two weeks and in Holland for one week. In the south of France, we are staying in a house that is located in the Luberon. I drew a circle around the town we're staying in and basically researched the towns within a one hour driving radius. We are then flying via Ryan Air to Holland and staying in an apartment in Amsterdam. The house we're staying in in the south of France is a relatively simple place. My kids are older than yours, but we've made it a priority to pack books and simple arts activities they can do. I expect to buy a jigsaw puzzle. We are bringing a deck of cards, an IPod and a Nintendo DS. There is no TV or internet connection at the house. We've talked to the kids a lot about flexibility. The biggest hassle with the electronic games, is that yes they have the advantage of being small and light, but they need a variety of chargers and power adapters to work with the European electrical current. Radio Shack had the highest prices around, Best Buy was better, but believe it or not, I found electrical equipment in the men's section of Marshalls where they sell things like um, power golf ball washers and the like. I also have purchased and wrapped small items for the children to receive at various times through the trip. Little clay kits from JoAnne bought on sale, they like these, and they cost about $2 each. Calvin and Hobbes books collected from garage sales for about 25 cents each. I sleep mask and ear plugs set, two bucks on sale at KMart. I assemble these and wrap them before we leave -- unwrapping the 'gifts' makes it even more fun for the kids. Oh, crayons and paper are another must. I had my daughter down load a lot of young adult books on CD onto her eye-pod and got an ear phone splitter so two kids can listen to the books on tape on the same Ipod player. Ideally, they'll listen to these in the back of the car while my husband and I talk or listen to our own music up front. We enjoy having down time while we're away, and plan on doing only one 'big' touristy thing a day. When traveling with kids, I like to have a sort of big picture plan, with info about all the sights available in a specific region, but like to play it by ear on a day to day basis, being responsive to people's moods, energy levels, health, etc. I also know in advance that I want to show them certain things, as in categories of things, like in the south of France, it'll be something like one cathedral, one abbey, one art museum, etc. I have a child whose into nature so we've made sure to research natural habitats and will probably get him a book so he and his sister can identify bugs and birds while we're there. I've also taken out library books on the countries we're visiting and left them lying around the kitchen table and we've done some casual thumbing through the pages. I don't force it. I just try to get them thinking a little, and looking at pictures really does that. It's important to remind them that travel is fun but it's also work and some days may be challenging for them. Oh, one more thing, we bring addresses for their friends so they can write postcards. I also take pictures of their friends and keep them stored on the digital camera so they can scroll back and look at the pictures when they feel like they're missing the kids back home.

I just travelled from London Ontario via Port Huron, then Flint, through MI via I-75 to their UP, WI, MN, and ND to Saskatchewan and later to Edmonton in Alberta in Canada, source of much of the oil and natural gas that the U.S. gets from Canada ... and was surprised at the low volume of traffic on that route - in tourist season. I used the method described above along much of that course, especially at night, when traffic was lighter. I have no idea how many miles I travelled with the engine not running, but it was substantial. And hardly ever did I interfere with the travel of anyone else using the road. Same strategy on the return trip. Last evening I started from near London Ontario and came down through Detroit, then down I-75 to Knoxville TN, then across on I-40 to Lake Junaluska, near Asheville, NC to a reunion of over 200 former missionaries and development workers to Korea, arriving just before the dinner hour. Though traffic was somewhat heavier, especially at rush hour, than on the northern route, I was able to coast dozens of times, without interfering with the rate of travel of people following me. Sometimes on a long downhill slope with rather light gradient, I'd re-start for a short speed-up of travel, part way down the hill, then coast again. I really appreciate the great effort that was expended to build that highway through the rocky hills/mountains of Kentucky, Tenessee and North Carolina: through the Great Smokies. More than I did earlier ... and I think that's an added benefit to my increased awareness of the importance of conservation of our resources, especially petroleum, plus reducing global warming and pollution. This profligate lifestyle that we've self-centredly carried out for three generations or less can't continue. And now, we have the gall to tell the rapidly industrializing countries, especially China, India, Brazil, etc. that tey've got to take an important role in decreasing pollution ... when we have three cars in every driveway, and they have about 1 car in 200 driveways (or is that 100)? Where do we get such gall? Many of us in the U.S. and Canada claim to be Christian. I wonder what God has to say about such heedless, greedy selfishness? ole joyful

Haven't had any problems using TripAdvisor (for domestic stays only, FYI). Biggest issue is I'm a hotels.com member and if I use TA to book a hotel, they can't pass along my HC membership #. I have to contact HC to get credit for the stay. I like HC's free rewards program and find it useful. I use TripAdvisor mostly for reviews; I find them more comprehensive and useful than HC's reviews. I don't hassle much about getting the absolute lowest price. Most aggregators don't vary more than $5-10 each way. Since we travel to certain areas 2-4x/yr, we have hotels we prefer to stay at. By using an aggregator, we can track if prices are going too high for what we receive. For example, we found a modest motel in Monterey that has a room set-up that worked perfectly for us. The location is convenient and the value was good. The trade-offs were acceptable for the cost. But after a couple of years they got "discovered" and rates shot up. They are now $50/night more than the surrounding competition. They're good, but not THAT good. So we dropped them and chose someplace else for our last visit, to try out. The new place had very accurate reviews on TA. We knew what to expect and again, the trade-offs were few in relation to the value. I booked thru TA, however, so I contacted HC afterwards to claim the rewards credit for our stay. I've always found HC's customer service to be helpful and straightforward. We had an issue once with a non-cancellable hotel reservation. I called the hotel directly but they wouldn't budge, even for an emergency. I called HC and they went out of their way to help rebook it. We didn't get a full refund, but HC credited us for one day of a two-day stay, which we thought was more than fair of them.