Trip to UK: Part 2 -- Scotland!

After seeing everything that we possibly could in London we boarded a train that took us on to Scotland!  The views of the English countryside were so beautiful!  We had been in the city the entire time and for this small town country girl it was nice to see the country again.  I love being able to do so many things in a big city but I've decided that the hustle and bustle just is not my thing.  So needless to say, I LOVED Scotland!  We took the train to Edinburgh (also a pretty big city but nothing in comparison to London).  We stayed in an awesome little bed and breakfast.  Breakfast wasn't served until 830 each morning!  Oh my, by 830 each morning at home I have usually gone for a run (IF I drag myself out of bed before the babies), cooked breakfast, cleaned up, done a few loads of laundry and counting down the minutes until Jack's morning nap.  I'm sure all stay at home mom's will understand that!  I don't sleep in ever, but I got to here!  We went to the Edinburgh castle the first morning we were there.  It was really cool.  We of course stayed for the one o'clock cannon fire. 

Edinburgh Castle

Us overlooking Edinburgh!  Notice how green everything is! 



Adam overlooking the city!  We had been pretty lucky with the rain until this day!




View of the city of Edinburgh

After leaving the castle we walked the Royal Mile and somehow I got talked into doing a little mountain hiking.  It really wasn't too bad and the view was awesome!  We also were able to get some running in that afternoon.  Adam of course went for a long run and I just went to a nearby park and ran around it.  The weather was just perfect, cool and misting rain!  Both nights we were there we walked to the coastline and ate at some really cool places right there at the sea.  So relaxing!  We rented a car in Edinburgh and headed to northern Scotland.  Now I wasn't too nervous about the whole other side of the road and car thing since we had rented a car last year in Australia but I had forgotten about all of those turn abouts.  AHHH!!!  Seriously!  You would just get up to speed and there would be another one!  We stayed in a little town called Killen and it had a river with a beautiful waterfall in the town.  Such a nice little town!  There were people who were there just to hike (or trail walking as they called it) more on that later...  Here are a few picks from Killen and at a couple of places we stopped along the way!



Trip to the UK: Our version of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles"! Part 1

I was fortunate to be taken on another awesome vacation planned all by my husband!  He is great at planning and coordinating everything!  This year we just happened to be celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary too!  We will be every grateful to my parents who graciously kept both boys at our house this year!  Talk about easy planning for me!  Our first stop on the trip was London.  We flew from Kansas City to London.  I actually enjoy these flights because I am able to catch up on lots of "chick" flicks that I wouldn't get to watch otherwise.  We got to London that morning and we hit the ground running or should I say the underground (subway) and bus system!  I knew that I would have a hard time with my enormous suitcase in the subway but... how can you not take a big suitcase for two weeks of travel.  Please let me know if you can do it because I honestly thought about ditching that thing several times that first day!  We went to Windsor Castle (one of my favorites), Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Westminster Abby, Parliament, Big Ben and a few World War II Museums.  We of course had fish and chips to eat.  Adam navigated us through the bus and underground system perfectly.  It's nice not to have to even pay attention to those things!  I'm sure I would be lost on my own.  We weren't able to visit Buckingham Palace.  I'm not really sure what the deal was but it was probably in preparation for the upcoming Olympics.  We were also there at the time of the Queen's Jubilee and you talk about lots of people.  There were so many people there just trying to catch a glimpse of the Queen.  My favorite from London was Westminster Abby!  So much history in one building.  Here are a few pictures from our time in London.

Big Ben

Tower Bridge which now has the Olympic Rings displayed from it!

Parliament

Adam at Windsor Castle

This is London Bridge, not really impressive is it? 

Playdates with familiar faces!

The boys and I had a blast this week playing with lots of friends.  Sometimes the playdates are just as much for the mommies as it is for the kids.  It's so nice to have lots of good friends to get together with :)  Mitchell and Jack both enjoyed playing with Abby one afternoon.  We all had to ride outside on various forms of transportation, scooters, tricycles, little tykes cars, you name it they were riding!  We have also beeing keeping an eye on our bird eggs.  As soon as I hung flowers up on our front porch, the birds started building a nest.  Mitchell and I have been checking and have watched the progress of the nest until now the hatching of the baby birds! 

Abby in the Little Car!  Mitchell rode around on the tricycle saying he was the sherrif and was giving Abby a ticket for opening her door while driving.

Jack playing on the grass with his toys watching the big kids whiz by!

Mitchell being the sherrif!

Mitchell trying to make sure that Abby saw the bird eggs and the one baby bird that had hatched.  I must say that it didn't look much like a bird and the two of them were a little confused!

The bird nest.  You can't really see the baby that had hatched from this picture.  They have all now hatched and open their mouths up when you look in.  Mitchell thinks that this is pretty cool.

Fishing Trips and Easter

Adam and Mitchell have been enjoying the warm weather by spending every weekend lately at the lake fishing!  Mitchell has wanted to go everytime and has had a blast (still hasn't caught a fish himself) but apparently being "captain" of the boat and cracking peanuts to eat (which he calls "crackin snacks") is good enough for him!  So that leaves me home with just baby Jack and I must say that it is strangly quiet around here.  Here are a few photos of the boys and their fish.

Adam and Mitchell "the boat captain"

Adam, Mitchell and Mr. Chappy (Mitchell had a blast with Mr. Chappy!)



He has learned how to hold the fish!




The boys have also gone camping a few times.  It is so nice that Mitchell is old enough to do these things now.  He and Adam have a blast and I enjoy having some time to myself and some one on one time with Jack. 

Jack is growing so fast.  He is still a big boy!  He is rolling wherever he wants to go and has recently started pulling on his knees and rocking but that boys big ole' belly is still holding him back from crawling.  This means that he hasn't been able to get ahold of Mitchell's toys yet but that day will be here soon! 

We had a great Easter!  We dyed eggs with our sweet friends Justin and Cami.  This is becoming more fun the older Mitchell gets because up until this year, I think I did all of the dying.  The Easter Bunny came to visit leaving a trail of eggs from Mitchell and Jack's rooms down the stairs to their baskets.  Mitchell's response was, "Mom, who made this mess?"  He then had to pick up all the eggs on his way to the basket.  He was very excited about his chocolate bunny and new vtech reader story.  He also has played with Jack's racetrack toy more than Jack has.  Jack was most excited about his container of crunchies (you should buy stock in them because Jack eats about a container every 3 days)!  We went to church that morning and had Easter dinner with some friends.  The kids all played outside and had a blast!  Here are a few pictures from Easter and a few of the boys playing together.  I could sit there and watch them play all day!  Jack thinks Mitchell is the most hilarious person ever and I'm glad that someone finds Mitchell's jokes funny!

Mitchell as the farmer in his preschool skit "Farmer in the Dell"

Dyeing easter eggs with our sweet friends Justin and Cami! 

Jack driving his car!  He had a blast with Adam pushing him around.  He was turning the steering wheel like a pro!

Oh, Chocolate Bunny!

Oh, Crunchies!



The boys playing!  Jack had been laughing and laughing at Mitchell!




Hello blue eyes!





Starting to Blog???

I created this blog umm... three years ago!  I have not posted one single time.  I'm going to try to post a weekly update of the kiddos.  A few of our friends are awesome about doing a blog and keeping it posted and I feel like I know their kids and what is going on with them even though they live far away.  So I figured I might as well join the band wagon and start on ourselves.  It should be a good way to keep our family and friends updated on us since we don't get to visit very often.  So stay tuned for an update soon... and be nice as I am so new to this!

Holly