Musings of Moi

The tale of the refurbished Farmhouse table....plus a bit more

2017-04-28T19:03:00.001-07:00

We moved into our current home in the summer of 2015. It is a converted duplex. Basically they took out the center wall and made it into a single family house. This is the view from the backyard.

I was 8 months pregnant with little E and the only thing on my mind was getting the nursery finished. We painted, ordered the furniture and decorated, and thankfully it was all ready by the time I headed to the hospital.

As for the rest of the house; we unpacked the boxes and threw all our stuff where we thought we might like it and then we had a baby and thought of nothing else for about 8 months.

Last summer we finally got to work on making our slab of land here a home. We put up a pretty new white fence around the backyard and landscaped around it a bit...

And then we started painting the hospital white walls a warmer color and painting the dark trim white. We also started trading out the mismatched blinds on all the windows with new white ones. We even painted all of our furniture that didn't match. Here are the pictures from the real estate posting when we bought the house - that's the best BEFORE pictures I can find.

We clearly had a different style of furniture but for the most part the house was a blank slate. We haven't done anything but cosmetic changes, maybe someday we'll move some walls etc. but, not quite yet.

So, we started painting...

It looks a bit different now. I'll post better pics of these areas later. But, here is what this post is really about- I just needed a good long intro to get your minds off my last bazillion posts about our vacation. Since we moved in I have wanted to get rid of our large square dark bar height table (that I don't seem to have a picture of) and put in a large farmhouse style table. It's quite a long room and I just knew it needed more of a statement table. So here is my empty space after I sold my old table.

Sad.

And here is the table I found on a yard sale site BEFORE we fixed it up!

In this picture you can see my old table pushed out of the way...

It came with 5 chairs, so I only needed to find 3 more to make a full set. I love a mismatched Farmhouse table set so the challenge was exciting!

And so we got to work! Or Kyle did... He took on sanding down the top of the table to soft beautiful perfection to prepare it for the stain.

We are still in debate over whether the wood is knotty pine or knotty alder. If you want to weigh in with your opinion we do encourage it as we love a good, "Told you so!" in our house.

Next came the chair painting...Kyle did a lot of that too

When in doubt, paint everything creamy white!

We also painted the legs and apron of the table itself.

And then they had to sit and wait while we obsessed over 6 different colors of stain for the table top.

After we FINALLY (mostly) agreed on a stain color (English Chestnut), we stained it, layered the polyurethane and finished up!

And here it is: our refurbished Farmhouse table! BEFORE & AFTER:

BEFORE

AFTER!

We are so happy with how it turned out!

We also reupholstered and re-cushioned the chairs...

That's my Mom working on the cushions...Beware of coming to visit me, Family! You could end up in the middle of a furniture makeover!

Finished product! Thanks Mom!

The next day we stumbled upon this little beauty...and by stumbled I mean it was on the side of the road..FOR FREE!

We slapped a new cushion on it, washed it up and that is how we found chair number 6!

And then I had to find a bigger rug because that little teeny one just wasn't cutting it with this enormous table.

No worries! Elliot found a great one for me!

Table...check. Rug...check. Chairs...only 2 more needed!

Let me introduce you to this $20 antique chair we also found via the yard sale app at a consignment store in Santa Fe.

Just needs a little love...

A coat of paint and new upholstery....Bam! Chair number 7!

Only one more to go! We are currently on the lookout for the final chair....I'll be sure to let you know when we find her...or him.

And thus concludes our tale of the refurbished FARMHOUSE table!

Stay tuned for more of our fun projects! Next time we build a window seat and shelves for E's playroom!

Full view from dining room to living room. Mind the baby gate now circling the fireplace...

From Living Room to Dining Room...

Musings of our third day in Iceland...from Jökulsárlón to Reykjavik!...to HOME.

2017-04-24T19:20:00.003-07:00

We woke up to a beautiful view for our last full day in Iceland. We had arrived the night before after dark so we were seeing our surroundings for the first time. Our hotel was called Fosshotel Núpar and was located in Kalfafell. This area was very desolate, just miles and miles of lava fields. The picture above is out our window that morning. Every room had a back door that led outside to the field and this awesome view. After having some breakfast we hiked out to the point to see the view.

Kyle and Elliot climbing on the rocks, our hotel in the background.

Just having fun taking pictures. This area was so odd, the layers of moss over the lava rock made the ground squishy to walk on.

Looking back at our hotel from the rock structure we hiked to. It really was this cool simple building in the middle of nowhere. And by now I don't have to tell you that every single thing inside was from IKEA.

Here is Elliot hiding under a blanket in our hotel room. He loved this blanket for some reason or another so we were sure to pick him up one at the IKEA in Denver when we got home.

And so we started off on our journey back across the southern part of Iceland toward Reykjavik. We couldn't help but stop along the way to see a few more waterfalls.

This was so beautiful and just behind this little farmhouse to the right. The road was private but we pulled over to check out the awesome view. Since our trip I have looked up pictures of a few of the waterfalls that we got to see and I always find the pictures of what they look like in the winter and it is just gorgeous! I'd love to see them in person in the winter but, I don't know if I could handle the weather conditions of Iceland that time of year.

As we continued driving past this mossy covered lava rock, Kyle decided to turn down this gravel road and drive into the lava fields. It kind of felt like a horror movie, creepy and quiet, with no one around but endless green moss, I was convinced that someTHING had to live there and was going to pop out at any moment. So naturally we got out of the car to explore.

This was the thick moss on top of the rocks. The ground was even softer here and it kind of felt like you were walking on giant sponges.

Here are my feet sinking into the moss as we climbed onto the mossy rock structures.

You can just picture some green mossy monster climbing out of here right?

This picture below is about 10 seconds before I took a step and my leg went into the moss all the way up to my thigh and I could not get out. It was horrifying. And dirty...another day covered in dirt. At this point we didn't really have any clean clothes anyway...

I did recover though, but then I was more than done with the mossy lava fields. Back in the car!

Our next stop was the Reynisfjara shore, near the village Vik in Myrdalur on Iceland's South Coast. It is widely regarded as the most impressive black-sand beach in Iceland. We had driven around here the day before but we were pressed for time so we didn't stop to explore the beach. Here is our first view of the basalt sea stacks called Reynisdrangar.

The weather was pretty windy and rainy this day as you can tell by the look of the waves. We decided to drive around to get a closer look.

The breathtaking black sand beach.

It was a pretty gloomy day with lots of fog but, the views we enjoyed on the drive were still magnificent.

I just found this picture and I am not really sure what it is really about...maybe a joke we made about the Subaru we drove for the week. Kyle looks pretty funny here so I thought I'd share...

We found our way around to the beach and there was actually a little restaurant and other people there exploring. This is Reynisfjara which is a black pebble beach with this amazing cliff of basalt columns resembling a rocky step pyramid, it is called Gardar.

According to folklore, two trolls attempted to drag a ship to land but were turned to stone as daylight broke, turning them into the Reynisdrangar stacks, clearly visible from the beach.

Hálsanef's Hellir Cave is around the corner from the pyramid type rocks, at the time we were there the tide was coming in so we did not get much time to explore around the cave.

Water rushing in...

Here we are in front of the cave. A few moments after this picture Kyle (and my baby) went to look at the cave-as I was taking a few more pictures-when the tide came rolling in and I had to run to get away from the water. Luckily they stayed dry and ran to the back of the cave to escape and then quickly headed out and around to higher and drier ground...I was pretty nervous when I saw the water rushing in, but it all happened so fast no one was really ready for it. It was definitely time to head back up the beach.

One last look at Reynisfjara Beach as it started pouring down rain and we headed into the restaurant near the parking lot.

The Black Beach Restaurant (aptly named) had wonderful coffee and we settled in to watch the rain and let Elliot play around a bit before getting back in the car.

So, the black pebble beach is a beach basically consisting of those black vase filler stones you buy to put under candles, etc. We gathered up a few and Elliot was playing with them on the floor of the restaurant - the floor which was made of the same black pebbles. At one point E lost one of his rocks and we were trying to find it (literally on the floor looking under tables, trying to find a black rock on a black rock floor) when our fellow tourists decided to be a part of the search too as Elliot had of course been charming them during our coffee break. It was pretty funny and we eventually found the rock inside of Elliot's backpack and not on the floor at all. You could obviously see the ridiculousness of trying to find this one rock when outside the door were about 500 trillion of them.

I of course had to bring a few back home to fill a vase of my own. For nostalgia and all...

Did I declare it to customs.....hmmmmm...

When the rain died down a bit we headed out to try once again to find this view of Dyrhólaey that we had not been able to find the day before. As we drove back up the same hill, we found that the only place to see this amazing view of Dyrhólaey was the one area that we hadn't ventured out to. So we went back up to find it!

By the time we got to the top, the weather was pretty crazy. The wind was out of control and the rain was blowing so hard it felt like needles on your skin. But, we had come this far! We opted to let Elliot out of the car seat to play while we took turns battling the weather to hike out to the point and see this view. And guys, it was totally worth it.

Dyrhólaey is a 120 meter high promontory, not far from Vík. The place got its name from the massive arch that the sea has eroded from the headland. (The name literally means "door-hole"). When the sea is calm, big boats can sail through it. There has even been a daredevil pilot that flew through the arch with a small-craft airplane. We were so happy to have finally found it!

Another view of a famous basalt stack called Hálsanefshellir.

After we drove down from our view of Dyrhólaey, we stopped once more near the shore to take in the black sand beaches and the waves crashing. Afterwards we headed back on the road to Reykjavik.

After a brief stop for lunch (and a few more hours in the car) we headed into the city.

Reykjavik is a pretty neat city. We didn't spend too much time there but we headed downtown to take it in a bit before going to our hotel for the night.

We had read about their infamous lamb hot dogs which are pretty much the cheapest food in all of Iceland. We decided to try them out with "the works" which is mayo, mustard, ketchup (an icelandic variety) and onions. They were pretty delicious too!

After our lamb dogs, we walked around the shopping district of downtown. It was a pretty popular area and we were looking for this Icewear outlet store that we had heard about from some other tourists. We were hoping to find some sort of souvenir that wasn't 40,000 krona...

On our way we stumbled upon this really neat place called the Laundromat Cafe. It was really cute and quirky and it really was a laundromat and a cafe.

It would have been perfect if we were staying in the city...clean clothes...

After a bit more milling around and checking out the shops, we decided to try and find a place to eat dinner that served some Icelandic delicacies. Kyle is a fan of Andrew Zimmerman and his show Bizarre foods and he wanted to try something he had seen on his show on the Iceland episode.

So, I hunted down a place and we headed in to try the Icelandic delicacy, putrefied shark. Kæstur hákarl is the Icelandic name for it and it is basically rotten shark meat.

The restaurant/pub was called Islenski Barrin and it had this great atmosphere with low lighting and just a local type of feeling.

We ordered a couple pints of Icelandic ale and Kyle got ready for his shark feast. I would not be partaking in this particular adventure. It was served in a small jar with a lid and the directions were to eat a piece and chase it with a shot of Iceland's supposed signature liquor called Brennivin.

Here he is before he tried it. He said that it tasted like windex but the shot was far worse than the shark. I did taste the Brennivin and it was potent for sure! It was served with dried haddock and butter and I tried that as well and liked it. After that we ordered some delicious burgers and tried Icelandic pancakes for dessert!

The cozy little pub had pillows and such a great vibe to it - I would definitely recommend it to other Icelandic adventurers!

The Icelandic pancakes were crepes with toffee and cream...they were delicious!

Our little guy was getting tired here...time to go find our hotel.

Our last night in Iceland we stayed at the Hotel Vellir in Hafnarfjordur. It was really nice and super modern. After sending Kyle back out to find a pharmacy to get Elliot some diapers (we had taken plenty for the whole trip..up to the last night) we crashed from our exciting but long day.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel before heading back downtown to poke around for a few hours before we had to head to the airport.

It was another dreary rainy kind of day but we got to see a few more of the sites I had read about.

This is Hallgrimskirkja, a famous church in Iceland and one of the tallest buildings in the country.

We soon returned our rental car, went to the airport and got ready to head back to the U.S.

Our flight home was pretty interesting. We were lucky enough to get a row of three seats for the long flight home but, funny enough our little guy decided to stay awake until the last 45 minutes of the flight. This was good and bad - it meant I didn't get to sleep on the flight and he was pretty active but not too fussy so it was an exhausting travel back. The upside is that when we got into Denver, through customs and finally into our rental car it was almost nine o'clock at night. He went to sleep almost immediately after we got to the hotel and he pretty much went right back to his regular schedule - way to skip the jet lag!

We met Kyle's parents in Denver and they handed back over our little furry babies whom they had been watching for us for the last month - so grateful! The next day we had some fun with Grandma & Grandpa, spent one more night in Denver and then FINALLY really headed home.

Grandma & Grandpa had never been to IKEA so of course we had to introduce them!

Elliot had fun getting to see them and it was hard to say goodbye after such a short visit.

It was quite the trip. If you have read along for the last 6+ months while I have tried to go back and document the journey so I could share it with friends and family then you know that we have seen a lot of the world. But, after seeing The Louvre, the Alps, and Big Ben and so so so much more, I have to say that this was a really welcome view:

As you can imagine; it took a little while to recover. This is how we felt:

What an amazing dream vacation! I could never have dreamed it would be as wonderful and life altering as it was. Seeing the world with my two favorite people.

And that is all folks!

Stay tuned for actual present day activities and less grand adventures here on musings of moi!

Just one more amazing shot of Gulfoss at sunset in Iceland. Sigh....Can't wait to go back!

Musings of our second full day of Icelandic adventures...Húrra!

2017-04-02T12:41:00.001-07:00

On our second full day in Iceland we woke up on a beautiful little sheep farm in Villingaholt, Selfoss. Our room was in a guesthouse that looked like converted stables. Below is the little foyer to our room.

Our room was the smallest hotel room I think I have ever stayed in. It was mostly a bed and Elliot's crib. But, it was cozy and comfortable and we would stay there again in a heartbeat. We woke up to a beautiful sunrise and opened our window to see some chickens and a little rabbit outside.

Watching the farm animals kept us entertained for a bit. Then we headed to the main house for breakfast and to plan our next day.

There was a tour bus full of people that left for the day at 7am. We were so glad to be taking our own time and driving ourselves. I definitely recommend it if you decide to see this country.

We sat in the neat IKEA furnished dining room and had a great breakfast before heading out to check out a bit more of the farm before loading up to begin our day of sightseeing.

We saw a horse, played on a trampoline and slid on the slide at the little playground they had. So glad we went on our trip before Elliot was walking-if we were do this trip right now, Elliot would be playing on all these toys like crazy and not wanting to get in the car to go at all!

Of course we had to check out the sheep!

And with that we said vertu blessaður (goodbye in Icelandic) to the sheep farm and headed out for another adventure. After a quick run through town for lunch supplies we drove to our first stop.
Seljalandsfoss is one of the best known waterfalls in Iceland. It is 65 meters high and pretty amazing.

In front of Seljalandsfoss. Behind us you can see people walking on the trail that goes behind the waterfall.

E and Kyle on their way around the falling water. It was pretty cold water too!

Behind the falls...

Here I am getting soaked when I climbed down to the edge of the pool behind the falls.

Seljalandsfoss was pretty crowded as it was a popular waterfall to see, there was even a tourist area here. A little different from the ones we had to hike to find the day before. It was really beautiful though and getting to go up and around the water was truly unique.

We were soon on the road again headed for our next destination. Along the way we saw a lot of beautiful waterfalls just cascading down cliff sides behind little farms and villages. What an amazing view to have out your window!

We aren't sure but we thought this line of trees oddly placed above this house might be a guard against avalanches. Not positive though.

We saw this unique structure and had to stop and explore. It is a barn or structure built into this cave on a sheep farm.

It is called Rútshellir and is a man made cave that is a historic structure in South Iceland. Apparently there are 200 or so of these caves on various farms and the oldest known existing habitations in Iceland. There is a lot of lore about the cave and what it used to be, pretty interesting to check out. We went through the cave and out the crevice in the back.

Kyle and E after we crawled out of the back of the cave

This sheep was standing here chatting us up while we explored the cave.

It was a really neat random stop. Then we were back on the road headed for Skógafoss. It is one of the biggest waterfalls in Iceland, with a drop of 60 meters and a width of 25 meters, you can walk right up to it also, but be prepared to be drenched. It is just overwhelming standing next to it.

Due to the amount of spray the waterfall consistently produces, a single or double rainbow is normally visible on sunny days, but it was not sunny when we were there. According to legend, the first Viking settler in the area, Þrasi Þórólfsson, buried a treasure in a cave behind the waterfall. The legend continues that locals found the chest years later, but were only able to grasp the ring on the side of the chest before it disappeared again.

Kyle standing on the edge of the water near the enormous falls.

Another waterfall stop where we get sprayed with cold mist!

At the eastern side (the right side in the photo above) of the waterfall, a hiking and trekking trail leads up to the pass Fimmvörðuháls between the glaciers Eyjafjallajökull and Mýrdalsjökull. We decided to skip the steps and just climb up the side...to be honest at about halfway (with Elliot on my back) I deeply regretted this decision. There was no turning around though, it was very steep so up we continued to go!

I'm smiling here but my heart is racing and my knees are shaking....so grateful to be done hanging off the side of the cliff with my baby. We got to a trail and hiked the rest of the way up a bit more safely.

That is until Kyle climbed out onto this rock covered in moss...

He did get this beautiful picture though...

A view toward the coast from the top of Skógafoss.

This was the way we should have come up if we weren't being so adventurous!

This is the Skógá River above the waterfall. Once you get on top you can hike back a ways to further explore. But, you have to climb over this weird ladder.

So we did. And then we saw this...

It was really beautiful up here and we had a great time continuing our hike!

We thought the big rock in the distance looked like a gorilla. Do you see it?

We decided we had time for some family pics before heading back down. Elliot was having so much fun - he really loved being in the pack and seeing all the falls.

Heading back down via the stairs...smart. You probably can't tell here but my jeans are covered in mud from the climb. This was not the nice and clean part of our trip, we had a whole day left to explore.

Our next stop was the coast. We went in search of a place called Dyrhólaey which is the peninsula of lava that juts out into the ocean. We crawled around on the lava rocks here and felt the crashing waves before heading up on top of this hill to see if we could see the Dyrhólaey archway.

This was not it....just FYI

The views were gorgeous and it was cold cold cold!

We ended up being unable to find the right area to see the view of Dyrhólaey. But, the next day on the way back through this area we stopped again and actually found it (stay tuned!).

On top of this hill overlook the beautiful coast line. I have no idea why I am sitting like this...I was freezing though.

