BLAKE TURNED 4

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BEST.DADS.EVER.

Adam turns 2

adam's year in review..... not in sequential order, i'm too lazy!

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exodus to the promised land

aka... our flight home from London.


our day started about 6am (for jonathan and i anyways), we finished all the last minute packing and were ready for the car to pick us up at 9. a friend of mine made the boys these backpacks for them to carry their toys in (don't worry, i saved room in my bag because i knew it wouldn't last that long)




here are the boys saying 'bye' and blowing kisses to our London flat


since being in London we had only ridden in a car about 3 times, so the boys were pretty excited to be sitting in a car!

7 large suitcases and 3 carry-ons... not bad for 6 months right!? all of our suitcases were over weight (imagine that) but thanks to jonathan's connections at the airport we didn't pay a dime (or pence).

the boys were SO excited to be going on an airplane, seeing pa, grandma, and t, and going to our red house that they were complete angels.... yes i wrote that correctly, they were amazing travelers, exceeded all my wildest expectations. here they are playing with some toys before we boarded the plane for a 10 1/2 hour flight!

here we all are finally on the airplane, it was 1pm, which happens to be adam's naptime.... he fell asleep before we even took off and slept for a couple hours!

they were SO good on the plane, i was SO proud of them... they slept, ate snacks, colored, and watched movies the entire time (blake did enjoy going potty on the plane a little too much.... a few trips to the bathroom without even going tinkles! and i have to say that i got pretty good at changing diapers in that TINY room!) we didn't have any major meltdowns, no ear pressure problems, time went by fairly quickly.... like i said, beyond my expectations!

adam and i watching a movie while blake slept....

no pictures in between flights, no time, we barely made our connection... we were the last ones on the plane. by the time we landed in dallas it was almost midnight London time, everything went smoothly we just had a short layover....luckily no bags were lost, no kids were lost, the drug sniffing dog didn't find anything, and the customs people didn't ask us any questions.

as soon as we got settled on the plane blake pretty much passed out and looked like this the entire flight: (what a champ!)

on the other hand this crazy boy was awake until about an hour before we landed!

the 4 hour flight from dallas to seattle seemed like a puddle jump.... we could hardly wait to get off the plane, we practically ran to baggage claim so we could see everyone. i think we all cried a little when we saw each other again, it was so nice to be home! (i know my sister and mom took some pictures... i'll have to get them and add them later)

we grabbed all our bags, which happened to be the first ones out probably because they were the last ones on the plane... but none were lost (that was definitely a miracle)! pa brought his truck per request from blake... he had been talking for weeks about riding with pa in his truck, which actually worked out great because we wouldn't have been able to fit us and all the luggage in the van!

i can't even tell you how good it felt to walk in our front door... when blake saw our red house he had the BIGGEST smile on his face and was SO excited! my parents were amazing and set up all our beds, filled our fridge and cupboards, and had fresh baked cookies waiting!

we were truly blessed to have the opportunity to live in London, we had the most amazing time, and were a little sad to see our time come to an end.... we made lifelong friends and memories!

WE ARE SO HAPPY TO BE HOME!!

this weekend we rented a car and headed west.....

first stop: STONEHENGE

i'm glad we went, it was pretty cool to see.... a little weird because it's in the middle of NOWHERE, nothing around but grass and a few sheep, but the view was amazing!

jonathan has a cousin that lives near Bath and we were lucky enough to stay with them for a few days. we had a great time with them, they were so great to let us invade their house and show us around.... not to mention the amazing food they cooked for us!!

our next stop of the weekend: BATH

Pulteney Bridge

Bath Abbey

Roman Baths

us at the Roman Baths

Roman Baths

for all you Jane Austen fans.....

