SUMMER 2009

I am THAT bad :o) It has been over a year since I've blogged, but here I am, playing catch up, which I'm actually excited about! If you know the old me I would have never been excited to blog. Something has come over me recently.

We did indeed arrive in England in June of 2009. Big changes, lots of adjusting, and now a year later I think we're as settled as we will be for our 2-4 more years here.

Where we've been in the last year and a half:

First Stop, our new home:

"The Paddocks"

NEXT we visited:

London!

Cardiff, Wales

Paris, France (Disneyland!!)

Quick stop in Maryland

Edinburgh, Scotland

France, Belgium, Germany

Algarve, Portugal + Sevilla, Spain + Jerez, Spain

Dublin, Ireland

Belfast, Northern Ireland

Sardegna, Italy

back to Belgium, Netherlands, France, Germany

Conwy, Wales

In addition Luke found time to squeeze in some business trips to:

Bavaria, Germany

Frankfurt, Germany

Oslo, Norway

Minsk, Belarus

Odessa, Ukraine

and back to the states 3 x's

As crazy as it sounds I feel like we're missing some places, but this will have to do for now. Wow, did you read all of those places we've visited in one year, how in the world did we do that!?!? In between all the traveling we still managed to squeeze in the Holidays and the kid's school. For some reason I feel like taking a DEEP breath right now!

The PADDOCKS

arrived July 2009

 

In England it is very common to see houses that are named. For instance in our case our house is named "The Paddocks", which means our house may have originally been where the horses were kept at one time.

We love the friendly goats behind the house! We've actually had them break into our backyard before, and one even invited him/herself into our house to wander around for a couple minutes, that was great fun!

LONDON

July 2009

The first place we went to tour was London. What more can I say than what the picture's can say? It was fun, a whole new experience. If any of you fancy a trip to London, let me know, maybe one of us will tag along with you :o)

CARDIFF, WALES

July 2009

We had a great time in Wales. Loved the people, they were really friendly. We went in circles trying to find the Caeryphilly Castle. The only signs we could see were for Castle Castell. We didn't want Castle Castell, we wanted Caeryphilly Castle. We pulled off the road and asked a nice man where we could find the castle we were looking for. He was so nice that he actually got into his car and had us follow him to the Castle! We had a good laugh when we realized that Castell was actually the native Welsh word for Castle.  FYI: Cymraeg is the native Welsh language. Turns out we should have just followed those signs originally. The sign above is in Cymraeg as well, pretty cool!

CALAIS and PARIS, FRANCE and EURODISNEY

July 2009

We stayed in beautiful Calais our first night ever in France.

HAD to see the Eiffel tower!

 We managed to have a complete blast at Eurodisney! It was my first time going to ANY Disney Park. I had most of my fun watching Luke and the kids have fun :o)

I think for me this may have been the coolest part of the whole trip. Who knew there was a tunnel that went under the English Channel, AKA the Chunnel?! CRAZY! How in the world did they build that thing! It takes 30 minutes to ride through the chunnel. Pretty amazing!

BACK TO MARYLAND

August 2009

Just Boogie (Brooke) and I went home for my brother and his wife's wedding. It was good times! I was very happy to get to be there for it.

May I just add that a perk to flying home (to England) from their wedding was that I spotted a certain well known "footballer". David Beckham.  I was going through the security line when he came right past me. Truth: I've never actually cared about celebrities. I never knew I had any feelings in me for anyone famous. I could NOT believe my own reaction! I stopped in my tracks and FRANTICALLY fumbled for my camera! I was too late! I could only snap the back of him! I RAN to the "lift" to try and meet him at the bottom for a front picture to have real proof that I saw him. Well, I wasn't quick enough, so end result = what I would like to dub the title of this picture as, "the Back of Beckham".

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND

August 2009

Thank heaven's for the telephone booths, or we wouldn't have another touristy picture to take! The great thing about these is you can find them in just about any middle of the nowhere location in the UK. True story, I actually tried to use one once because I really needed to get ahold of Luke. It was in some random neighborhood. It DIDN'T even work! Yeah, don't forget your cell phones people, I think these red booths are solely for decoration.

Ladies, do not be jealous of my Scottish man, hands off!

Meeting the locals.

STOP!!

WATCH THIS VIDEO, it's UNDER 30 seconds!!

Edinburgh was really cool! Just Luke and I went together. We went to see the famous Military Tattoo. There is something beyond powerful about hundreds of bagpiper's playing at the same time. The kids got into the spirit of their Scottish Ancestry when we got home.

~QUICK IMPORTANT BREAK FROM THE TRAVELS~

August 2009

LJ lost his very first tooth :o) Is that REALLY my child, do I really have a child old enough to loose a tooth?!

HAD TO SQUEEZE BABY SISTER IN HERE TOO!!!

Okay, and one of Kyle being KYLE :o)

BELGIUM, FRANCE, GERMANY! The BEST part of the whole trip...OMA and OPA came with us!

September 2009

We are sitting on the Sea Ferry.  Leaving from England, heading to France. This time we decided to go by ship, rather then the chunnel.  You can drive your car right onto the ship. 