After this we were headed to our final stop for the day. Here are some pictures of the glaciers we saw along the way.

Our final stop was the Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon. This was our whole reason for going on the Ring road and staying at different places each night - so that we could get all the way across the country to see this area. And it was so so worth it! Don't go to Iceland without seeing the glacier lagoon!

Jökulsárlón is a large glacial lake in southeast Iceland, on the edge of Vatnajökull National Park. It developed into a lake after the glacier started receding from the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. It recently became the deepest lake in Iceland, at over 248 metres (814 ft), It is considered as one of the natural wonders of Iceland.

The beautiful blue of the icebergs was what made them so breathtaking to me. We got here right before sundown, warmed up with some soup in the visitors area and then headed out to explore.

It really was an amazing site.

We let Elliot touch an iceberg on the shore of the lagoon. Just like the Ice Palace at Jungfraujoch in Switzerland a few weeks earlier, he loved feeling the ice!

This picture was on our Christmas card this year as well. It was so calming to just sit and watch the slow movement of the icebergs. After we enjoyed it for a while we walked under the bridge and watched some of the icebergs as they traveled from the lagoon out to the ocean.

This is a one lane bridge by the way...lol

Icebergs drifting out to sea.

After crossing the bridge, we walked down to the Diamond/ Crystal Beach to see all icebergs that wash up on the shore of the black sand beach.

We were really starting to lose the light!

Climbing on top of an iceberg is mandatory.

By the time we left the lagoon it was dark and we headed back to our hotel for the night, Fosshotel Núpar in Kirkjubæjarklaustur. These one lane bridges are a bit scary at night! We arrived safely at our hotel and got tucked in and fell asleep so fast - it was a long exciting day!

On our third day, we head back across the southern part of the country to spend our last night in Reykjavik. It was a fun day making our way back to civilization - stay tuned for adventures from our last full day in Iceland!

I didn't take this picture but, I thought this was awesome! The northern lights over the glacier lagoon.

Musings of our departure from London and the beginning of our adventures in Iceland....

2017-03-11T20:09:00.001-08:00

Travel Day! We got up early, finished packing and had yet another lovely breakfast at our hotel before our Uber arrived to take us to the airport. No, we did not have another full English breakfast - the human body just can't sustain that daily...lol We had a lovely driver on the way to Heathrow who also worked for the Royal Mail Service as his full time job. My Father just retired from the U.S. Post Office so it was interesting to ask him about his job. We soon arrived at the airport and loaded up 2 trolley's with all of our luggage. Here is a picture of our luggage waiting at the hotel:

So, here we are at the greatest airport I have ever been to in my life. Heathrow is the most streamlined, efficient airport. It is modern and perfectly designed. I could tell immediately that Interior Designers had a huge role in its overall design due to the acute detail to the human experience in the airport- not just the architecture. Stepping off designer soap box now. Every other airport I am in from now on will be compared to it and will probably fall short. Okay, enough gushing about the airport. Except to mention the awesome shops and how if I had any room at all in my bags I would have spent 1000 pounds in a heartbeat.

Elliot was pretty fussy throughout the 3 hour flight and did not sleep a wink, until of course, the moment we landed and he was magically at peace. We gathered up our gear and traversed one of the worst airports I have ever been to, the Keflavík International Airport in Iceland. This was our second time here as we connected here on our way to Munich at the beginning of our trip. It's just awkward, you deplane onto the runway and take a charter bus to the gate and then when you get in (both times we have been there) five million other passengers are arriving at the same time and the passport control area is huge and completely full to the brim with upset passengers who are running late, holding crying babies, smelling awful, and not being able to comprehend how this chaos cannot be better organized.

Once we gathered up our luggage and headed out to pick up our rental car we discovered that we happened to have chosen one of the few car rental places that did not have a location inside the airport. They have a shuttle that has to come get you. If you are planning a trip to Iceland - and I know a few of my readers are- beware of this when you are booking. We also made the mistake of leaving with our luggage through customs before hitting up the grocery store (in the airport) that is duty free. Next time we go, we will be loading up on groceries for our trip before leaving.

After an hour of waiting for this supposed shuttle to arrive we finally got through to the rental car place by phone. They apparently had missed us as they had picked up 3 groups outside while we had been waiting (even though we were told to wait inside for someone with a sign, oy vey....). Very soon we were loaded in a van and on our way to a very remote place to pick up a car (and hopefully not be robbed and killed).

Kyle pointing out where we are on a big map of Iceland at the Lagoon Car Rental Office.

We survived the ride to the rental place and then began the chaotic hour long wait to get our car as the place seemed to be operated solely by teenagers. Next, the electricity went out and no one knew anything about anything. They did all speak English and there was very good cappuccino. When we were on our way and on our own in this foreign country, we could finally breathe a sigh of relief...and then we found our hotel.

The Tronuhrauni 10 in Hafnarfjordur looked like a weird industrial concrete building with T10 written on the side. It was a bit disconcerting at first and then when the check in process only took about 2 minutes it all seemed rather....odd. In the end it was a really lovely modern renovated place inside and fully furnished by IKEA (as all of our hotels were while we were in Iceland). We unloaded the car and headed out for some dinner and snacks for our next day's adventures. We all went to bed early, exhausted from our day of travel.

You may note the Ikea label on the bottom of Kyle's cup - seriously, EVERYTHING is IKEA here. We had our first taste of an Icelandic breakfast the next morning before we headed out. It was mostly like our other continental breakfasts around Europe (soft boiled eggs, muesli, cold cuts, cheese, bread...) with a few new additions. Hafragrautur is a thick oatmeal that they serve everywhere and they are very proud of their own yogurt product which is called Skyr which is not technically a yogurt. It’s a strained, skim-milk cheese. It is delicious though - kind of like a thicker Greek yogurt, tangy. There was also fish, herring I believe. Kyle tried some and seemed to like it. I'm not a huge fan of raw or smoked fish in the am, so I passed.

This was our breakfast area at our hotel - outside you might be able to see the grey looking cold weather and wind that lay ahead for our first day out. This is where I discover that I did not pack appropriately for this leg of the journey. Elliot and Kyle were fairly good but I was layering a lot and wishing for the hot days we had in Germany a few weeks earlier.


This is the town where we stayed our first night, Hafnarfjörður. It is a port town located on the southwest coast of Iceland, about 10 km south of Reykjavík.

Iceland really is an interesting place. You see this when you leave the airport:

This sculpture is unique for sure. The artwork is designed by Magnús Tómasson. The Jet Nest shows a big steel egg where a jet wing is peeking out like a little bird breaking out of it's egg. The piece is very symbolic apparently as it stands on a pile of Icelandic rocks.

After you leave the airport, you see a lot of scraggly rough looking land and empty terrain and you wonder what you are doing here. At least I did for a moment. It was really not too exciting and I started to wonder if this was really going to be the adventure I had been picturing in my head. But, wait, I told myself! I had seen all the pictures and I knew that there were amazing sites to be seen here - the key is going out and finding them. The beauty that this country has to offer is not all marked on a handy map and while it is a tourist spot now - that has not always been the case. Everything is not in the tourist brochures - and this was truly what made the trip an adventure. I spent a lot of time researching before our trip, bought travel books and read a lot, but my best resource was a few fellow bloggers that I found who have lived in Iceland and had some great directions on finding the off-the-beaten path treasures that Iceland has to offer. Also, the things you don't want to miss out on.

The main thing that tourists do in Iceland - especially if they just have a day or two stopover, is The Golden Circle. In a nutshell, The Golden Circle is a popular tourist route in southern Iceland, covering about 300 kilometers looping from Reykjavík into the southern uplands of Iceland and back. This is what we decided to see on our first day, but I was armed with a list of places to see that were not on the standard trek as well. We would also be veering off the circle, as our next stop for the night would be Selfoss. Instead of returning to the beginning, we would be heading across the southern part of the country. We opted to stay in a different hotel every night in Iceland so that we could maximize what we got to see each day, without having to back track to one hotel. It made it exciting and we stayed in some very unique places as well. Off we go!

After breakfast the first morning, we spent about 20 minutes trying to find somewhere to buy warmer clothing. We soon gave up and started on our route, deciding to tough it out and get to the adventuring. The first stop was þorufoss which was a slight detour off the golden circle route. We took off down this dirt/ gravel road that definitely did not look like we were supposed to be on it and for about 5 kilometers we expected to be stopped and told we couldn't be there. Eventually, we saw a little sign that said "þorufoss" and a little turnout. We hopped out of the car in the crazy blow you over the side of a cliff kind of wind and looked around at a rocky field and a ravine.

And then we took a picture.

And then we fought through the crazy wind and looked into the canyon below...

And then above the sound of the wind we heard the rushing water and we looked to our right (for the record this was like a 2 second process, I am just spreading it out for dramatic effect).

It was just a tad windy...my phone literally blew out of my hand twice.

Kyle's hat was blowing off and we were scared the wind would blow our camera out of our hands.

It was kind of amazing and beautiful

This is the spot we climbed down to to get the best view and also the place where the wind seemed the craziest...and that was þorufoss - our first of many awesome Iceland waterfalls. And if you don't like waterfalls, I would stop reading now because this is mostly about one breathtaking awesome waterfall after another....just warning you.

The next stop was Þingvellir National Park.

"Situated on the northern shore of lake Þingvallavatn, Þingvellir is the national shrine of Iceland. It is, for one, a key location in Icelandic history as the oldest existing parliament in the world first assembled there in 930 AD. Þingvellir has for this reason been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Besides being a location of historical significance, Þingvellir is also protected as a national park due to its unique geology and natural features. Almannagjá is a canyon formed between two tectonic plates, a visual representation of continental drift." -www.visiticeland.com

Þingvellir was really windy and we bundled up our little guy as best we could. We didn't last long here and did not hike the whole area. We met some nice fellow tourists who insisted we take this family photo and we were very grateful! Finally we headed into the Almannagjá for a bit if a break from the wind.

This was a very busy tourist stop. We saw a lot of the same people throughout the day at some of the more popular destinations. We were so happy with our decision to do our own tour and drive it ourselves. This stop was kind of funny - the WC/ toilet here charged for you to use it and the credit card machine on it was out of paper - so you couldn't use it unless you had króna. And as we quickly found out in the gift shop here, they are very very proud of their souvenirs....like 38500 króna for a wool sweater. That's about $385 US. Everything was really pricey like that, even food. It took some getting used to seeing the price of things, eventually you adjust though - but, we didn't buy a lot of Iceland souvenirs....not that we had room in our luggage menagerie anyway.

These two were always having fun no matter the weather, while I was freezing...

As everywhere else on our trip, Elliot got a few admirers and everyone just loved that he was out there with us hiking.

Our next stop is for lunch at a dairy farm called Efsti Dalur. The farm produces its own ice cream from the milk of the cows at the farm. You can actually watch the cows doing their thing while you enjoy your ice cream since the restaurant is in the same building as the barn and the cows are visible through large windows. A dream come true...?? They also make the waffle cones themselves and the results are quite tasty.

Elliot checking out the cows

Above the ice cream area is the Barnloft restaurant. Aptly named as it is an actual barn loft. It was a really good restaurant with delicious burgers and fries that really hit the spot after our morning of hiking.

We had a pretty view out the window of the owner's home nearby. A rustic farmhouse.

After our tasty lunch and delicious Salted Karmel (this is how they spelled it) ice cream cone we were back on the road to our next stop: Brúarfoss waterfall in Brekkuskógur.

So, we follow these directions that start with, "the only downside to this waterfall is trying to find it!" which is a good start I think. We follow the directions to turn off the road by these summer houses and take a left at the fork in the road and then pull your car over in this area and get out and you should hear the falls... The instructions do not mention the WARNING:NO TRESPASSING sign and the six or seven forks in the road....we did find it though. We walked through a field for a bit before coming to this bridge and sign.

Now, if you know me well - you know I am not much of a rule breaker but my husband thought it was necessary to take a picture of me hopping over this barb wire fence. Anything to see a pretty waterfall, right?

Eventually we came to the falls. and it was soooo worth the hike!

We finally came upon it up stream a bit and as we walked down we saw what the fuss was all about, this beautiful crystal blue water.

I'm just going to keep showing you the thousands of pictures we took even before we got to the best views...

We hiked out to this little muddy ledge to get a shot of how blue this water was.

No more pictures Momma!

We hiked under the bridge here to get this cute pic of Dada and Elliot. You might recognize it from our Christmas card.

And then I had to get a bit closer.

When we had seen it all, we headed back to the car and on to the next stop.

We found this handy sign laying on the ground...might have found the falls a bit more quickly if we'd seen it in the beginning...but, isn't it more enjoyable and adventurous when you have to wander a bit to find the treasure!

The next stop was another little hidden gem. We could have easily driven by it if not for our little secret guide! Faxi (Vatnsleysufoss) Waterfall was huge and just as surprising as Brúarfoss.

This waterfall flowed on the river Tungufljót, which was fed by glaciers and other streams from the highlands of the interior of Iceland.

It also had this interesting fish ladder. I had not seen a fish ladder before, but Kyle had so he explained that it was a series of pools built like steps to enable fish to bypass a dam or waterfall. They jump out of the water to the next tier.

While this doesn't seem to make the list of the "don't miss" waterfalls, we were so glad to have seen it. It was beautiful and the power of all that water is really amazing. Although, it was just a smaller version of the next waterfall on our journey!

Our next stop along the Golden Circle was the highly active Geysir Hot Spring Area with boiling mud pits, exploding geysers and the lively Strokkur which spouts water 30 meters (100 ft) into the air every few minutes. The area became active more than 1000 years ago and comprises more than a dozen hot water blow holes. The geysir area is in the Haukadalur valley at the base of Laugarfjall hill about 50 meters from the site of the famous, but rarely active, "Geysir" which is the source of the generic name given to these kind of hot springs or geysers as we call them. The term Geysir is itself derived from the Icelandic word "geysa" which means to gush. Above is Strokkur before it erupts.

It starts bubbling up first which is really neat.

This is the view walking down to the geysir from the hill above it. While the geysirs were fun to watch, we really enjoyed our hike up to see what we thought was this crater we were looking for but, was actually just a scenic overlook- and quite a hike too! It was gorgeous and we were so glad we went up even though it wasn't what we originally thought. It was another beautiful surprise.

Looking into the valley below.

This is one of my favorite pictures from our trip. Just the three of us, on top of a mountain (and a pile of rocks) in Iceland, looking out at this amazing country we were discovering together. Cue the dramatic music.

It was a wee bit windy up there!

After this stop we headed to the last big site of the Golden Circle, the big one, Gullfoss. It. Was. Awesome. We were racing the clock a bit to get here before the sun went down but, we made it and it was so worth it.

So, when you go to Gullfoss, you park your car and walk down this little pathway...

And then you see some water in the canyon below and you start heading down the stairs and slope...

And then suddenly, there it is...

Gullfoss (Golden Waterfall) is located in South Iceland on the Hvítá (White) river which is fed by Iceland´s second biggest glacier, the Langjökull. The water plummets down 32 meters in two stages into a rugged canyon which walls reach up to 70 meters in height. You can see just a bit of a rainbow on the left hand side of the falls.

As you get closer to the falls you descend into the canyon and come to one stage of the falls that is breathtaking and then the next, which is equally as breathtaking. The force of the water is unbelievable. We read a quote on an information billboard here that said "in wildness and fury it outdoes Niagara Falls in the U.S.".

The first stage of Gullfoss...kind of crazy...this is why they tell you to bring waterproof clothing on your trip to Iceland!

I know, I know...but one picture just isn't enough!

Elliot loved being in his pack and seeing all of these beautiful sights! He was all smiles at the rush and the spray of the water. He was winning hearts of fellow tourists on this entire hike. As per usual.

On our way to the second stage of the falls...

Another family photo!

There is an interesting history about this waterfall that almost prevented people being able to enjoy it today. This is from the official Gullfoss webpage, "Gullfoss is more than just a pretty waterfall, it has a story to tell. In the early 20th century foreign investors wanted to harness the power of Gullfoss to produce electricity. In 1907 Howells, an Englishman wanted to buy Gullfoss from Tómas Tómasson, a farmer who owned Gullfoss at this time. Tómas declined Howells´ offer to buy the waterfall but later he leased it to him. The farmer´s daughter, Sigriður Tómasdóttir who grew up on his father´s sheep farm sought to have the rental contract voided. Sigriður using her own savings hired a lawyer in Reykjavik to defend her case. The trial lasted years and Sigriður went several times barefoot on traitorous terrain to Reykjavik to follow up on her case. She even threatened to throw herself into the waterfall if the construction would begin. Her attempts failed in court but before any damage was done to the waterfall the contract was disposed due to the lack of payments of the rent fee. The struggles of Sigriður to preserve the waterfall brought to people´s attention the importance of preserving nature and therefore she is often called Iceland´s first environmentalist.

In 1940 the adopted son of Sigriður acquired the waterfall from Sigriður´s father and later sold it to the Icelandic government. Gullfoss and its environs was designated as nature reserve in 1979 to permanently protect the waterfall and allow the public to enjoy this unique area."

When we were finished at the falls, we hiked back up the trail and back to our car. The sun was setting and my friends, we had had quite a day. Our first day in this gorgeous unbelievable country was really one for the books. We headed to our hotel for the night.

On our second night in Iceland we stayed on a sheep farm. Yes. Our hotel was a guest house at a sheep farm/ hotel called Vatnsholti 2 in Villingaholt, Selfoss.

We drove to the nearby town, found some dinner, came back, climbed into our little converted stable-looking home for the night and were asleep in seconds only to wake up in the middle of the night to the beautiful green glow of the northern lights out of the window wall in our room.

The gorgeous amazing green of the northern lights over the Icelandic sky.

I will leave the rest of our sheep farm hotel experience until day two's blog.

Musings of our second day in London...

2017-02-28T20:22:00.002-08:00

We woke up happy and rested for our second day in London. The picture above is the front door to our beautiful hotel, The Academy. We decided to have a slow morning before heading out to explore and headed downstairs to the restaurant in the hotel for a full English breakfast. What is that you say? Well friends, for one thing it is delicious! For another it is very very filling.

“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965)

This isn't a full English, I just thought it was cute.

The English Breakfast Society (yes, this is a thing) describes it this way:

"The full English breakfast is a centuries old British breakfast tradition dating back to the early 1300's, to this day the English breakfast is hugely popular and you can usually find an English breakfast wherever you find British people, we like to take the tradition with us wherever we go.

The English breakfast began with the gentry and evolved with the Victorians, who refined the tradition and standardized the ingredients to create a truly a national dish, one that is hugely popular to this day and regularly enjoyed by millions of English breakfast lovers from all over the world."