The Circus

Adam was able to squeeze in a little nap during all of our sight seeing

The Royal Crescent

after sightseeing in Bath, Denise and Joe took us to a little park near their house for the boys to get out some energy..... the nice thing about parks in the winter is that we get them all to ourselves!

they had these great little pedal tractors that the boys loved

the next day Denise and Joe took us to the CUTEST little village i have ever seen.... apparently they have filmed a few movies here (The Wolfman to name one)!

our last stop: Castle Combe

St. Andrews church- it has a working medieval clock inside

Manor House Hotel- super fancy

at least we're all looking at the camera.... that's the best i can do!

giant chess board next to the hotel

Castle Combe- so picturesque

we had such an amazing weekend, Denise and Joe live in such a beautiful area and we had so much fun spending time with them and seeing the countryside!

ps. jonathan did much better with the car this time! :)

recent activities

cousin Rachel came to visit.... we went to the Hard Rock Cafe (the original)


hard rock


toured the tower of london

toured westminster abbey (thanks to bryn for watching the kids all day so we could go!)

big ben by night

engine room of tower bridge (we also went across the top)

st. pauls

view from the top of st. pauls (we climbed A LOT of stairs)

took a walk along the south bank on a sunny january day

LES MISERABLES!!

us at Les Mis (we also saw Dirty Dancing, it wasn't great, but worth it because i LOVE the movie!)

trafalgar square at night.... we went to the national gallery and national portrait gallery, both were pretty amazing

the palace at night

PARIS

while my cousin rachel was here visiting we got to take a short 2 day trip to Paris!! we flew out early in the morning and came home late the next evening, so we could maximize our time. we were lucky to make our flight however.... we had to take the train to the airport and we missed the one we wanted by literally seconds, so we had to wait 20 min for the next one. i didn't think it would be a big deal since we didn't have any luggage to check and we had printed our boarding passes. WRONG! the line through security was FOREVER long, when we finally got through the board said 'final boarding call' for our flight which was a 15 min walk to the gate. so i RAN, and we made it, barely.

the first thing we did after we checked into our TINY hotel room (i really didn't care, it was cheap, and for one night.... it was clean and that's all that mattered!) was go on a river cruise down the Seine to get acquainted with the city.



here is our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower, when we first got there it was so foggy we could only see about half of it.




after the river cruise our first stop was the musee d'orsey. beautiful museum, it was an old train station, so the inside was amazing!


after the orsay, we headed to the Louvre, this picture doesn't even do it justice, this is only part of one side of the 'U' shaped museum.... it was crazy big, i had no idea! we could have easily spent ALL our time here and not even seen a fraction of it.

anyone seen the da vinci code????

it seemed so weird to me that you were allowed to take pictures in this museum, so i didn't take many.... but here SHE is....

by the time we were done museum hopping, it was dark, and so beautiful!

the Eiffel Tower.... it is SO much prettier at night! :)

it was a lot bigger than i expected, and once we got to the second level, it was a lot higher than i expected.... (we would've gone to the top, but it was closed because of wind)

rach and i

the arc de triumph

do we look tired yet?? we were.... and we were so busy sight seeing that we hadn't eaten a thing ALL day! so we walked down Champs Elysees and grabbed some bread from a bakery (heaven) and headed back to the hotel.

the next morning we had a wonderful breakfast of crepes and croissants.... and ran into St. Michaels fountain

Notre Dame.... besides the Eiffel Tower this was probably my favorite!

the inside was amazingly beautiful!

this is a view of it from the other side

next we took a walk down Ru De Rivoli (and did some souvenir shopping) towards Concorde Square which is where Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined!

also in Concorde Square was the Paris ferris wheel (no where near as cool as the london eye, sorry)

we found this bridge totally by accident.... it has thousands of locks all over it, symbolizing peoples love for one another and commitment to each other..... they all have initials and names on them, very cool. i wish i would've known, i could have added mine!

one of the last things we saw before we headed to the airport was the Opera (as in the building, we didn't actually go to an opera :)

we had another eventful experience getting home.... we took the wrong train towards the airport and had to get off and switch trains twice until we finally got on the right one, fortunately we had learned from previous mistakes and left in PLENTY of time..... only to have our flight home delayed by 2 hours. which isn't really a long time, but the trains back to central London do NOT run 24 hours a day! i think there was only one train coming after the one we got on to get back home.... again, we barely made it, but we made it!

we had an amazing trip, Paris was wonderful, and i had tons of fun with my cousin! thanks rach for coming to visit!!