First place we drove to was beautiful Brugges, Belgium, below.

My favorite part of this city: all the cool people riding their bikes everywhere, and the chocolate :o)

Next stop, Bootzheim France, to look for some Schoeny's. My ancestors are from the time when Bootzheim was actually part of Germany. It's right on the border of France and Germany, now it's part of France.

The above house is where my ancestors actually lived (we found this out after we left, it was by pure chance that we took a picture of it, crazy!). Not sure who lives there now, but can't wait to go back again!

Beautiful scenery in Bootzheim.

Below, Strasbourg, France.

No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you!

My buff boys in France!

Rest stop at the lake before heading back to the Ferry.

Coming soon: Fall 2009

Happy Easter!

It was Brooke's first easter! We got her a basket, but of course Luke and I had to "take care" of her basket, since she's still a little too young for that! These are as good as the pictures get when you've just had a baby :) Nothing fancy, but still have the memories.

Misty!

Yes, that is me walking the dog in that picture! My mom just posted these pictures on our family website. It brought back some good memories of our family dog! As an adult I've never had a desire for a pet. In fact I probably would never get one, if it weren't for Luke. He has been wanting a dog since he was a kid. He always had cats growing up, never a dog. His mom promised him he could have a dog when he was an adult. Well, I will be the one paying the price for that promise. I must say though after looking at these pictures of my dog it has caused me to feel excited to get a dog. We have been planning on getting one once we have a yard for it. Well, Luke is planning on getting a dog when we move to England. We will finally have space for one outside. If I could JUST convince him to pick a different one than an English Bulldog! I am open to any ideas you have of convincing him to get a different dog then that!!!!

Brooke

This was about 3 days or so before Brooke was born.
Proud older cousin, Tyler, holding our doll!

Cool uncle Joseph flew out from San Diego and his cool soon to be wife, Alyssa, flew out too!

Two of the four girl cousins together. Makena and Brooke are bonding for the first time, thank heavens for little girls!

Little feet and toesies!!

Beautiful aunt Joni came and held Brooke!

All my cool family came and visited Brooke and myself in the hospital. It was lots of fun.

Doll baby!

Precious!

First trip home from the hospital!

Daddy has been swept off his feet with his little girl!

The proud Oma of Brooke. This is who she was named after :)

Brooke Heather joined the world and our family on Friday, April 3rd at 10:49 a.m. She was 8 lbs 4 oz. 20.5 inches long. Contractions started at 2 a.m. Thursday April 2nd. They escalated throughout that early morning and into the evening. On Thursday morning I told Luke not to go into work, because I wasn't sure if and when we might need to go to the hospital. I wanted him close by where I knew exactly where he was. I decided I better tell my parents to go ahead and make the 45 minute drive from their house to ours, just in case. Meanwhile it was LJ's birthday on April 2nd (thursday), so while I was in the very early stages of labor I actually went shopping for LJ's presents I had been wanting to get him. I bought a cake, and got his presents all wrapped, etc. We then celebrated his birthday! Not long after that I decided it was time to go to the hospital. It was around 8 p.m. by the time they finally admitted me. (we had to wait in line at the registration office, even though I was pre-registered, that was definitely a first for me! I've never waited in line while I was in labor before!) Anyway, I got settled in to the room and they ended up giving me my epidural later that night. I got to sleep through the night pain free while the contractions continued all night. Only to have them completely stop by the morning time. The Dr. came in and broke my water around 6 or 7 a.m. Didn't do anything to help contractions. Next I got a dose of pitocin and that definitely did the trick! Brooke came so quickly that there wasn't even a Dr. in the room or anywhere near it when she was born. There was one nurse, and Luke that basically delivered the baby. The solo nurse ended up paging for help and about 6 nurses busted into the room at the same time! They all took care of Brooke and then the Dr. arrived. Brooke was healthy and that's all that mattered! Oh and the epidural definitely wore off after I had my pitocin given to me.

Brooke's middle name comes from my mom's first name, who we named her after.

We had lots of visitor's while in the hospital. Brooke is already a very popular girl!

Brooke is an angel! I'm half tempted to go change her name to Angel because it would be so fitting. She has been such a doll. She eats and sleeps and has very little complaining to ever do! The boys absolutely adore her! LJ held her for one hour straight a couple days ago because he refused to give her up! Kyle loves to hold her too, but doesn't quite have the attention span at his young age. We are so blessed and Luke and I have both completely fallen in love with her. She is truly a delight for us!!!

LJ Turned 5!!

LJ had his 5th birthday and it was quite exciting! Oma and Opa got to be here for our family celebration, what a treat! LJ got his first bike for his birthday, he loves it! He's been riding it almost every day since he got it. Fun times!

Our baby boy turned 3!!

I can't believe that Kyle is already 3 years old! It doesn't seem like 3 years have already gone by that fast!

FHE with Oma and Opa

My parents like to go visit the grandchildren and do family home evenings with them. By boys had an absolute blast with Oma's great ability to entertain them!! Luke was really enjoying it too :)