I know you don't really care about the last quote - YOU just want to know what a full English breakfast actually includes...am I right? The 'standard' full English breakfast or "fry up" is a substantial meal consisting of back bacon, eggs, British sausage, baked beans, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, black pudding, fried and toasted bread.

So, after we had our very hearty breakfast, we headed back to our room to tuck Elliot in for his morning nap while we did some vegging...and guys, we really needed it to prepare for what we did the rest of the day! Which was WALK WALK WALK and then WALK some more.

After E's nap, we headed out to see a bit more of London. Our first stop was Covent Garden where we went to a indoor/ outdoor market. There were street performers and lots of items to look at. We walked around for a bit and even found this cute aviator hat for Elliot that he still wears all the time. We might have found one for his little cousin at the same time.


This is a current photo of E wearing his Covent Garden souvenir.

We had a great time walking around the market. We tasted some interesting teas at a little shop and perused some beautiful prints by a really neat artist.

After we had thoroughly explored the market, we decided to walk a bit towards the waterfront to take in the river walk and the bridges. On the way we saw this interesting site:

The blue plaque above the coffee house is the interesting part. London’s famous blue plaques are a way to link the people of the past with the buildings of the present. It was started in 1866 and is thought to be the oldest of its kind in the world. Across the city are over 900 plaques, on buildings of every kind to honor the famous men and women who have lived or worked in them.

We thought this was pretty cool and made sure to keep an eye out for blue plaques as we walked through the city. After a bit of walking and site seeing we were in desperate need of a banana for Elliot and of course a pint or two for us. Here are a few sites on our walk down The Strand (which is a major road in a busy part of central London) as we tried to stumble upon a suitable pub.

This building is Somerset House which we kind of wandered into. It was really impressive, it is a large Neoclassical building on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames it was originally the site of a Tudor palace and was designed in 1776. It is a big art center and has these dancing fountains in the courtyard. Apparently in the winter it is also has a really neat ice rink so, mark that as a place to visit if you are in London in the winter. There was a design event happening while we were there. Below is a better picture I found from the entry way off the street.

This is St. Clement Danes, an Anglican church located on the Strand. It is a narrow beautiful church sitting between two streets. It was built in 1683 - the history here is just amazing.

This is the Royal Courts of Justice (London's High Court) it really looks more like a cathedral. It was built in the 1870's. We didn't go in but it is open to the public for tours.

I love coffee and I loved this sign outside of a little coffee house we saw on our walk.

This was the pub we were looking for on our walk, but sadly it was closed. We and about 5 other people were trying to find the entrance and were sorely disappointed to not be able to go in. There has been a pub at this location since 1538, although it has been rebuilt since destroyed by a fire. We had read about it as a popular haunt of Charles Dickens and one of the most famous pubs in London. We will try again next trip.

We did eventually find a little pub and enjoyed a pint and some out of the stroller time with Elliot. Kyle met some fellow South Dakotan's while picking up our drinks from the bar and of course they ended up knowing some of the same people. That is pretty standard.

This pub we found had a little bit of history too. The Old Bell Tavern has been a licensed tavern for more than 300 years. Built by Sir Christopher Wren, it housed his masons who were rebuilding St Bride's Church after the Great Fire. Originally it could only be reached via an alleyway from Fleet Street and as such they have a long association with printing. One of the first printing presses operated here around 1500. The stained glass windows in the front gave off this pretty glow in the dark wood covered tavern.

We decided we were tired of pub fare and decided to wait a bit for lunch. After bidding our new friends farewell, we headed back out to finally find the river walk.

Looking down Fleet Street with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.

We had quite a time trying to find the right street to get to the river walk, we ended up having to hop over a wall (yes, with the stroller) but, we eventually made it. And then to make it really interesting, on this side of the Thames the river walk will just stop and direct you to go around buildings and up and down tons of staircases to get back to the path...what's a few more thousand steps in the grand scheme of things. Above is the Millennium Bridge (Harry Potter fans may be familiar with it as it's digitally destroyed in one of the films).

The Millennium Bridge links St Paul's Cathedral on the north bank with Tate Modern and Shakespeare's Globe in Southwark. The large building in the background is The Shard, it's a 95 story office, hotel and restaurant building with great views of London. Here is a view from the other side of the Millennium Bridge:

This is London Bridge. Go ahead and hum the song, we did as we walked by it.

Here is our first great view of Tower Bridge. This was our main destination of the day.
Tower Bridge is a combined bascule (or moveable) and suspension bridge in London built in 1886–1894. The bridge crosses the River Thames close to the Tower of London and has become an iconic symbol.

Before we went up into the Tower Bridge for a tour, we stopped to see the Tower of London and hunt down some lunch.

Here is the Tower of London (this picture was taken from the opposite shore)

Kyle and Elliot posing in front of the Tower of London. The Tower of London is one of the world’s most famous fortresses and has seen service as royal palace, prison, armory and even a zoo.

I hopped once more into the Queen's helicopter to get this shot of the Tower of London so you could really see how large it is. Now for lunch...we headed to GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) and we were sooo glad we did! Yum!

This restaurant was all kinds of delicious and we sat outside with views of the Tower of London. They had these ketchup dispensers that looked like tomatoes and we thought they were fun. I remember Elliot kept dipping his french fries in his water glass here...it was a funny and relaxing lunch.

After lunch we headed to the Tower Bridge to take the tour.

Elliot and Kyle posing on the bridge. Tower Bridge consists of two bridge towers tied together at the upper level by two horizontal walkways, designed to withstand the horizontal tension forces exerted by the suspended sections of the bridge on the landward sides of the towers. The horizontal walkways is what we will be going on in the tour.

Just some cool views of the towers.

As ever the stroller worked in our favor and we were moved up to the front of the line and on the elevators before we knew it! Maybe Elliot is just that cute. We certainly think so!

View from the walkway high above the water.

And yes there are glass floors on both walkways so that you can be terrified and feel ill at ease during your tour.

I wasn't a big fan of walking on the glass and preferred the little side area that I couldn't see through. I was even less excited at my baby being rolled across it! I wasn't always such a chicken about heights...

More views from the walkway.

Here is a great view of Downtown London.

Looking out over the River Thames and all the bridges in the distance.

I seem so happy here just to be taking my selfie, not standing on a glass floor, not soaking wet and disheveled as the day before. It was a good day.

We had a really good time touring the Tower Bridge and afterwards decided to walk back on the other side of the Thames. After leaving the bridge we decided we had earned another pint and we hopped into a nearby pub called The Drafthouse. We couldn't avoid it with this sign outside:

It had a really fun vibe and when we looked it up the internet told us this; "The Draft House is a charming place where you can – alone or with others – experience great beer, good food, interesting people and great conversation. It’s a refuge for the soul for everyone who values civility in today’s world." How could we NOT go have some refuge for our souls?

We settle in that green corner bench with some refreshments while Elliot took a little snooze. We soon found ourselves sitting with a group of American college students who were all on different European adventures. They were a lot of fun and told us about all they were doing and seeing while we shared our adventures with them. They were in awe of us traveling with Elliot and we may have just given then hope that having kids doesn't mean your traveling adventures have to end.

We soon began our walk back, walking through Potters Field Park, past City Hall and down along the (much more than the other side) pedestrian friendly walkway. There were neat amphitheaters and tiki bars and lots of people milling around enjoying the great weather. We walked past this neat area with restaurants and shops called Hay's Galleria.

We eventually meandered our way far enough and we decided to cross back over the Thames via the London Bridge. I took this picture looking back at the Tower Bridge and the HMS Belfast which is a Royal Navy light cruiser that is permanently moored here. It is now a museum. Maybe another thing to go back and check out next time.

And this friends, is when our legs really needed a break. We decided to grab a taxi instead of walking the 45 minutes or so back to our hotel. We hailed a Black Taxi which is kind of iconic in London. It's because they are supposed to be extremely reliable as it is not easy to become a driver. They have to commit every street in London to memory before they qualify for their badge, which can take two years.

It was time for a nice break for our feet. I feel like I really wore down the soles of my shoes that day!

After a bit of a break we decided we had enough energy left to walk back to King's Cross Station to visit Platform 9 3/4.

This is outside King's Cross with St. Pancras International in the background. We were trying to find the Harry Potter store that we thought was outside the station before heading in to see the smaller store. In the end we found that it is all inside the station. Weary travelers...

King's Cross is actually a really cool place in and of itself. The modern and historical architecture combination is wonderful to see. We quickly found the 9 3/4 platform and headed with the throngs of people to see what it was all about. Now, I love love love the Harry Potter books and cannot wait to read them with Elliot but I don't think I was really prepared for the awesomeness of this store. It was really really cool whether you are a fan or not.

There are books, and souvenirs of every kind and lots of clothing and things that look exactly like the movies. The house scarves and everything are fun and you can even get a wand to match your favorite characters. It was really neat to walk through. I got the Philosopher's Stone in the illustrated version so I can read it to Elliot even earlier.

As we left there was a long long line of people waiting to take pictures with this with provided costumes. It looked like a lot of fun but we were happy just to watch.

We walked back to the hotel, enjoying the pretty city streets and busy pubs and restaurants. We opted to order in room service so we could get Elliot ready for bed and we could rest up for our travel day the next day. We ate, relaxed and got packed up for the next part of our trip, our Icelandic adventure! Off to bed and then it is goodbye London!

And the musings of our adventures continue....

2017-02-24T08:07:00.002-08:00

So far these blogs have been very sunny and happy and our trip has been almost without fault. Well, friends...we were due one bad day in this month long journey and this day was it. As I have shared all the others with you I won't skip this one but, remember the good times....

Today we got up early in Harrogate, England and prepared to leave for London. I luckily had an error with my phone and my alarm was set on the wrong time zone and went off an hour early. Yay. 4:30 is TOO early. I got to go back to sleep before the correct alarm went off an hour later. We got packed up and loaded into the car for the quick trip to the train station. We left 10 minutes before our train was to leave and I was getting sooo anxious. We arrived in time though, grabbed a banana at the cafe for little E, wished my brother in law goodbye and hopped on the train with so much luggage it is really just plain ridiculous....

Not shown here is 2 more large suitcases, 2 backpacks, plus 1 miscellaneous bag. It was nuts...

Elliot was in good spirits and still in his pj's until the next train from York to London. The expression on my face is, "How are we getting all of this on and off this train and on and off the next?...I won't think about that right now...I'll think about that in 40 minutes."

So, there are no pictures of the next few harried hours of the journey. We got off the train in York and to our surprise the gentlemen who had teased us about our luggage on the train offered to help us get off the train and then rode a lift with us up and over to our platform for the next train carrying our luggage despite having a train to catch himself. Just for laughs here is what he said once we got loaded on our train in York and sat down among our piles of luggage: "Just a day trip, then?" he said completely deadpan. It was pretty funny and we were so shocked and touched by his kindness in helping us. But for the kindness of strangers, we might not have got to London with all of our bags. We found that trains are quick, they stop, people jump on and off and they are gone again. Luggage and babies make this interesting. Like I said, next time everyone gets one backpack and that is it.

Our train from York to London had us once again in the quiet car at a four top table with two very quiet women doing a crossword together and of course our rambunctious child. He was not tired at all and very active on this particular leg of the journey. I even had the fortune of changing his diaper in the tiniest rattling restroom in the world with no baby change station. Sigh. And there was a happy line of travelers waiting for us to emerge from what seemed to be the ONLY restroom on the train. Once we walked back through the five or so cars it took us to find said restroom, we settled back in with our quiet travel companions and anxiously awaited our arrival to London.

We arrive at King's Cross in London, unload and head out to decide the best route to the hotel. Some misunderstanding with Google maps leads us to believe that our hotel is about a 2 minute walk from the station. So, we decide that we can somehow traverse the London streets with all this stuff if it's only a block or so. We head off. 20 minutes later and honestly, some tears on my part as our luggage is way to heavy for me to drag whilst carrying Elliot as well, we realize that our directions were off...way off...and we should have followed our original plan and called an Uber.

This is San Pancras station which is next to King's Cross. We came into this station the week earlier on the Eurostar from Paris. It is an enormous and beautiful building.

Kyle decided to go ahead to the hotel and drop off the luggage ahead of us so I don't have to carry it anymore. Elliot is asleep now and it is of course raining...it's London after all. So, I find a spot to sit in this little park area we had passed and I'm holding my baby...surrounded by my luggage, kind of wet from the rain and frankly looking a bit disheveled...do you see where I am heading yet? Yes, I looked pretty desolate and it did not go unnoticed by the million people walking past. I was positive they all thought I was homeless and surrounded by all my earthly belongings. Quite a few people asked if I was okay or if they could help...it was really embarrassing. I decided to read my book in hopes it would let people know I was fine while I sat waiting for Kyle. It did not help and eventually I decided to unload the stroller and try to wrangle the stuff into a more manageable way to start walking towards the hotel. This seemed to bring even more people to my aide. It was just one of those experiences in life where you just wish you could blink your eyes and get to your destination and leave this strange reality you have found yourself in, does that make sense? Eventually I managed to pass the street I needed to turn on and Kyle found us somehow and was pretty horrified and then amused when I relayed what I had been dealing with. He grabbed all the luggage and we headed to our hotel. After that we settled in the lounge of the hotel for a bit to regroup as our room wasn't ready and not 5 minutes later the fire alarm in the hotel went off. The door to the lounge swung shut (fire doors) and Kyle was in the Lobby so we were separated as I tried to maneuver Elliot out through the courtyard exit. Before I could get outside the alarm shut off and I find Kyle in the Lobby working with the hotel staff on fire alarm system (it is in his job description, but it was nonetheless a funny situation and the hotel staff were completely clueless and very thankful he was there to help) that was triggered by a guest taking an extremely steamy shower.

In honor of Joey Tribiani, I of course had to "get in the map" so I could see London as a proper tourist. That one is just for my fellow Friends fans. After our restful moment at the hotel we headed out for some lunch. We wandered into a neat looking place called Munchkins for some fish n' chips.

So, this is another parenting adventure story. For those of you without kids, it will sound more horrific than it was. We get seated and order our food, then suddenly the place is packed. It is a small restaurant and maneuvering the stroller and the baby gets complicated quick. We basically had to imprison two guys who sat down beside us with the stroller - they didn't mind and didn't speak English, just smiled and nodded. Then Elliot has a dirty diaper and the restroom is endlessly occupied and I have to keep walking back to check it. Finally it is open and there is no baby change area so I have to change him on my lap (Again. Remember the train ride this morning?). The first diaper tears as I'm putting it on E and he is of course wiggling around on my lap as I try to fish another diaper out of the bag....In the end I have poop on my shirt. We return to our table and eat our fish n' chips and smashed peas, spill and break a glass of water...soaked clothes, shards of glass and then we make our exit.

We decide to take in as much of London as we can despite our frustrating day. We leave the restaurant and head out onto the rainy London streets. Our first stop is a hardware store where Kyle buys some rope and duck tape to fix one of our bags that has broken in transit.

From there we wandered through Piccadilly Circus...

The Circus lies at the intersection of five main roads: Regent Street, Shaftesbury Avenue, Piccadilly Street, Covent Street and Haymarket. It is a busy tourist area with people posing by the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain and shopping in the many stores. It was a bit like a miniature Times Square.

The next site we stumbled upon was the Horse Guards. Life Guards have stood guard at Horse Guards, the official entrance to St James and Buckingham Palace, since the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660.

While we were there the horse guard changed positions and it was a pretty neat site to see. Some ridiculous tourists of course invaded the horses space trying to take pictures and were yelled at very soundly by the guard.

Next was a nice stop for some coffee, we needed to keep warm after all the rainy weather and our wandering.

Elliot had a snack to refuel before we headed to Westminster Hall.

And here is our first siting of Big Ben at Westminster Hall and the Houses of Parliament.

We decided to walk part-ways across the Westminster Bridge so we could see more of this awesome building.

From the bridge we also saw the Eye of London (the ferris wheel). Ferris wheels are not my thing so we didn't venture over to it. After seeing Westminster Hall we headed towards Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's Church.

This picture below isn't mine but it's a better picture than I had of the North side of Westminster Abbey.

Here we are for a little abbey selfie. The picture below is looking back at Big Ben from in front of the abbey.

This was a major upside in our hazardous day. It is so interesting to see these places that you have always heard about and walk these streets with so much history.

This is St. Margaret's Church which is right next to Westminster Abbey.

The building below is Central Hall Westminster which is London's largest event center. We did not peak inside but after reading more about it, I would love to see inside next time we are in London.

This little guy was having fun riding on Daddy's shoulders.

Our next stop was to a pub down the street. We needed to rest our weary legs and have a pint!

After our refreshment, we headed back out onto the rainy London streets. Next, we were headed into St. James Park and then down The Mall to see Buckingham Palace. St James's Park is the oldest Royal Park in London and is surrounded by three palaces. The most ancient is Westminster, which has now become the Houses of Parliament, St James's Palace and of course, the best known, Buckingham Palace.

These ducks were the official greeters of St. Jame's Park. They were so cute and followed us around quite a bit. We might have had bread...

We took a break from the city to enjoy the park and the wildlife. Here is a lovely British squirrel. He had the cutest accent.

And then we saw some birds...I don't know what kind. I'm not really a bird person.

Back to the pretty views...

In the background you can see the Eye of London

A standard tourist pose on a bridge in the park.

Walking down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace. It was really neat walking out of the park and onto the street where you could see the palace. Traveling around the world like this certainly helps you to appreciate different countries and cultures and realize that the world is so much bigger than the little spot you live in.

Aerial view of St. James Park, The Mall and Buckingham Palace. I borrowed the Queen's helicopter for this shot. Now onto the Palace!

It rained the entire time we were on this walk but it really didn't take away from the beautiful buildings and scenery around us. Up ahead is Buckingham Palace -for those who do not know- it serves as both the office and London residence of Her Majesty The Queen. It is one of the few working royal palaces remaining in the world today.

It was quite a busy place, but Kyle and Elliot managed a picture in front of the intricate gates. It's not quite Versailles but there is a little gold sprinkled around.

This is the Queen Victoria Memorial that is in front of the palace at the end of The Mall.

The blurry Buckingham Palace selfie. I am wet. I am cold. It's been a day. We were having a lot of fun by this time in the day but we were a little road weary.

After this we headed back towards Piccadilly Circus through Green Park, another one of the Royal Parks. It had really large pretty trees and a few memorials that we stopped to see.

That is the last of the pictures I took on our way back to the hotel. It was about a 45 minute walk back so we broke it up a little by going in this massive department store that looked and was very impressive, Fortnum & Mason. It was 4 or 20 levels of beautiful things to look at but small elevators and our long day got the better of our attitudes and we decided it best to explore another day. We grabbed some Jamie Oliver takeout which was delicious and made our trek back to our hotel.

Our room ended up being the most lovely place and the most beautiful that we stayed in on our trip to this point. We were super spoiled and the rough day was soon forgotten after a cozy meal, a long hot bath and a good night's sleep. It was a long day but in the grand scheme of things it was also a really great day with lots of memories made. A few of them just a bit messier than others.

Stay tuned for our next day exploring beautiful London, where we have...SUNSHINE!!!

And might I add that if you did not laugh at the Hogwart's Express picture I posted as we arrived in King's Cross station you might not understand me at all...lol

More musings of our adventure, this time in York

2017-02-05T20:28:00.007-08:00

On our last full day in beautiful Yorkshire England we caught the 9:07am train to York for a bit of exploring. The major excitement of this particular excursion was meeting up with an old friend. Our friend James-whom we met in Washington while he was doing a sort of extended internship there -drove quite a ways to meet us at the York station and show us around the town. What fun to reconnect with an old friend on a different continent! The picture above is of York Minster, Kyle took this picture from the top of one of the towers that he and James climbed about 275 steps to get to the top. They said they were very tight narrow steps -definitely worth the view! Elliot wasn't allowed up so this adventure was for Dad to have.

Here we are posing in front of York Minster. It was really beautiful and very intricate. A little history: It is the largest medieval Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and it's 128 stained glass windows equal more than half of England's surviving medieval stained glass. It is around 800 years old and is at least the second Minster to stand in this same location. It took 250 years to build. It is pretty impressive to say the least. Below we swapped places to get a pic of Abby and Everett who came with us to York for the first part of our day.

Pictures of the Nave

This was a really cool feature, these metal soldiers moved when the clock struck.

The Five Sister's Window. This is the only memorial in the country to women of the British Empire who lost their lives in the First World War.

The Rose Window in the South Transept, the stonework dates back to 1240. This photo was a little washed out from the sun, but the colors were just beautiful.

The sheer size and majesty of this place is really one you can't truly capture in pictures. It was definitely worth the visit. While the guys went up to the tour we toured some of the historical areas about the origin of the minster and the history of medieval churches etc. And then we lost the guys and wasted half an hour thinking they were still in the tower while they were outside thinking we had left and were out waiting for them. In the end we found them, had some coffee and headed out to continue our tour of York.

A few more views looking out from the central tower.

Looking out over York

The stairwell coming down from the tower.

Looking back at York Minster

Our next stop was The Shambles which is an area of tight twisting streets and shops that are what makes York so charming. It is a really neat area and we strolled through it stopping for some very classic British fare a sausage roll that James suggested we try. After we popped into a few shops and enjoyed the sites of the quaint town area.

A few pics as we rambled through the shambles...

We stopped in this little fudge shop for some treats!

Elliot fell asleep holding his bread he was eating.

Later on we stopped at a pub to have some beer and enjoy the nice patio.

Elliot was glad to be free of the stroller for a bit. He so enjoyed this month long trip and getting to have his Dad with him every day all day. They are pretty fond of each other!

We toasted our fun day of getting to reconnect with our friend and enjoy yet another interesting place in Yorkshire.

At some point Kyle held a giant owl and Elliot petted its feathers. I watched and pictured all the horrific potential outcomes of my one year old being this close to a creature with long scary talons.

After this we wandered through some lovely gardens, an art sculpture area, some ruins and then back along the waterfront.

Always time for a family picture!

The gardens were so pretty and the ruins were so neat to see.

Elliot had a lot of fun crawling around on the ruins.

I thought this ice cream truck was funny...

Another pretty little church we went into as we waited for our afternoon reservation at Betty's tea room. I managed to find a union jack souvenir in a shop in the shambles as James suggested was essential to do. Having afternoon tea was something we had not yet done so we were excited to have this fun experience.

Naturally we took our 1 year old to have formal tea. He did wonderfully and ate his snacks and played while we enjoyed the lovely food and delicious tea. We were so glad to have had the experience and will definitely do it again! Everyday. The English really have some wonderful traditions. Stopping every day to have tea instead of grabbing a coffee to go like we do. It was a lovely experience to explore this country.

Below is a better picture I stole from the internet of the tea service and food.

And that is the end of my pictures from this day in York. After tea we soon bid farewell to James and caught our train back to Harrogate (laughing that we would be back in York early again the next day to head to London). We had a nice train ride back and then walked back to the house (our feet were pretty tired after a day of exploring and walking) where we ordered in a bunch of Chinese and Indian food as a decision between the two could not be reached. It was of course delicious. Afterwards we had some nice time visiting our family and packing up for the early morning of travel that lay ahead.

The next leg of our trip is a bit harried as we now have ALL of our luggage with us (as we had sent a suitcase home with family after our time in Switzerland). But for the kindness of strangers we might not have made it with all of our belongings back into King's Cross the next day. Alas that is a story for another day! Stay tuned!

Another musing for your perusing...our Yorkshire adventure continues...

2017-01-31T12:42:00.000-08:00

On our next day in beautiful Yorkshire, England we headed out for a day of exploring. First on the agenda was visiting Skipton Castle. Skipton Castle is over 900 years old and is very well preserved and complete. And half of the castle is still occupied and used for a residence. We parked our car and walked along the castle wall to the entrance. Elliot got a cute little visitors pin and we got the most unique map for our self guided tour of the castle. It was a two sided large piece of paper with sketches for each location with information about each area. It was fun to follow along and we really enjoyed exploring it.

This is the entrance to the castle

Off we go!

I loved all the windows and the pretty views of the area

This was the banquet hall

This was a view out the window of the river below

This was an opening in the corner of a room that was used to shoot arrows to defend the castle.

Here are my two cuties in this cool room that shows the depth of the walls - they were really thick!

This is the courtyard of the castle. This tree was really beautiful.

This is the view from one of the windows of the front entry gate of the castle.

And of course a selfie...

There were some very interesting tiny spiral staircases, Kyle had fun going on these while carrying Elliot in the pack. The steps would kind of slope down from age and wear and on some there was so little tread, you felt like you had to tip toe up them.

More pretty courtyard views

These two in the dungeon.

View of the courtyard from one of the higher floors

This chapel is to the left of the entrance to the castle and it is The Ancient Chapel of St. John the Evangelist.

Inside the chapel.

This is that front entry gate on our way out of the castle. I took a short walk through the quaint little town while the guys got the car and we headed off down some very tight and twisty little roads to the Wensleydale Creamery.

Some pretty views of the dales as we drove to the creamery. We loved all the rock fences and all the sheep fields.

Just crazy beautiful views during our drive. I'm still toying with which pictures we took on our trip that i would like to enlarge and use in the house and some of these are definitely in the running.

The creamery was a really nice treat and the perfect spot to stop for lunch. We tried about 20 different kinds of cheeses and had a lovely lunch outside before getting some Rhubarb crumble ice cream cones and heading out for a walk around the area.

Elliot had an enormous grilled cheese sandwich here that was mostly bread. He loves bread (who doesn't!?) so he was pretty happy even before his ice cream cone (it was actually just a cone..less messy).

We started our walk in the sheep field in front of the creamery and got to check out some pretty cool and disinterested sheep. We see even more sheep in the Iceland leg of our trip where we spend a night on a sheep farm (stay tuned!).

Posing with our ice cream.

Pretty views on our walk

And then we were off once more and headed home...until we drove through a town and fancied a pint (as one does) so we stopped off at the Theakston brewery. Once we found a place to park and walked through this odd alley entrance way we were at the brewery, where we settled down for a nice drink while Elliot played.

Pretty ivy trellis as we walked up to the brewery.

Cheers to another good day!

My travel partner! What a great adventure we had together.

And then we were done and back on the road for home. We ordered in Fish & Chips and had a really nice dinner at home and played marbles with my brother and sister in law after all the kiddos were in bed. Such a great day!

Our next day was pretty low key. We got up later than normal and went for a nice pub lunch before Kortny showed us the base where he and Abby work. We even went to the commissary for a little slice of American consumer products which we hadn't seen in a while.

Uncle Kortny carrying a sleeping Elliot into the pub for lunch. At our pub lunch we had Yorkshire pudding for the first time and it was delicious and a really heavy lunch....but, of course we also had sticky toffee pudding again. Oh my....it is soooo good! Elliot fell asleep for half of it so we had some time to just visit with family and enjoy some nice time and new food.

And he was out, we laid him on the bench next to me and he snoozed for a bit before wanting to get up and play around outside with Dad.

A few fun pictures after lunch!

After lunch and the trip to the base, we headed back to the house to put Elliot down for a longer nap while we vegged for a bit before going to pick up our niece from school and take her for ice cream in town. We had a fun little adventure getting to see her school and walk into town for ice cream and some fun. That night we had a late dinner of halloumi sandwiches and grilled veggies that was really delicious and we had to indulge in some of our wine we had brought from France. It was a wonderful night and we headed off to bed ready to rest up for our next day of adventuring!

Next time we are off to York to explore and see an old friend!

More amazing and exciting musings of our Yorkshire advenutures...

2017-01-24T17:14:00.001-08:00

Our second full day in England began with us loading up and heading to the beautiful Fountains Abbey, about an hour or so drive from where we were staying. This was Kyle's first opportunity to drive on the opposite side of the road, which was pretty interesting. In true Kyle fashion, about 10 minutes in you would think he had been driving that way his whole life. It felt strange to me to be sitting on the opposite side - with all the round-a-bouts it seemed disorienting to me but, he was having fun and driving a manual car on top of it all.

Fountains Abbey came highly recommended by my brother and sister in law, so we set out late that morning to see what it was all about. It was just beautiful and such a nice, serene day to stroll through the ruins and the water gardens.

A little bit about the Abbey...
It is a Cistercian (a specific order of monks and nuns) abbey, with elegant Georgian water gardens and a medieval deer park. The atmospheric ruins that remain are a window into a way of life which shaped the medieval world. The ruins at Fountains are the largest monastic ruins in the country. It was founded in 1132 by 13 Benedictine monks from St. Mary's in York seeking to live a devout and simple lifestyle. The Abbey was abruptly closed down in 1539 in the Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered by Henry VIII.

When we arrived we were not really sure what to expect, and as we walked from the visitor's center down a trail and around fields of sheep, the abbey came into view and we were amazed at the sheer size of the ruins and the immaculate landscaping. It was truly one of the most interesting and beautiful things we saw during our trip.

Kyle and Elliot posing in front of the abbey.

Each room we went in was so interesting and the gorgeous light that came into the open areas made the sight pretty breathtaking.

Even little Elliot had fun checking out the inside of the abbey.

It is always amazing to see the architecture of buildings that are this old and just marvel at what they were able to accomplish with medieval tools.

View from the courtyard

I was waiting and waiting for a couple of fellow tourists to walk out of the frame so I could get this shot.

Ever the adventurer, here is Kyle up in one of the windows - he found a secure little area to go up to one second level that still was intact.

I have so many pictures of this place - there was just so much to take in!

This silly guy...

After we had seen all we could see of the abbey, we strolled through the VERY extensive water gardens to see some of the other sites.

The Rustic Bridge and Upper Canal

That little building in the trees on the right is called the Octagon Tower. This is the lower canal.

The building to the right of the water is the Temple of Piety and the water in front is called the Moon Pond and Crescent ponds, they are more visible from some other pictures coming up.

We leisurely strolled along the gardens, listening to the water and looking at all the sights. This is the Rustic Bridge in the background and in the foreground the Drum Fall with these strange half woman half lion statues.

Next, we stopped in at this charming tea room for a bit of a snack before walking back towards the abbey.

In America we would just say, "Clean your own table".

This is Studley Lake and the Fishing Tabernacles and cascade

Pretty swan swimming in the canal, this place was so calm and beautiful. It really was the perfect low key adventure after all the excitement and rush of Paris.

On the way back towards the abbey we took a trail to hike up to the Octagon Tower.

It was a bit steep as we headed into this dark tunnel before reaching the tower. As you can see the baby is all smiles but Daddy is a bit tired from pushing him.

The Octagon Tower...

It had a beautiful view of the gardens below.

Elliot took a stroller break for some play time at the tower. Sigh...back to the days when he was crawling and not quite walking.

We loved all these mushroom covered stumps and mossy areas in the forest during our hike. Living in a desert climate both in Washington and now New Mexico, you get used to a lot of tumbleweeds, cactus and dust.

Another beautiful structure in the woods along the trail, this was the Temple of Fame. I may or may not have changed Elliot's diaper here....I don't think it was a sacred space or anything.

Sometimes you need a break from the stroller so you can sit on Mommy's shoulders and see it all from another angle. Below you can see the Moon and Crescent ponds in the background as well as the lower canal.

This is a picture from Surprise View & Anne Boleyn's seat. The name Anne Boleyn’s Seat was coined because paintings show that there was a decapitated statue on this spot before the acquisition of the Abbey in 1768. During the late 18th century the statue acquired the name Anne Boleyn when a link was seen between the decapitated state of the statue, Henry VIII's second queen and the dissolution of the monasteries, which affected Fountains Abbey. The statue was restored to its original position in 2001.
"The name "Surprise View" is more apt. Georgian visitors would have been led to a wooden building and seated on a bench, sliding wooden doors were then opened to reveal an astonishing view of the abbey ruins in the distance. The sight was designed to cause a sharp intake of breath, hence ‘Surprise View’." -random internet sourced quote

View from Anne Boleyn's Seat. You can see the abbey peaking out in the upper left hand side.

On our way back to the abbey

We couldn't help ourselves, we had to roam back around the ruins for a bit before leaving.

For some of us it was nap time.

After we explored the Fountain Mill and the visitors center (ahem...mandatory tourist ice cream stop) we got back in the car and headed to Brimham Rocks.

After a day of walking it was clearly time to go hiking and climbing on rocks. I believe I wore the wrong shoes this day and had band-aids on each heel before we got to the rock climbing portion of the day. Brimham Rocks is an area of shaped rock formations and amazing panoramic views across Nidderdale and the Vale of York.

Just relaxing here on a giant rock...I won't tell you how I held my breath as he climbed up to this spot.

and this spot...

Family photo!

Elliot was much happier in this picture with Mommy. He really loved being in his pack. It's a good thing too - stay tuned for Iceland where is pretty much ONLY in the pack.

Beautiful Views

Mom eventually got tired so it was Dad's turn to wear the pack.

I did a little bit of climbing myself, even in my inadequate boat shoes...

After a few hours of hiking around we headed back towards Harrogate where we met up with our family who had been working and going to school while we ventured around. We headed out to what was always an exciting meal with three kiddos at a pub called "The Pit" in Harrogate.

After some delicious food, beer and cider we headed back home, went to sleep early and rested up for our next day of adventures in Yorkshire.

Stay tuned as we go explore a castle, a brewery and a creamery!

And yet there are even more musings of our great adventure....

2017-01-21T13:02:00.002-08:00

And finally we were on our way to England! We woke early and got an Uber to Paris-Gare du Nord-the train station-to catch the Eurostar to London. In case you did not know: The Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris (and other places as well). All of its' trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France.

Here we are unloading our massive amount of luggage and attempting to get it into the station. And when I say ridiculous...I mean it - we had a ton of stuff. Next time we are each going to have 1 backpack and that is it.

This is the train station and the Angel Bear sculpture in front of it, I couldn't find any information on what it stood for except that it is by Richard Texier.

The best thing on a train is a sleeping little boy. After we had a great breakfast on the train, Elliot went to sleep (as did I) and we were in London before we knew it. We met a really interesting man and his son there who were on there way home from a trip to China and on their way to Bermuda. We really did meet the most interesting people.

London was basically a very quick chaotic stop for us. We arrived at the train station, leaped off the train with our pounds and pounds of luggage, strollers, car seats, baby, etc and threw it all on a buggy and headed out of St. Pancras International train station to cross the street to King's Cross Station to catch our next train to York. I do not have any pictures because we were hustling to get there on time and it was kind of crazy. I have pictures of King's Cross when we come back to London after our time in North Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales. On the map you can spot London and quite a bit north of that is York where we would catch our last train into Harrogate.

This is from outside York Railway Station. We were here for a VERY VERY short time as we once again jumped off the train, threw all of our stuff out the door and tried to get our bearings and find the next platform. Luckily we were steps away and had time to grab a quick bite and some milk for E before loading up on our final train. Our train ride from London to York was quite interesting and is definitely our most retold story from our trip. Maybe because of the stress of traveling and train hopping but, we still think it was hilarious. I know a few of my readers here have heard this multiple times and it isn't near as funny anymore but, here we go. I will set the scene: We climb aboard the train and Kyle tries to find little pockets of storage space to put all of our earthly belongings which we are traveling with, while I wearing Elliot in a baby carrier traverse through the train to our reserved seats. We are in a four seat section with a table across from an older gentleman and his wife in THE QUIET CAR. Yes, because apparently the best form of torture the English can come up with is to put two weary travelers and their baby in the quiet car. So, everyone looks especially jolly when we arrive and finagle ourselves into our seats. Elliot does really good on trains so it wasn't that much of a noise issue - just something akin to keeping a wild monkey in a 24" x 48" space for 3 hours while sharing a table top with two strangers. Picture it if you will. So, we finally break the ice and start conversing with the couple after the first 15 or 20 attempts to apologize for Elliot touching their things and us wrangling him. They were from Kent and on their way for a biking holiday in Scotland. They were very nice and once they realized that Elliot would not be screaming or anything like that, they warmed up to us and found him adorable. We were having a great time chatting (not loudly) when a lady came up to us (pointedly to Kyle and I) and let us know that, "This is a quiet car and you are making too much noise". To which we immediately started to apologize etc. until suddenly our seat mate interrupts and says,"Excuse me madam! WE ARE TALKING AT A NORMAL LEVEL AND THE SIGN DOES NOT SAY THAT YOU CANNOT TALK AT A NORMAL LEVEL...." and so on and so forth for about a minute they argued and bantered about it while we sat stunned into silence. Finally, she turned to go back to her seat having had enough of arguing about it and our seat mate's wife tried to get him to calm down as he had gotten all worked up. Then, as soon as the lady sat back down in her seat he said, rather loudly "Stupid Cow!". And then everyone around us and at our seat started apologizing to us for having been exposed to such an ill humored person upon entering their country (meaning the lady not the guy who called her a cow). They hoped it would not put a damper on what we thought of the British people etc. For the rest of the trip, "Stupid Cow!" was constantly something we couldn't resist spouting out at any sign of frustration. He was worked up for a good 10 minutes afterwards and muttering to himself and at the lady as his wife kept talking him down and we tried to contain 1.) Our hilarity at the whole incident, 2.) Our fear that we had been being too loud in the first place. 3.) The fact that WE and not our son were causing a problem in the quiet car. After that train, we just had the one hour train trip to Harrogate.

We arrived in Harrogate and within moments from standing up to get off the train, unloading our luggage and finding Kyle's brother waiting just outside, Elliot lost a shoe. After a quick check to see if we could find it as the train was already gone when we realized it was missing we loaded up and headed towards their house for a much needed break from our travels. We had made it - all but one tiny shoe.

Our first day in Harrogate was a Monday and as our family headed off to work and school, we slept in late, let Elliot play his little heart out in their playroom, and rested up. It was heavenly. I read an entire book that day. We only crept out into the world to stroll into the town and have lunch. We found the standard visitors center and got a few brochures of places to visit later in the week as unlike our other stops during our trip we had waited to plan our time in England until we arrived. It was just the rest we needed from our other more planned travels.

After a recommendation that we eat at this restaurant during our stay, we rambled into The Fat Badger pub for what they describe as "modern British pub-grub". We had the most delicious meal with cask ales (naturally) and sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream that was so amazing and sweet that I was sure to have at least one cavity from this meal alone.

Drool.

The chairs here were these big thick leather lounge chairs and Elliot curled up in one, pulled off his sock and played with his toy he got at the Louvre a few days earlier. Made himself right at home.

So, as I said this was a day or recovery so I didn't get too many pictures and almost none of the town of Harrogate as we walked around. I sniped these from the internet. The town is really charming and pretty. This war memorial above was interesting and all the lovely little shops were fun to pop in while we explored.

Right before we decided to walk back towards home we discovered that our dear little boy had lost another shoe. Same foot. And that meant we were down two right shoes of the two pairs we brought with us. Off to find some shoes to get us through the rest of the trip.

The remaining shoes. The only two things we lost on the entire trip. That is until a month after we got home and discovered we had left some souvenirs under the bed in the room we stayed in at Kortny and Abby's house. They lovingly restored them to us via Grandma & Grandpa at Christmas last month.

We headed back with our new shoes for Elliot and had a relaxing night with family and cousins playing together for the first time. As is their way, our hosts made us delicious food, provided lovely wine and beer and our time in England was off to a wonderful start.

I'm going to break our time here up in to a few posts as the last time I tried such a long post I started having issues with font size, etc. Stay tuned for our adventures in Yorkshire!

And yet even more musings of our adventures...

2017-01-08T13:10:00.001-08:00

After our journey through wine country, we headed to Paris. We drove to the airport to return our car and took an Oooober (only Gilmore Girl fans will understand) to our hotel. Our hotel was fairly close to the Eiffel and as I glanced out my window I saw our first great view of Paris...

We ended up getting in fairly late, in terms of our one year old, so we got settled in our room and Kyle ran out for milk and takeout. Interesting thing about our hotel room: 1. The keys were required to turn on the lights and they had to stay plugged into the light switch. (This resulted in being left in total darkness for a few minutes once when the other person forgot...no names) 2. The toilette was in a completely separate area of the room than the shower and sink. 3. There was a sign that we saw the next morning that said NO FRESH FOOD of any kind in rooms. NO ASIAN FOOD. (So, basically we broke all the rules the first night! - it was delicious though!). 4. There was a teeny tiny elevator that could only fit one person (very tight) or 1 piece of luggage in it. It was a lovely place and I would stay there again, but it was a bit odd.

The first day was our scheduled tour of the Eiffel tower but, we had some time to kill so we went wondering around after breakfast. We stumbled upon this:

This is The Dôme des Invalides which is part of the Musée de l'Armée. Inside the Dome is the Dome Church and the Tomb of Napoleon. The other is a museum holding an amazing history of the weaponry used through the ages and lots of their artillery. Here is the inside of the Dome - it was really breathtaking and we immediately ran into a few people that we had had breakfast with at our hotel which is always kind of fun.

Gold staircase going down to the Tomb of Napoleon. This place was lousy with gold and marble.

Here is Napolean's tomb and another picture to give you a better idea of the scale. It was impressive.

This is the courtyard behind the Dome and the most of the armory museum.

Here is a line of cannons, there were a lot of cannons....rooms of cannons...

Here is Kyle as we are leaving the armory museum, in the back ground you can see the Alexander III bridge and the Grand Palace and the Petite Palace. We walked there next!

Here is a view of the Alexander III bridge.

I actually took this picture the next day but it is another view of the bridge with the Eiffel in the background.

Here I am posing next to this giant bronze and gold sculpture on the bridge.

Here are the boys on the bridge and below is the Grand Palace where they were setting up for some kind of big event.

Sculpture on the corner of the Grand Palace

After this we headed back towards our hotel to meet our group for the tour of the Eiffel tower. We found out that the best way to avoid all the lines (2-3 hour wait) was to book everything ahead of time, we had zero lines and went straight up!

Elliot was peaking out to see Paris from the second level of the Eiffel Tower.

All the bridges of Paris. Paris has 37 bridges across the Seine, of which 5 are pedestrian only and 2 are rail bridges. Such a pretty view.

A cool thing about Paris is that the there are not a bunch of high rises, until recently they were very reluctant to allow them - preserving the historical architecture, etc. However that will not always be so. Glad we got to see it as it is - from this view, it is really a beautiful city.

The long building above the Seine River is the Louvre (the largest museum in the world). More about the Louvre soon...that's Paris: Day Two)

Family photo!

It is the most romantic city in the world after all! Well, it would be if you weren't sharing your room with a baby! We didn't mind Elliot! We loved taking you to Paris!

Yes, an Eiffel selfie seemed necessary....or perhaps I was just celebrating being back on the ground. Not a huge fan of heights as I get older....going up to the summit was not needed for me. I was the one hugging the wall.

Kyle and Elliot getting that iconic Eiffel photo.

Thank you random tourist for our family pic....oh no wait, I think this one we had set on a timer and balanced it on the stroller. Creative huh?

See that lovely dirt there...that is what most of the ground around here looks like, apparently there was a huge celebration and the grass was ruined and now they are regrowing it...this grass is surrounded by a giant fence so you can't walk on it. Also, the dirt is covered in all the remnants of the celebration as well....it must have been quite a party. Although, we found in Paris that every night is reason to celebrate. If you took a walk in the morning, any grassy area would be strewn with empty champagne and liquor bottles. As we had a baby with us, our partying was kept to a minimum.

I believe this was our third night in Paris and after dinner (9ish or so, as Parisians dine fairly late) we walked back to the Eiffel to see it lit up. We may have taken a bottle of champagne...

The second day we had a tour set up in the morning at the Louvre so we headed out pretty early. It was quite the stroll to the Louvre from our hotel, but our theory on this trip was always to walk if we could so we would see more of the city. We were out with the joggers this morning and it was really a nice walk. There is a side story here where I get incredibly sick during this walk and have to keep finding little "rest stops". This included me running into cafe's and stores trying to convince locals in really bad french to direct me to the nearest location before I was sick in their establishment. sigh....traveling. But, you don't want to hear about my embarrassing moments right? During our walk we happened across a few historical sites before arriving at the Louvre.

This is the Luxor Obelisk. It is a 75 foot high and stands at the center of the Place de la Concorde. It is over 3,000 years old and was originally situated outside of the Luxor Temple in Egypt, where its twin remains to this day.

The Place de la Concorde has an interesting history. Besides the obelisk and the two monumental fountains (Fontaine des Mers and Fontaine des Fleuves). Created in 1772, Place de la Concorde was originally known for having been an execution site during the French Revolution. Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (among others) were guillotined here. We went to Versailles on our last day in France so it was interesting to see this knowing we were going to visit the home of Louis XVI and a lot of the reason why they ended up here in this square. The history that we came across on this trip was just amazing. But, there is always something to be said for standing in a place where incredible events happened, especially ones that shaped that country or time.

On to the Louvre!

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. This is an arch in Paris, located in the Place du Carrousel, in front of the Louvre. It was built between 1806 and 1808 to commemorate Napoleon's military victories of the previous year. Not to be confused with the more famous Arc de Triomph which is about twice the size. We actually caught site of that structure on our walk here but, we won't really go see it until our last day in Paris. My oh My did we do a lot of walking!

Here is the arch from the other side with our tour organizer standing below. She wasn't actually our guide for the tour. Our guide was this really sweet girl who was about 20 minutes late due to traffic and the shutting down of the train she was on. Our tour group was small, just seven of us and it was just wonderful. After she arrived we headed inside...and that is a production in and of itself. The visitor's center and entrance is underground but, it is crazy enormous and actually hard to believe that you are underground. There is natural light from the pyramid and it is all marble and really a site to see.

There is always time for a Daddy & Son pic! Our fellow tourists were a bit anxious upon seeing us wheeling a baby into our tour of the Louvre but, Elliot won them over in no time at all and he was just a prince the whole time.

It also helps when your baby is just in time for their morning nap...see that yawn? He was snoozing before we even got to the Grecian sculptures!

This is a weird picture and to be honest, I don't remember taking it. I don't know that I got another picture though of the inverted pyramid.

This was our first stop in the Louvre after all the security checkpoints. It is the remaining moat that used to surround the Louvre Palace, another reason we started our tour underground. I won't go too much into detail here for fear I will lose the interest of those not inclined to the artistic masterpieces of the world and also for fear that I misquote and those that are more well versed than I will scoff at my ignorance. This part of our trip was a huge highlight for me. In college I took art history classes basically for fun (nerd alert...not the only classes I took for fun either, lol), they weren't part of my requirements past the first class and I really fell in love with Art. I also took some amazing art classes and it was really a treat to re-immerse myself in that part of my past as well. I'll just show you some of the cool pieces and then move on to our next adventure. We had about a 2 hour private tour and then afterwards we went back on our own for a while to explore. Due to the amount of elevators and rooms (the stroller) we got lost for a bit in the world's largest museum....

The Egyptian Antiquities section of the Louvre is guarded by the by the Large Sphinx (c. 2000 BC), the collection is housed in more than 20 rooms and it is really amazing...until you're lost...and there is just one sarcophagus after another....and another...oh, and yet another column from a temple...sigh

This was my favorite thing we saw, the Venus de Milo. Since it is my favorite - here is my blurb of the history for you: The Venus de Milo or Aphrodite was discovered in 1820 on the island of Melos. The arms were never found so her true identity could never be confirmed.

Cool stairwell...see how I'm toning it down for you now?

Views from a window of the courtyard and the Louvre Pyramid, which is a large glass and metal pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei. It is surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the museum.

I think this lady to the right was just about done with her tour....

Don't act like you didn't KNOW there was going to be a Mona Lisa selfie....

As everyone says, and I was totally prepared for, it is so much smaller than I imagined it to be.

This indoor courtyard area was something we kind of stumbled upon, it was really incredible and full of so many amazing sculptures.

This one just made us giggle.

This is the largest painting in the Louvre and it is across the room from the Mona Lisa which also adds to her looking so small I think.

Another favorite sculpture that had a little secret when you walk around to the other side. Also, this mattress they are lying on was apparently added later. I think it was a Sleep Number...

Okay, with that I will leave the Louvre and we will head to...

Well, a lunch where our waiter terrified Elliot and cried whenever he came near the table. The waiter thought this was funny...we grew a bit tired of it and found another waiter to get our bill. We shopped around a bit and 5 hours later ended up outside of the Louvre. You could spend days, weeks there and never see it all. Plenty more to see next time!

On to Notre Dame Cathedral...

This church was really amazing, we happened along at a good time to see it as well and had no wait to walk through. It was so beautiful and the detail was amazing on the outside and inside. It was nearing time for an afternoon mass so we didn't spend to long lest Elliot's vocals not meet the preferred respectful tone a church requires.

Details on the entryway arch.

Gorgeous stained glass inside the cathedral.

Just a tiny little church in the middle of the city...The shear size is what is most impressive about the Cathedral and there were some amazing things inside that we got to see that we didn't take pictures of. It was a wonderful experience, we would have loved to stay for mass but, we had asked a lot of Elliot already...it was time to find a park for the little guy to play around in!

As we came out of the Cathedral we noticed they were filming a movie on the adjacent street. It was a period film and we watched for a bit at the goings on. Not too far away was the Shakespeare & Company bookstore and a sweet little park for Elliot. We grabbed a few snacks and I perused a bit while the boys relaxed.

After a bit of a rest we decided to use the rest of our day to walk around and explore Paris.

There aren't a lot of highchair options at the sidewalk cafes, so Elliot stuck to his stroller when Mom & Dad needed a break to rest their feet and take in the local fare. I am not typically a white wine drinker, but Paris was quite warm and after the wine tasting in Beaune and Sancerre, I found that I couldn't turn down a nice cold carafe, at a quaint little cafe, on a picturesque Paris street...a few times a day.

We found another nice green spot to play, this was a beautiful area and we were not alone in taking advantage of a pretty place to sit and enjoy the city.

We were tourists of course so, there was ice cream whenever possible...

Same day...wasn't kidding...

A nice little cafe for dinner, a lovely close to our second full day in Paris.

After a full day of touring around, we had to make sure Elliot had his Parisian style down....

You might not know this about our little E, but he loves hats.

He really likes to get into his dresser and pull out different hats to put on-including this beret-and wear them around the house.

The third day we got up and headed out to catch a train to Versailles. This was the weekend and we stumbled upon a street market. We had to delay our train a bit to check it out. It was completely amazing, it was an antique street market, with unbelievable old furniture and antiques and it went on and on. The designer in me wanted to shop and shop, I could have just gone crazy with the treasures I was seeing. My mind was racing with thoughts about how could I rent some sort of pod thing and fill it up and send it back to the US and go ahead and open a storefront for my design business and etc etc etc.... Thankfully, my dear husband and son (who had taken a quick break to grab a cafe and an eclair while I lost my mind) pried me away, brought me back to reality and whisked me off to Versailles..to look at more antiques...lol

A street fair near our hotel...Note: remember to go back to Paris just to buy furniture.

Versailles. A very brief history for those who don't know much about it other than what they learned from the movie Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst where she has beehive grey hair and they play a lot of strange rock music...

"The Palace of Versailles was the official residence of the Kings of France from 1682 until 1790. It was originally a hunting lodge, built in 1624, by Louis XIII. It was expanded by Louis XIV beginning in 1669. He used it as a little lodge as a secret refuge for his amorous trysts with the lovely Louise de la Valliere and built a fairy tale park around it. Jules Hardouin Mansart, the king's principal architect, drew the plans to enlarge what was turning more and more into a palace from A Thousand and One Nights. The terrace that overlooked the gardens was removed to make way for the magnificent Hall of Mirrors, the Galarie de Glaces. It is here from which the king radiated his power and where the destiny of Europe was decided over a century. The French classical architecture was complemented by extensive gardens. In 1682, Louis XIV chose Versailles as the fixed residence of the sovereigns. Versailles became the superb Baroque palace known to the world as a symbol of civilization and pleasure. " - Castles of the World

Yes, this is a straight up copy/paste..this post is long and I'm tired...kind of like my feet by the end of our time in Paris.

Here we are in front of the Palace of Versailles, the courtyard here is massive and even in front of us there are other enormous beautiful buildings that are apparently stables. Versailles is not lacking in gold as you can see, there is A LOT OF GOLD and it is everywhere, it is shocking really, the opulence, etc of the palace. Even compared to the fairy tale castle in Germany, it really has nothing on Versailles.

This is the marble court. It is a giant marble area with black and white checks. Looking back on these pics, I am once again glad that Elliot started to walk AFTER our trip to Europe. We had no stroller inside of the palace (not allowed, this was true in a few museums etc, during our trip) and he would have been quite the handful if he was able to run around.

Daddy & Son in front of the golden entrance gates to the Palace of Versailles. Kyle getting this picture without any other tourists in it was quite amazing, I was very proud. There are certain tourists that are pretty aggressive at places like this and they don't have a lot of awareness of personal space - that's all I will say about that - and Kyle made up his mind that he would refuse to move from this spot until they all gave up and moved out of the way. Small victories...

After our street fair, walk to the train, train ride, walk to the palace, etc. We were famished. We decided to enjoy a fancy little meal at the palace restaurant, the Salon de Thé Angelina and indulge a bit seeing as how we were surrounded in gold, marble, and what felt like as much art and sculpture as we had seen the day before at the Louvre.

I hadn't had caviar before and I really wasn't a big fan. I did however love the cheese, bread and champagne that came with it. Elliot liked it too. And yes, that is Elliot's shoe on the table...because a classy meal doesn't ever completely happen with a one year old.

The Hall of Mirrors

The hall of crazy enormous paintings depicting battles fought by Napoleon. A fellow tourist literally put his phone 1 inch from my face in here to take a picture. I popped him one and was drug out by security and banished forever from Versailles. Or I scowled and stepped away...you choose which sounds more fun.

This was the throne room or now a chapel area, not too sure...we had those head sets that walk you through an audio tour of the place....but, well he is cute and he is blonde and he doesn't like not getting to wear the headsets and after so much other stuff we had seen, we honestly felt like breezing through the palace instead of absorbing ALL of it's history and culture...We were tired, okay!

Best part of Versailles, amazing extensive and ridiculous gardens...other than the stroller not rolling to hot on the little pebble walkways...this was our favorite part of the Palace.

View from the Gardens looking back on the Palace

Kyle leaning against a monstrous marble sculpture.

The fountains here are on a timer and they have all this music that goes off. Keep reading to see the fountains...aren't you excited?

I take it back, maybe the ice cream was the best part.... Yes, we had ice cream and beer and sat down for a bit to watch all the people paddle boating around one of the large ponds/lakes. Sigh...ice cream.

And then, just when you think you have seen all of Versailles, there is a long long road with another

building at the end... And so you walk to see it too!

This was the Petite Trianon and also the Grand Trianon (which we did not go into) and it was the home of Marie Antoinette when she needed a break from court life. It was very pretty and more quaint than the palace.

Marie Antoinette painting.

After a bit of the house and the gardens there we trudged our way back to the other gardens to catch the fountains.

We thought this was pretty cool.

It was a long morning. We hit Starbucks on the way back to the train station (naturally) and then we collapsed into our seats and trucked it back to old Parie.....

This is what Elliot's hair looked like for most of our trip through Europe...also curly sometimes as well...

So, we got back to Paris and walked to our hotel and slept for the rest of the day.....NOT QUITE
We got off the train, resurfaced and instead of going right and heading to our hotel to relax, we thought, "Hey! Isn't the Triumphe de Arc thingy ma-jig like only 57 blocks from here! We'd be crazy not to go!"

And so....WE DID.

The Arc de Triomphe was built between 1806 and 1836 and it stands at the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, also known as the "Place de l'Étoile". It’s located at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. It was made in honor of those who fought for France, in particular, those who fought during the Napoleonic Wars. Engraved on the inside and at the top of the arch are all of the names of the generals and wars fought. It is 162 ft tall, 150 ft wide and 72 ft deep. I don't think you can really tell from our pictures, but there was a funeral or memorial happening while we were there and the street and monument had bands and flags and a lot of stuff going on, the main street was even shut down for a bit. We opted not to go up on top of the Arc, as we had already seen a lot of the city views, etc from the Eiffel.

This was a very different part of Paris than we had been to before. It was all the gorgeous hotels and designer stores. It was flooded with tourists and very very busy. There was a line around the block to get into Louis Vuitton. We skipped that one and grabbed a pizza. THE BEST PIZZA THAT WE HAD EVER HAD IN OUR LIVES. Truth. It was mozzerella, bufala cheese, ham, mushrooms and truffle shavings. It was serious guys...

We even took a picture of the menu so we could try to recreate it at home. We have tried once and it was pretty good but it wasn't the same...we LOVE truffle and this pizza was swimming in it!

Kyle had an insanely sized mug of beer and you know what I had....

Elliot took a little snooze and then woke up so he could have some pizza and test out putting a high chair in this crowded little cafe...all the chairs face the street and it is a bit tight. Our waiter and the manager were in love with Elliot and they took 5,000 pictures of us, 4,997 were horrible, but she was excited so what could we do? She spoke ZERO English and we were at their mercy....and we wanted more pizza.

She was relentless with the photos....as am I

After dinner we hobbled around to a few stores, but we mostly just wanted to get back to the hotel and rest up for our grand departure the next day. We needed some rest for the the three train rides we were going to take to get to England.

Our last twinkly night view of the gorgeous Eiffel Tower as we walked back to our hotel. Yes, we walked back. I will need 3 more months to recover from this post and then I will share England and Iceland with you!

Even More Musings of Our Great Adventures...

2016-11-13T17:03:00.001-08:00

The next leg of our trip begins with our drive from Switzerland to France. Unknowingly, our GPS was set to avoid toll roads so we took a back roads drive through the gorgeous countryside of the Burgundy region of France. Our destination was Beaune, where we planned to stay 2 nights before heading to Paris. Beaune is beautiful, quaint and charming. We already plan to visit again as we could not cram all it had to offer into two days (with a 1 year old...lol).

Bonjour France!!

This was a little town we drove through on the way to Beaune. They were having a festival so the teeny tiny streets were even tighter and busier than they would normally be. It was so fun to drive through these little villages.

As soon as we got to Beaune we checked into our hotel and headed out for our first authentic French meal. I had beef carpaccio and Kyle had steak. Delicious! Here is Elliot (above) strolling around Beaune and the restaurant we ate at the first night. It was such a quaint little town.

The main reason we came to Beaune was to go wine tasting. We are big wine fans and we had been looking forward to this for a really long time. French Wine is so different from any other wine - it was such a fun experience to taste it and learn all about what makes it so unique. We definitely started our tour off right!

Elliot was so funny during dinner, he was cracking us up and even made a few friends before we left the cafe. But, he does that everywhere...such a little charmer!

After dinner the first night, we strolled around the rest of the town and looked at the unique buildings and all the people sitting out at the cafes. The weather was beautiful and the whole night was just idyllic - everything you would have pictured a little wine town in France to be.

Here is our hotel - we had such a great visit here. The morning breakfast was amazing and our room was so lovely. We would stay here over and over again.

The next day we headed our after breakfast to explore the area and do some wine tasting. Our concierge pointed us in the right direction and off we went! This was a pretty little canal on the edge of the downtown area.

This is the Notre Dame Cathedral in Beaune. This is the first of 3 or so Notre Dame Cathedrals that we saw on our European adventure- the most notable one being in Paris. This one was just beautiful...

After we visited the church we played out front for a bit and Elliot took off his shoe- as per usual. The same shoe that would soon be lost somewhere between us standing up to get off a train and stepping off that same train somewhere in England...but, that my friends is a story for another day.

Snuggles with Mommy! My little bear...

We walked around the city and headed toward a few of the wineries, stopping here and there at little tasting rooms. We collected a few bottles and stumbled upon this gorgeous arch.

After we FINALLY found a few wineries that would let us take a tour of the caves (many wouldn't due to Elliot's age and the stroller) we made an appointment and then headed off for a little treat before it started.

We met some lovely people from the United Kingdom who were also on holiday and had a great dessert at the little cafe. Mine was very elaborate and had raspberry and basil sorbet. Seriously one of the best desserts I have ever had in my life. Of course Elliot ate quite a bit too!

Here we are at the Patriarche winery getting ready to go in to begin our wine tasting and tour of the caves. They have the largest wine caves in Burgundy. They had 5 km of galleries in the caves and 8 million bottles of wine stored there. They have also existed for 230 years. Video of the Caves

The caves were amazing. They were dark with this low lighting, it was really cool to walk through and explore.

Kyle and Elliot posing by some barrels in the caves.

Little hands....glass bottles...yikes!

This is a wine from 1911

Elliot found the rocks on the cave floor more than enough amusing for us to get some tasting in!

Room after room of bottles.

There might be a little dust on the bottle...but some things get sweeter with time.

They just went on and on!

These bottles are locked and protected. They are dated with when they will be opened. This one is November of 2050

November 2020

November 2094

This is definitely NOT how we have tasted wine in the US! You are given this little flat silver spoon/cup about the size of your palm and the (self-guided) tour leads you through the Patriarche caves into one dimly lit room to another where there will be wine barrels with various bottles on them to taste from. You self pour and there is a guy who is sort of around to help when a bottle runs out or if you see something that is available to open along the wall in the stacks of bottle and he opens it up and answers questions. It was a really neat experience.

My husband is not the type to go on a tour and not come out without some friends! We had a great time with these two, Brian and Ollie! They were London natives doing a wine tour of the Burgundy region, Brian had a mass of wine knowledge and we had fun talking to him.

Along with your little wine scoop (which -although very cool- made it rather difficult to smell the wine the way you can in a wine glass) if you found bottles you wanted to buy during the tour, you grabbed one of these metal carriers and loaded up along the way. Every wine we were tasting was stored in that area so we picked up our bottles and put them in the carrier as we went through the caves. We shopped ourselves into another suitcase to take home.

cave selfie with Momma

An interesting tidbit about French wine is that each region grows only a couple of types of grapes that they make into wine. For instance, in Beaune, all that they grown are Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. So if it was red, it was pinot and if white, it was chardonnay. And yet it all tastes SOOO different. How they name and differentiate the wine in Burgundy is not just by the grape but the region and area all the way down to the acre or section of land that the grape for that wine was grown from. For instance if I was drinking a Pinot Noir at dinner one night and looked at the bottle, I could drive outside of town and potentially find the very vines where the grapes from that wine were grown. Best wine experience of my life to date!

After we left Patriarche, we headed back to the hotel to drop off our liquid treasures before heading to another tour and tasting at another amazing winery. This one was Bouchard Aîné & Fils. They had a guided tour and tasting and it was really interesting. Part of their tour is this room below called the tour of the the 5 senses. In each container around the room there were things that are in the soil that the grapes come from and things that you can taste in the wine. It was really neat to go through and smell the different things as you tasted the wine. For example there was honey, mushroom, tobacco, rose, currant etc.

After our day of tastings and touring the caves under the city, we came up for air and found a nice little cafe for dinner. It was a delicious meal and we had a lovely couple from Holland at the table next to us who also had a baby with them, they were really nice to talk to. A highlight of our trip was definitely meeting so many people from all over the world.

Kyle had snails for dinner the second night. We had both had them before and I am not really a fan but, he loves them! To each his own, right?

We also made sure to get a ride on the carousel in Beaune that evening. It was Elliot's first time on a carousel and he really had a great time.

The next day we slept in late and then headed out for a few more stops in Beaune before we left. A little shopping and of course some PASTRIES!! We had some ahhmazing Cafe Eclairs and these little pizzas and they were glorious!!! That is something I can say is true of France as a whole - ridiculous baked goods. I took leave of my no bread eating ways for this part of the trip - no questions asked!!

I had Elliot in the carrier as we walked back to the hotel that night but he kept reaching out to hold onto Daddy's arm while we walked. It was too cute. He really loved this month of uninterrupted time with Dad.

We soon said au revoir to Beaune and headed toward our next stop, another town in the Burgundy region, Sancerre.

As we left town we drove past vineyards for miles and miles. Even past some of the Grand Crux grapes that were in the bottles of wine we had tasted.

Sancerre!

Sancerre is a medieval town on top of a hill. It used to be a little fortress to protect it's inhabitants. It is a beautiful sweet town with tight narrow streets that are extremely steep. The surrounding areas grow grapes, the pinot noir is prevalent as in Beaune but, in this area the white wine is the Sauvignon Blanc. Our first stop was the Notre Dame Cathredral that is pretty much the center of the tiny village.

After seeing the beautiful church we headed to a little cafe where we stumbled over our horrible french and had yet another amazing meal. I had this awesome goat cheese omelet and Kyle had something else goat cheesy.. Sancerre has a famous local goat’s cheese – Crottin de Chavignol and it is beyond words. And when on vacation almost every meal calls for an indulgent over the top delicious dessert. Sancerre did not disappoint. I don't remember what this was specifically but, it was soooooo good! Little Elliot did not get to indulge in either of our desserts at this stop though as we did not realize (language barrier) that they were lousy with spirits. I'm drooling just remembering this lunch...

Kyle ordered this little dessert platter with all kind of treats to enjoy including some really really good coffee.

Elliot got to sit in this antique highchair that was really fun for him as he could raise and lower the tray, and he did. The whole time.

After our decadent little lunch we headed to visit the Tower of Fiefs to get an amazing view of the town and surrounding countryside - vineyards and the Loire River. It was built in 1380 and there are 195 steps to the top and they are tight!

Here we are winding our way up!

These two are always goofing around!

The 360 degree view was definitely worth all the steps!

Chateau de Sancerre

My two favorite guys!

View of the village of Sancerre from the tower.

Elliot on the top of the little dais in the center of the tower. It had lots of neat information on it about the areas we could see from the tower.

The vineyards on every side of us at the top of the tower were so beautiful. We stumbled upon some others coming up to explore the tower and they took a little family photo for us! I love that no matter what the language, people always understand "Can you take our picture?" with hand motions of course.

A couple views of the beautiful picturesque streets of Sancerre. We were only there for the afternoon and didn't explore near enough. We hope to return one day, though and visit more of the wineries. We had some amazing wine and added to our growing collection and we were mistaken for students at the language school there. It is always fun when other American people approach you in a foreign country thinking you are a local. Locals always know you are American - apparently we stick out!

We soon said goodbye to Sancerre and its' gorgeous views, beautiful and yet crazy narrow streets - that we were sure we were going to leave a little of the Benz's paint on! Our only regret was that we could not find the street that had this view that we had seen during our research for the trip: in trying to find this picture to post here I just found out that what I was looking for was actually in a different town in burgundy called Auxerre. We are cracking up! I guess we don't have any regrets after all!

As we left this special part of our journey through Europe, we passed this road sign. We were so baffled that we turned around and took a picture of it. Reindeer crossing? Super Deer crossing? Does it have a hat? We have never been able to decipher this one! We had to look up some signs in each country so as to make sure we were abiding by the law in each one but, we never could find this one! That's okay France, we have these in New Mexico....

And that my friends is yet another leg of our adventure! And now we head to Paris!!

More Musings of Great Adventures...

2016-10-13T11:45:00.004-07:00

After we leave Germany, the next leg of the journey begins on the road to Switzerland with one slight detour...the small but, beautiful country of Lichtenstein. We stopped for lunch....naturally.

Lichtenstein is nestled up in the Alps and is only 62 square miles, making it the sixth smallest country in the world. They speak German and are quite the fascinating little country. Here is a link for 13 Fascinating Facts about Lichtenstein for your amusement!

As I said above, we stopped here for lunch and it was just gorgeous! We found a great restaurant with a beautiful view and we sat out on the patio overlooking this beautiful country. The people were so kind and once they saw the 3 kiddos they brought out a basket of toys and the kids sat down to play. We had much debate on how one refers to a person from Lichtenstein. We settled on the Lichtecians....we doubt it's correct by we applauded our Lichticious ability to come up with it!

Views from the restaurant in Lichtenstein.

Kyle and Elliot waiting for the food to come. Elliot was ready to go back to playing with the toys!

More views from the restaurant...it was so gorgeous we could not resist!

Flowers in the window sill are a necessity in Europe. I might need to install some window boxes at my house next spring!

Driving through Lichtenstein, you can't tell it from this photo but, in about 1 minute the car ahead of us is going to go down a one way!!

Close up of the castle where the Prince of Lichtenstein lives.

This is a better view as we were on our way back down the hill to head to....

SWITZERLAND!

Some of us were really psyched about heading to Switzerland and up into the gorgeous Swiss Alps...others were just kind of nuetral... see what I did there?

My little peanut getting his first look at the cool area of Hasliberg, Switzerland

We had a bit of confusion when we first arrived as a rain storm the night before had washed out the walkway of the house we were renting there. After much debate and the realization that we would not be able to have access to washer and dryer due to the change of location (we packed 7 days worth of clothes for a month long trip and this was our only washer before our halfway stop in England in another 7 days....sigh, adventure!) we went for a glorious hike before settling into our awesome digs for the night (it all ended up pretty great BTW and we had a killer view!)

Above is the area where we stayed..you can guessed what happens here when it snows! We were wishing it was snowboard season already!

Here we are heading up these mossy stairs to an awesome impromptu hike through the fairy tale style forest. Seriously, I thought I was in the movie Ferngully for a moment. Remember that movie? I know...I'm getting old.

There were lots of benches on the hike that opened up into these beautiful views of the mountains. We could not resist taking pictures at each one.

My little bug sitting on a bench just his size!

After our hike, and hauling our luggage up three flights of stairs, another exciting dinner with a broken plate, a burger that I swear was not beef and a carton of milch "milk" we bought from the restaurant for little E, we headed to our spot for the night!

The view from our balcony did not disappoint! We put the kiddos to bed, enjoyed some wine on the balcony and watched the sun set before we headed off to bed to pack for the next part of our journey (we were headed out the next day to France and leaving a bit of luggage with our family for when we reunited in England later on) and to get some sleep for what would be an early morning adventure to THE TOP OF EUROPE!

The next morning we loaded up the cars and headed to Jungfraujoch to take a train up to the top of Europe. Quick blurb from the website:

"The Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe is the highlight of any Swiss holiday. The highest railway station in Europe is located 3,454 metres above sea level. The visitors gain access to a high-Alpine wonderland of ice, snow and rock, which they can admire from the viewing platforms on the Aletsch Glacier or in the Ice Palace .

The railway journey to the Jungfraujoch is an experience which leads through the Eiger and the Mönch. At the Eismeer and Eigerwand intermediate stations, visitors can enjoy the wonderful view."

Here we are on the first of two trains up to the glacier!

And across the aisle...our travel companions...The (other) Halls!

ridiculous scenery...just crazy

higher and higher up into the mountains...

Elliot was enjoying the ride, crawling all over the train car, wearing his dapper little duds. Ready for some cool weather after the heat of Germany the past few days.

Switching to the second train!

On top of the glacier!

We went on top and outside of the complex to play in the snow, go snow tubing and well, Elliot went to sleep. He's such a baby...

Afterwards, we headed back in to ~~warm up~~ visit the Ice Palace!

E and I posing in front of the glacier! It was awesome...and COLD!

We met this little bird out in the snow.

This is not the best picture of Elliot but it's the only one we took in front of the sign!

Back on the train after a day up on a glacier in the Swiss Alps! This boy is tired!
Well, off we go to France! Next stop: Wine Country! Au revoir!

Musings of Great Adventures

2016-10-03T21:24:00.001-07:00

I have been so excited to share our European Adventure with my family and friends and I have finally found a few stolen moments here to start. Between my almost walking 1 year old,some new adventures we've started here at home and of course the DAYS it took me to unpack, I was wondering if I would ever get to this point of sitting in front of the computer sharing about our trip!

I recorded our journey in my journal so that I could keep all the memories in order in my ever aging mind. We were gone for a month and that is a lot of days and a lot of adventures. The best way to tell it I think is to start at the beginning...that's a very nice way to start (Thank you Julie Andrews).

We headed out the last week of August. We loaded up the car with what we thought we might need on this journey (and what would grow and grow throughout the journey-But, I'll get to that later) including all the baby gear. It was a lot of stuff guys. And off we went to Denver (where we were flying out) to meet up with Kyle's Dad who would be taking our puppies for he and Kyle's Mom to watch while we were gone.

We spotted this really cool double rainbow on our drive to Denver and thought it was a really nice omen for the trip. Looking back I believe we were right!

We had lunch with Grandpa as we handed over our little fur babies to his safe keeping. While we were there Elliot decided to show off some of his almost walking moves. Yes, we went to Old Navy - we don't have one where we live so we had to wander in for a second while we were enjoying time with Grandpa.

We flew from Denver to Munich, Germany with a connection in Reykjavik, Iceland. The first flight was 7 hours and went pretty well as far as Elliot is concerned but, I dropped Kyle's beer that I was tasting (it was Icelandic and I was curious) in my lap in the first half hour of the flight. I'd like to blame the wiggly one year old on my lap but, to be honest my hands just failed me. My payment for this clumsiness was a beer soaked salad that I had been eating (it kind of enhanced the vinaigrette so I just went with it...) and beer soaked shirt, pants and well, underthings... I thought that I would change at our connection as I had no clothes I could get to easily but when we landed in Iceland there was heavy fog and we were delayed and we had to take a shuttle and wait in a customs line and then run...with the baby to the right gate and we were almost the last to board. So, I stayed in my nice aromatic clothes for a 7 hour flight, a 3 and a half hour flight to Munich and then I thought I would change clothes in Munich but......it was crazy when we got off the plane and we had to get 2 trolleys to get all our luggage and find our rental car, etc. Suffice it to say, it was a lot of time smelling like a brewery. We got our rental car and headed off into the Bavarian countryside to meet up with Kyle's brother and his family who were letting us join in on part of their summer holiday.

Despite my aroma, once I had changed clothes, we headed to a restaurant and this was a necessity!
Our first of many German beers. The restaurant was neat and we sat outside and the kids played on this little park area they had and we could barely believe we were finally on our long awaited adventure!

The coolest thing I noticed about Germany initially was how pristine is was. Everywhere we went without fail and without exception was clean, manicured, decorated with flowers in every window...it was beautiful. It was so charming.

This was the restaurant that we ate at. This was our first time learning to communicate in German and learning a lot of the words for things so we could order food. We had schnitzel the first night and as we found out all over Europe, everything comes with french fries, in Germany they were called Pommes Frittes. Thankfully, my sister in law, Abby speaks some German so she helped us navigate a bit. The most important word for us in every country was of course: Milk. In Germany it was Milch and we were always sure to have it on hand for our little man. The nice thing we learned in Europe was that they always had shelf stable milk if we didn't have a cooler on hand.

This was our hotel the first night in Peiting, Germany. This was the only night the whole trip that we did not have a pack and play for Elliot to sleep in and we were all pretty jet lagged so it was a wild night.

This is the next morning eating our first European breakfast on the patio. I had my first soft boiled egg ( a new favorite now) and my first muesli and yogurt which is my new lifeline - I cannot live without it! We had pretty much the same breakfast everywhere we went in Europe. Cold cuts, soft boiled egg, yogurt, muesli, toast and jam, croissants. We got very accustomed to it and the first morning we were back in the states and had continental breakfast in our hotel in Denver we really missed our favorite European standards!

This was Elliot as we are loading our car up for our first day of exploring. On the agenda: Neuschwanstein Castle. It is a nineteenth-century Romanesque Revival palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. We got up early and headed out to visit the fairy-tale castle.

The German countryside

In the distance on the hill we could see the castle as we were driving in.

We took a horse and carriage ride up the hill to the castle and we had a tour of the interior of the castle that was amazing. Pictures are not allowed but, we learned a lot about the "Mad" King Ludwig the Second who built the castle and only lived in it for one year before he passed away.

More German countryside, this is the view from the foot of the castle.

Just a little E and Me Selfie!

This a Daddy and Son shot of them playing around in the courtyard of the castle when we were waiting for our tour to start.

After the tour, we hiked around the property to this great bridge that overlooks the castle and we got some amazing views!

This picture is actually from the castle and you can see the smaller castle on the hill to the right and that is where King Ludwig grew up. They said he would look up at this spot and dream of building his own fairy tale castle one day and he eventually did.

My sweet guys!

Here are some pictures that we did not take. I found them online and they are pictures of the interior of the castle. It was so opulent and amazing.

After our day at the castle and lunch and another museum about the Bavarian rulers and their history, we headed to our next hotel, actually a VRBO that we rented for the next few nights. It was in Engen, Germany and it was a great location and had lots of space for us all. That night we headed out for yet another exciting German dinner with great food, amazingly good beer and 3 crazy kiddos.

This was the view from our room in this farming village, Elliot and I got up with the sun, as per usual. On our second day in Germany we headed to the Black Forest area to an open air museum with play areas for the kids, animals to pet and a lot about the history of German culture. It was so hot the whole time we were there, I had not really anticipated the heat and Elliot here is wearing the only summer outfit that I packed! Live and Learn, right?

Elliot and his cousins petting the goats at the Vogtsbauernhof Open Air museum in the Black Forest.

This was pretty much Elliot for the whole trip and just generally everyday. Always smiling and happy, ready for the next adventure!

Our next stop was the city of Triberg which is famous for their cuckoo clocks. We went in a few of the stores and marveled at the craftsmanship,detail and the charming little cuckoos.

Triberg was a beautiful city, we hiked up to a waterfall, had some ice cream or Eis, as tourists must do and took a much needed break from German cuisine for some pizza.

More beautiful scenes of Triberg

Kyle and Kort during our waterfall hike.

The waterfall is one of Germany's highest waterfalls

Walking back from our hike to see the waterfall

After Triberg, we decided to head to a market to get a few things for the next day and along the way we decided to try some German sodas (which I don't drink soda at all, so it was a huge departure for me even without the rather odd flavors)

This was also the night that Kyle explored the Autobahn and tested out our Mercedes we had rented for the trip. I am not going to say how many kilometers per hour we were going but it was way too fast for comfort! My husband was having the time of his life!

Elliot enjoying his last banana breakfast in Germany!

And with that we said auf wiedersehen to Germany and the next day we headed to Lichtenstein and Switzerland!

Stay tuned for the next leg of the journey!!

Musings of My Altered Life

2016-04-19T12:34:00.000-07:00

Altered in a good way of course. But nonetheless altered. I had to sit at my computer for a few minutes and feel the keys under my fingers, stare out the window for a minute, change out of a shirt with a drool stain and take a deep deep lavender candle infused breath....and then....yup, there is it is.....Moi. Sometimes I'm hard to find in these new days of diapers, baby giggles and drooly sweet kisses....and wait, there he is...I hear him crying in his crib. My 20 minutes are up! Let us hope I can find myself when he goes to bed and I can attempt this once more.

I started writing this in February and I just got back to it...LOL

Musings of Moving...

2015-06-22T12:09:00.002-07:00

It has definitely been a long long while since I wrote anything but, I think that the time has come because life looks a lot different than it did last time I posted. I left off with our cruise vacation to celebrate my friend Sara's wedding. And then the following happened:

We found out that we were going to have a baby...talk about a shock!

Harley & Oliver offered to do the announcing!

We decided to move to New Mexico!

View from the road leading to Los Alamos. Snow capped mountains in the distance are the Sangre De Cristo Mountains.

Downtown Santa Fe at sunset...gorgeous!

We sold our home and are now buying a new one in our new locale just in time to get it ready for the baby to arrive!

So, we've been a little bit busy...

I thought I would share a couple posts about 1.) The Move, 2.) My baby shower and trip to Oklahoma, 3.) Our Baby-moon in Florida/ wedding on Clearwater Beach of some dear friends.

The Move.

The first thing to really note about our move to Los Alamos, New Mexico is how freaking fast it all happened. We flew to New Mexico for Kyle to interview for the position in January. We quickly fell in love with the gorgeous mountain views and the beautiful mesas. When he received the offer we weighed the pros and cons and realized that we were both ready for the next big adventure so we jumped at the chance to see what the southwest was like. We've lived in Florida, Kansas and Washington and this was yet another totally different climate and experience (and time zone!). It wasn't easy to leave our sweet little house (our first home) and our perfect neighbors and great friendships but, it felt right and everything really fell into place. From the time we accepted the offer to the time we drove out of our driveway was less than a month! We sold our house unbelievably in one day on the market and the 3 month contract position I was working on with an architecture firm ended the week we left, it all just fell into place!

Last meal out with friends at one of our favorite restaurants, Twigs.

Once they packed and loaded us up we said our goodbyes and headed south!

A little hike in Utah during our drive to New Mexico. This was so beautiful and a great chance to stretch our legs after hours in the car.

We arrived in Los Alamos a few days later to our temporary furnished apartment (talk about a flash back to college life!) and set out on our house hunt.

We've had a great time exploring our new area. We have had A LOT of green chilis (they are literally in everything here!) We have had snow, hail and lot's of rain (welcome to the mountains!) and we have hiked more than ever before...and we thought the pacific northwest was outdoorsy!

Walking the dogs in the Canyon by our apartment.

Trying out new restaurants is always a fun part of moving somewhere new. This is Kyle's favorite brunch spot for Chicken & Waffles. I drool every time he orders it!

Exploring nearby Santa Fe. So much history and art culture here! This is the Railyard district where we discovered a fun little Saturday morning farmer's market.

We can't get enough of these views!

Our little temporary home! Second Floor...the stairs are a killer! Adjusting to this higher elevation (we are at 7500 ft.) has been quite the struggle! Add in being pregnant and you just get a lot of huffing and puffing!

Surprised one morning by 4 inches of snow!

Lots of fun family time on our daily walks in the canyon with the puppies!

House hunting here has been quite the challenge as it is a totally different kind of market than we were used to in Washington. We decided on a home and made an offer in May and then after the inspection report we talked ourselves out of it and walked away, both realizing that it just was not the home for us.

It was a great little house but it just wasn't IT.

A few weeks later we fell in love with another home and made an offer just a few hours after seeing the home for the first time. We are set to close this week and I cannot be more excited! I am 31 weeks along now and anxious to get a nursery set up and ready for this little baby!

This house is awesome and we CANNOT wait to move in next week! This is a view from the backyard - I am so excited about this sun room for all my cactus and succulents!

Stay tuned for my next post for a little look at the sweetest baby shower of all time...

Musings of the New Year...

2015-01-17T13:39:00.002-08:00

C’est Moi!

The Starbucks cups are back to their normal white color, Christmas trees and ornaments are back in their boxes in the garage, a few lonely dried out trees are still sitting by the curb waiting for the chipper (shhh…). The joy and excess of the holidays is swept under the rug to make way for the resolution of the New Year.

Stores have rearranged their aisles to place workout clothes at the forefront, bottles of vitamins line the entry at Costco, and my embarrassingly expansive list of TV shows I watch are back on after their winter hiatus and filling my DVR to the brim. Life is drifting back to a semblance of normalcy. Or is it? My living room looks empty and obsessively clean without my tree and quirky red and silver decorations. I actually thought about going to the craft store today to check out the Valentine’s Day stuff – just to give it a little spice…


I'm seriously considering buying this from jane.com

My nearest and dearest have welcomed the new year with a new little life, our niece Daphne Mae joined the clan on January 6^th and a cuter thing has not been born since her sister/ twin three years earlier. So many changes and adjustments as they get used to being a family of four. My brother already told me his woes of the four plane tickets to come visit us…. Phew! I can’t imagine – I balk at the price of one!

Welcome to the world little lady! We can't wait to meet you!

Our Christmas was different this year, we headed back to South Dakota to see my in-laws but, added a nice twist with inviting my Father and his wife to join us for a bit of the holiday. We really enjoyed showing them the interesting little historical gold mining town my husband grew up in as well as throwing pennies into the slot machines at the many casinos that now dominate the little mountain town.

Our traditional stop at the lookout over Lake Pactola.

Dad's first visit to Mount Rushmore, (photo bomb courtesy of my hubby).

We showed them the National sights nearby, Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Monument and afterward wound our way through Custer State Park and were lucky enough to spot a herd of elk and soon after the hundreds of bison that are free roaming in the park. They were fairly fascinated with the salt on our car from the slick roads (a bit snowy this time of year in the hills) and decided to slobber all over it, trapping us in place at various intervals. We had quite a few laughs about the licking bison and I had my worries for them ruining the finish on my new car. They didn’t in the end, but they were able to add to its desperate need for a washing by the time we rolled back home hundreds of miles later.

Our personal car washer.

We discovered that in merging our families together for the holiday, we really didn’t have that different of an experience than we usually do when we go to SD. All got along well and seemed to enjoy the time together. It was nice for me to get to spend a holiday with my own family, away from the hustle and bustle of actually being at home. We spent one night at the suites in the casino/ hotel that my father in law supervises and felt especially luxe and privileged after a long day of sightseeing and fun. Overall, it was a relaxing vacation if not a little too long away from home -but that is coming from the girl who dislikes to be gone more than 3 days and frequently on a drive to the airport thinks. “Gosh, I can’t wait to get back home”, - but, that is neither here nor there.

Looking down the snowy main street of Deadwood, South Dakota.

We are slowly getting back into our routine here at home. I am back to work at my new job that I had just started the few weeks before we left on our winter vacation. I was quickly whipped back up into the urgency of a pressing deadline and I am trying desperately to be excited about this new opportunity. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. I have been out of the game for a long time and I’m having a hard time not only getting excited about the work but also trying to figure out how to work in such a wildly different creative environment than I did in my past experience. The people are really kind and friendly, it is just that the structure is so very different. I think that time is still the key to figuring out if it’s a good fit though, so I am giving it exactly that. I am really hopeful that something will just ‘click’ one day and I will get psyched. I have lots of creative freedom so that does provide some great potential.

The bonus about being in a professional office environment again is all the hilarious characters and funny happenings around the ~~water cooler~~ coffee bar. For instance, yesterday someone placed some treats on the coffee bar and in office code this means that they free for the taking. Sometimes this is a thank you gift from a client or a rep, other times it seems that this is what was left over from Sunday’s brunch and someone needed to unload the refrigerator. What makes me say this? The fact that yesterday there was a plate of fluffy blueberry muffins, a Tupperware of chopped red, green and yellow peppers and another of three wrinkled kiwis. It was a strange assortment to be sure. Throughout the day when I walked by I noted if it looked like anyone had come by for a handful of room temperature pepper slices or a muffin. Here is what I saw (and I think it goes without saying that I was in no way interested in any of the “free goodies”) the amount of peppers stayed pretty much the same all day – I don’t think anyone touched them, one wrinkly little kiwi disappeared (I can only think that someone was blending a smoothie in the break room and had a kiwi craving…), and the muffins were a totally hilarious story in and of themselves:

They steadily disappeared throughout the morning until after lunch there was one lonely blueberry muffin to be had. Then in what I can only guess was fear at being the person to take the last muffin, someone got a knife and cut the muffin in half. I continued to come up with scenarios that would explain this slicing the muffin in half debacle (because I am so very busy). Was it someone watching their calories in the New Year or could it be someone who had a whole muffin in the morning and felt guilty about eating another whole one in the afternoon? The next time I sauntered by the table I notice another interesting thing had occurred: someone had taken the offering of the plastic knife near the half muffin left and just sliced themselves off a sliver of the muffin…who was this? My theory is that it was the same person who took the first half and they have the taste of blueberry and they just can’t kick the habit. Another hilarious sliver was taken off late afternoon until some brave soul finally took the final ¼ of the muffin and put it out of its misery.

Now, I wrote this first part two days ago and I have to note that the two wrinkled kiwis continue to sit on the counter… this place is action packed. I wonder what I have in my fridge at home that I could bring to share? I’m curious what absurd things would be eaten, discarded or whittled away at? A couple end slices of artisan bread? Some freeze dried okra? Maybe an almost empty jar of pickles…would someone splash the pickle juice in their coffee mug and shamelessly slurp it down? I plan to conduct an experiment soon.

Best Wishes to all of you for a Happy New Year! We have a lot cooking here with some possible big career changes and adventures ahead - I'll be sure to share as soon as I have some more news! It's good to be back - even if it took me a week to concoct this single post....

Musings of the holiday season...

2014-12-21T20:30:00.004-08:00

Well, Christmas is almost here! Just 4 days away and I can barely believe it! It seems like we left on our cruise the end of October and the last 7 weeks since we returned have flown by in some crazy time traveling blur. I can't believe I am already on vacation and getting ready for the annual family traditions that make the season even more special to me. Although I am spending it with my husband's family this year, I find that their traditions have been in my life long enough now (10 years!) that I feel some ownership to them as well.

We will be missing some dear family members this December that we said goodbye to this year and the holidays will definitely have a little ache to them for those we love who are no longer with us. But, we have those lovely holiday memories too that we will reminisce about and that will keep the egg nogged soaked smiles on our faces despite the sadness.

Cribbage and marbles will be played and Shenanigans will be had by all who collect at my in laws house each evening. There will be a crazy abundance of food and sweets (as that is how we do) and I will be picking a tiny bite of all my favorites (because I am still on track y'all! Holidays or not!). The house will be warm and full of the laughing and hilarious mixtures of friends and family that abound this time of year...I have even heard there are some hilarious hats and blinking noses that have been purchased for all....this family is so very different from my own but I do so appreciate their fun holiday spirit!

Presents are wrapped and on their way to family in Oklahoma and those we love who are abroad. Last minute stocking stuffers and gifts are under the tree and my little candy cane is jumping from date to date on my advent calendar telling me that Christmas is so very near!
My favorite things about the holidays are these (in no particular order):

Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve
Christmas music all December long - my favorite song is Bing Crosby's It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas. My favorite carol is Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Share your favorite song in the comments....come on...I dare ya!
Christmas Movies on television all the time...today for instance I had the choice of Home Alone, Christmas with the Kranks, Four Christmases & The Santa Clause 2. I can watch anything from whatever point it is at since I have seen them so many times! I had to choose Home Alone because it was just getting to the good part where the criminals get to the house to be tortured with traps. Classic Christmas movie! My favorite is White Christmas and then probably Christmas Vacation.
Holiday decorations and lights
Egg Nog (seriously, it's dangerous how much I love this stuff!)

This movie is the epitome of Christmas movies to me! Snow! Snow!...

Another classic...makes me want to drink my egg nog out of a moose mug!

Can you tell that I just really wanted to post something but had no real direction other than that I love this time of year?!

I honestly just loved this picture. How cool is this!

Our Christmas lights are flashing outside and twinkling on our tree, we have glitter on our fingers as well as that one red sparkle on our cheek from our festive holiday decor. Hot buttered rum and a little egg nog with brandy has been common fare the past few weeks..mostly for me as my hubby is not as guilty of the sweet tooth as I am!

Hot Buttered Rum at Twigs via my Instagram!

We have Christmas partied our butts off the past few weeks and wrapped up the last one on Friday! I love when adults can keep their childlike enthusiasm for Christmas and get hyped up this time of year! Case in point: my new colleagues had a holiday decorating contest at the office and the judging was Friday afternoon. While the Architecture department was fairly calm, the Engineering side of the office did Christmas proud with colored disco lights, giant inflatables, a train, and the IT department made a fireplace out of a covered screen made to look like a brick chimney and more strands of lights and hand cut paper snowflakes than seemed possible in one cubicle....It was a fabulous showing of the kid that lives on in our hearts! It warmed my soul a bit!

This year has been a fast one for us and the last month has seemed to speed up even more! My Christmas wish this year is for everything to slow down for the next week or so as we cherish time with loved ones, celebrate the true meaning of the season and reflect on the adventures we have been on the past 12 months. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to everyone and I wish you a wonderful season and celebration with family and friends. Travel safe if you travel and be sure to curl up by a fire at least once for a few moments and look at the Christmas tree and whisper a few things you're thankful for as this year comes to a close. Warm wishes for a very happy holiday!

Musings of endings and new beginnings...

2014-12-09T08:03:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day at my job. I am leaving to take a new position with a company doing what I went to school to do. Interior Design.

I left my last Interior Design job (in Florida) in 2009 and since then I have freelanced (an extremely small amount), been an Assistant Manager at a DressBarn clothing store in Kansas City, worked in a flower shop as a designer, salesperson, receptionist, FedEx counter operator and would-be-florist. I worked for a month as an assistant optical technician at an optometrist office (yikes! the only good thing about that was the scrubs!) and then as a full time salesperson/ consultant for Budget Blinds and then for the past two years as a part time salesperson/ consultant for Budget Blinds. It has been six years of randomness and the moment to move on and get back to my career is long awaited and much anticipated. Lord, please let me make it through the 90 day trial period unscathed!

My Jesus Calling passage really spoke to me today:

BE WILLING TO GO OUT on a limb with Me. If that is where I am leading you, it is the safest place to be. Your longing to live close to Me is at odds with your attempts to minimize risk. You are approaching a crossroads in your journey. In order to follow Me wholeheartedly, you must relinquish your tendency to play it safe.

Let me lead you step by step through this day. If your primary focus is on Me, you can walk along perilous paths without being afraid. Eventually, you will learn to relax and enjoy the adventure of our journey together. As long as your stay close to Me, My sovereign Presence protects you wherever you go.

My heart was pretty full this morning after I read those words. I am taking a chance - I am leaving a job that is secure for a great opportunity. But, it is an unknown, there are no guarantees that it will be a good fit for me or for them. It's a scary step to take but, this passage gave me some comfort today and I hope that it can do the same for you no matter what journey you are on or what limb God is asking you to walk out on with Him today.

I think it would be good to note that these years of odd jobs and quirky colleagues that I got to know along the way, were by no means in vain. I have developed skills and learned something new from each experience that have given me something I might not have had otherwise.

A designer with a floral background...that can't hurt! Except of course that I work in commercial design....but, no matter. It is a skill.
I am a better dresser than I was before!
My retail and management experience helped me hone my sales skills and that has been beneficial in my job for the last 3 years and thus made me a better speaker and communicator - skills which will benefit me in project presentations and marketing for our Interior Design department at my new job.
I have a better understanding of eye health and how to deal with a horrible boss at work (the place I stayed for a month and eventually helped another colleague in a law suit against). Also, anyone seen Horrible Bosses 2, just sayin...
I did some freelance artwork for a company in Kansas and that was a big first! That will give me confidence for other similar opportunities in the future.
I have an extensive knowledge of all things window covering related and most especially in drapery design - which could be a major plus for a designer.

So, I am thankful for the time I have had hopping around and doing what I needed to do for my family (and to keep busy). I am also thankful that the time is over for now - but, being the adventurous folk we are you never know if we might hop somewhere new before long and I might be back to my old tricks.

But for now, for today: I feel like God has blessed me with a new adventure. Something to cultivate those creative pieces of me again that I have had tucked away for much too long. I'm ready...I even got up early today to start programming my body a bit for an earlier start and a longer work day.

Today is a goodbye. Except of course for the upcoming Christmas party that I have promised to still attend! It's a goodbye to my sales van, my company card, my keys, my laser measuring tool, to going into strangers houses (woop!) and selling ~~my soul~~ blinds. It is a goodbye to the wonderful people I worked for and with. A goodbye to 100% commission....yay! A goodbye to clients who call on the weekends, clients who take three hours to decide on coverings for 2 windows, a goodbye to peoples dogs that always lick me, to taking off my shoes at the door to new houses, to the joke, "The Blind Lady is here! How will she see us?!", to creepy houses full of taxidermy, to uncomfortable moments while spouses fight over window treatments, to arriving at sales calls that the client forgot about, to going into 3 different convenience stores a day for potty breaks (yes, I said potty breaks. This one might not seem big but I despise convenience stores and this particular concession was a constant annoyance). Sadly, it is also a goodbye to shopping in between appointments, or going home to relax, to running errands and being able to schedule personal appointments at any time I want. To days where I could arrange my gym schedule around work and a fond farewell to 2 days off a week. I will miss you old friend! But, this is a Good Bye.

Goodbye Old Job.

(thank God for the day off in between to reset and prepare.)

Hello New Job.

Christmas Shopping: The Ugly Truth

2014-12-05T17:52:00.002-08:00

It's that time of year again. The Holiday season is here and in full bloom now that Thanksgiving has wrapped up and all the pie has been eaten or forced upon our colleagues (who apparently didn't get sick of pie over the 3 day gorge fest that we call Thanksgiving). The realization hit me on Cyber Monday (of all days) that I needed to get my Christmas shopping done as soon as possible! Because weeks in December seem to be the shortest ones of the year! It was Thanksgiving and tomorrow it is Christmas...or that is what it feels like at least. I knew I had to get started and finished quickly so I would have time to wrap and get everything in the mail - especially since I have some gifts that have to go across the pond per-say.

My brother and sister in law and their two kiddos moved to the United Kingdom earlier this year so we have to send our Happy Christmas wishes further than we used to!

The other thing pushing my shopping into high gear (as if the shortened days and amazing online deals were not enough!) is the big news in my life; I just accepted a new job! And I start next week! And then I go on vacation to South Dakota and then it is New Years and then it's June....

So, New Job! The new position is with a prestigious architecture and engineering firm in my town and I am going to work as the Interior Designer for the Architecture Group. Yes, friends it is a legit design job...the kind of thing my resume was born for. So, a big PRAISE GOD and thank you for your prayers and patience over the last few years (six to be brutally honest) as I have been trying to get back to my career. Please keep those prayers coming though as I am a bit rusty having been out of the game for a while - prayers for courage now as I get ready for this big life change.

Now to the topic at hand...

Christmas Shopping. I cozied up to the computer on Monday and took care of half my list while bundled up in a cozy blanket and pjs. And on Wednesday I hit the mall to finish it up.

This is how I shop when I am on a mission and I am solo. I shop ugly. UGLY. I wore yoga pants, a workout hoodie, tennis shoes, a puffy coat and a fluffy blue beanie with a poof. I was sans makeup (hold your shrieks!) and I think it goes without saying that the beanie needed to stay atop my head so as not to scare innocent young children who had just come to the mall to see Santa.

Why, ugly you ask?

Don't I feel better when I look nice?

Don't I get better customer service when I don't look like I peeled out of hot yoga and headed to the only major shopping center in town?

Yes and Yes.

But, the caveat here is this folks....I was gift shopping. So, if I don't feel pretty I won't get too distracted with shopping for myself. I know that sounds awful but, it is true - the Ugly gave me speed. Ugly was the gift of focus. And when I walked out of there with my bags full of gifts ready to be wrapped and shipped to all my loved ones...I looked like hell - but, I felt VICTORIOUS!

The truth?

Yes, the "Ugly" helps but pure and total laziness on my day off from make up is the reason I looked crappy. I just thought of all those great reasons as I was shopping. Because:

No one badgered me with sales talk and the kiosk people didn't try to straighten my hair or sell me a new phone plan. ( I think we all know that they were terrified of what lurked under the beanie)
Even the Chinese food guy didn't offer me a sample.

I was free and clear to shop, deliberate and edit my way through my list. And on December 3rd I finished my Christmas shopping guys! December Third. Microphone Drop.

I would have felt even more awesome but that very day I received our Christmas gifts from my sis-in-law via the US mail...talk about on the ball! That woman is 9 months pregnant and she just dominated my shopping! Slow clap....slow clap....

So, good luck out there in the crowds friends. Good luck as you shop throughout the month - I will be sipping on my lowfat eggnog (that I pretend is just as good as full fat) and cackling to myself as I am curled up by the fire. Or in reality, asleep at eight o'clock because I haven't worked these new job hours..um, ever. Prayers people!

There is something to having the shopping part out of the way though....because really that is the least important part of the Holiday season. My hope this year is to really lean more on what Christmas is truly about and why we celebrate. I'm so grateful that we are planning to spend the holiday with family. Christmas last year was chock full of recovering from surgery and then traveling to Oklahoma (when I had no business doing so but, wild horses couldn't have stopped me!) suddenly for a family members emergency surgery, being on bed rest, getting stuck in Chicago overnight, sleeping in 3 different airports and then sleeping at my in laws house in a near comatose state for 5 days still trying to recover as the Holidays swirled past me in a blur of food I couldn't eat and wine I couldn't drink....and mountains I couldn't snowboard on!!! Bring on the Holidays!

Here is our tree! We got a new tree this year that is a whole 6" taller than our old one - but significantly thinner (it's a theme in our house these days...). Anyone else like the slim trees? I love that I didn't have to rearrange the living room to make it fit!

Happy Holidays! I will try to toss some more Christmas cheer your way soon! By the way I am reading One Thousand Gifts now by Ann Voskamp as mentioned last month and it is amazing. I will be working on crafting my first blog about it soon but, life is a bit hectic at the moment. All I can say right now is that my highlight feature on my kindle would be out of ink if it were a real marker!
Loving her words!

Wishing you the happiest wintry season!

Cruise Vacation: Day Nine - After the Cruise...

2014-11-29T23:58:00.004-08:00

We woke up bright and early in Galveston and suddenly...the cruise was over. We were quickly packing up the room and hauling our many bags down to wait in line to get off the boat (with a brief little stop at guest services to have them correct a mistake on our bill...sigh). And here we are about an hour into the line when we finally get outside!

After a trip through customs, we were back on American soil and ready to head to Houston to start the trip back across the country to our chilly Pacific Northwest.

We somehow fit all the bags back into my Mom's car and headed to the airport. On the way we noticed this traveler next to us and realized that we had no real creativity when it came to our loading of the car. Wow.

At the airport we conquered our excess bag issue after accidentally busting the handle on our extra bag...we managed to condense it all down into our carry-on bags and one checked bag like we always planned (read about our traveling dilemma here). Then we of course had to figure our how to throw away a bag at the airport...it's not like you can just leave a big empty piece of luggage sitting by a trash can these days... Thankfully we found an airline employee to dispose of it for us. Crisis and airport locked down avoided.

The next step was to find a delicious little airport pub to grab a bite since we had about 4 hours until our flight. We found some football to watch, ran into some fellow cruisers and explored the airport until it was time to board our first flight on our journey home.

This is always us...we are the worst!

Everything was on time and we arrived home late that night...still laughing when we got home about continuing to feel the sway sway of the boat under our feet!

As ever I was so happy to be back home. Sleeping in my own bed after the cruise bed was akin to sleeping on a cloud. We had an amazing trip with our friends, celebrating their marriage and we made some great memories to keep with us! Thank you for traveling along on the recap with me...see you soon!

Cruise Vacation: Day Eight - Last Day at Sea

2014-11-28T21:31:00.004-08:00

The last day at sea! We woke up Saturday morning to overcast skies and overall dreary weather. And thus, the plans of reclining pool side for hours and soaking up every last bit of vitamin D available before we return to our cold autumn weather and falling leaves were quickly thwarted. Yes, Thwarted.

So, what did we do instead? Well, friends to be honest with you...we ate. We drank. And then we found the "Card Room & Library" that we had joked about all week and played board games. But, first let us talk about the food. I said on my first post that I would take time during this little cruise flashback to talk about how I handled the all-you-can-eat cruise ship adventure on my restricted diet and still maintained my goal weight (3 months now - woop woop!) without it totally sucking. That's a mouthful but, you guys are of course accustomed to my run on sentences by now.

So, here is the first rule I followed:

Just Kidding.

Calories do count and while you can have a fun cheat day here or there, you can't go crazy for seven days and expect to not add on some poundage. We went to the nerdy introduction speech on the first day of the cruise and they actually told people that the average cruise guest gains at least a half pound a day. Yikes!

Sometimes, I really want a burger! But, I promise this was completely staged!

So here is what I did: I ate the same as I do at home with different food. I ate small portions and I didn't ADD in extra meals in my day. I took my protein shakes with me (yes, I am a nerd but it totally kept me on my game for breakfast each day) and although I was eating much richer food than normal and did not have all of my sugar controlled and fat controlled foods, I was able to keep it together. I did eat dessert at dinner each night, but tried to let dessert be my splurge and not go crazy with what I ordered for the rest of the meal. But, I didn't have creme brulee every night, sometimes I had sugar free ice cream or whatever low-fat option they had - because they offered one every night (which was great!). I also did not order the fattiest entrees and starters. I generally started with the soup option, unless it was a really creamy bisque or something (then I opted out) and then I did a lean meat option (never pasta or rice) and I NEVER ATE THE ROLLS.

I watched my fellow cruisers eat 2 rolls a night slathered in butter before we even got our starter....and they smelled delicious let me tell you. But, I don't eat bread - so, I didn't eat bread. I honestly did not struggle too much and I was proud of myself for sticking to it. My only caveat was eating mashed potatoes on a few occasions for lack of a better option. I obviously drank quite a bit (as you know from my posts about cantinas and what not) and that was a pretty big splurge for me so it was important to keep the sugar intake low the rest of the day and for your information: by "quite a bit" I mean 2-4 drinks throughout the day, maybe 5 on Belize day....

Remember?

So, that is how I survived with my clothes still fitting when we rolled off the ship Sunday morning...

Now, onto the board games! I decided that I needed some dedicated catch up time with my best friends as it was our last day of the trip so I tracked Heather and Sara down and we met up to play some games and chat.

We found a room dedicated to this purpose and settled in -apparently some cruise goers are pretty serious about the game playing in this room because as we were waiting for the rest of our party and just talking without setting up the game- we were soon questioned by an intense fellow as to whether or not we would actually be playing something since we were taking up space. As if the mere act of us holding SkipBo cards in our hands would have made us acceptable in the room. We decided he was a few days past his cruise expiration date. Soon enough the rest of our party arrived and we decided to get our Scrabble on while my hubby and Heather's little boy played a rousing game of Go Fish!

Let it be known that I majorly rocked at this game of Scrabble!

We had a great time catching up on each others lives and just talking - I have known these gals since we were all just starting high school, it seems crazy that we have been in each others lives this long. High School, College, Moving away, starting and leaving jobs, getting married, having kids - we are pretty much family the way I see it! It was so much fun to go on this adventure with them!

For our last night on the boat we took some time for pictures after dinner as we all said our goodbyes and made plans to stay in touch or share how much we enjoyed the time together. Here are a few of the highlights:

Here we are with the Newlyweds!

My Mom with her BFF and the infamous Groom.

My Mom & me (and a fabulous photo bomb!)

Sara and I posing for a nice photo.

Sara and I (and I didn't know we were doing a "funny one")

Here is a little peek at the some of the towel creatures we were greeted with each night when we headed back to our room. Always fun when you walk in and see one of these!

A swan with sunglasses...the sunglasses always make the towel creature I think!

A rabbit.

My personal favorite from the last night - a monkey dangling from a hanger!

And a few sweet moments on the upper deck on the last night. I had such a wonderful trip with my husband - it was definitely fun and refreshing to get away from the norm for a week with friends and family but, also some great time together.

Only one more day left to share! The disembarkation from the ship - bright and early! Stay tuned for the final wrap up! Next stop Galveston, Texas!

Nice shot of Galveston and the new entertainment pier...in case you didn't know, Galveston had a hurricane come through that did a lot of damage in 2009 and most of the attractions were blown away....

Cruise Vacation: Day Seven - Cozumel, Mexico

2014-11-27T19:47:00.001-08:00

The very last port of call on our amazing cruise vacation was the island of Cozumel! We arrived bright and early at the port in Cozumel and listened to the sounds of the ship docking, looked out onto the balcony and right into a bunch of other cruise staterooms and people!

There was another Royal Caribbean ship docked next to us and everyone was out watching the hustle and bustle of the crew as we pulled into the port. It's funny when you get used to just looking out on water and feeling pretty private to...Bam! People looking right into your room and you on your balcony half dressed, half asleep and startled!

In other news, my hubby shot this time-lapse video of the ship pulling into the port:

Fresh off the boat in Cozumel! The water was by far the most beautiful in Mexico, we couldn't resist snapping a few pictures immediately after getting outside! We had both been there before on this cruise about 8 years ago (here is a little flash from the past!):

We went on this cruise out of Tampa, Florida with my hubby's parents (when that was our current stomping ground) and had a great time. We had so much fun at our dinners each night - I have to say that that experience way exceeded what we had this time as far as service goes! And we were not even forced to pay gratuity back then (but, we did of course!).

That picture really takes me back! I was 23! Just kids back then.... Alright, enough of that - back to the cruise!

Off the dock into the beautiful blue water - kind of wished I would have jumped in!

Half the ship and more pretty blue water!

I knew you would want to see this AMAZING picture of us and a thumb print.

We immediately ran into my Mom and her best friend once we got into the little shopping town. And by "ran" into I of course mean; Snuck up on an grabbed from behind and scared to death. Naturally... we also scared another skittish guy and fellow cruiser who jumped five feet and then mumbled a dirty word under his breath. Drama, drama, drama... It was great - 2 for the price of 1.

Here we are with my Momma!

After that we headed out of the little port area and into a shopping district where we found our first souvenir of the trip - or my hubby did! He surprised me later with a few Taxco Silver bobbles! I love that guy!

After shopping we were starving and craving tamales like the ones on our excursion in Belize so we hit the streets to find some good eats! We stumbled on this little placed called Paprika that didn't have tamales (um, hello! Mexico, really?) but, had a great alternative. We settled down for some drinks and had a delicious meal overlooking the water.

Our entire meal came in this burning hot container. It was sooooo good. It had these little cheesy quesadillas (that I smelled and drooled over!) and flank steak, ribs and onions.

The gorgeous coast

Are you sick of us yet?

My hubby, my jewelry and the gorgeous coast!

Afterwards we walked back to the port and did a bit of perusing and then ended up settled back at a little cantina...again. Because that is how we do.

Pina colada and a mexican beer. My one and only frozen drink of the trip! And only because I feel like it was a necessity to have at the very least, one pina colada on a cruise!

As the day was winding down, we headed back to the ship after a great time in sunny and beautiful Cozumel. Here we are really enjoying the dock and view of the boat...we kind of wanted to get on the boat next to us and check out all the cool stuff it had to offer! It was the newest of the Royal Caribbean ships, the Allure of the Seas. Allure. I was allured...but, I was happy to get back on the good ole' navigator too!

Before long we were headed back out to sea and on our way to our native land. The rest of the night was pretty typical, starting to wear down from a long week of fun in the sun and new places to explore. We did have a beautiful sunset that night as we left the port.

Sunset from our balcony.

Our next day is our very last day at sea on our beautiful trip - Stay tuned!

Cruise Vacation: Day Six - Belize City, Belize!

2014-11-23T18:27:00.000-08:00

The second port of call was Belize City, Belize and we woke up bright and early (kind of) and hopped onto a tender boat to take us into Belize. Our little excursion for the day was a carriage ride through the city to check out some of the culture and sights. We wanted to do something that was close by and didn't take more than a couple of hours, so this seemed like a good fit. But, our first step was...find some free WiFi!

Mission Accomplished!

We found a little bar on a rooftop that had swings instead of chairs and after we bought a bottle of water we got the hook up for some free WiFi - so we could reconnect with the world (mostly just to check on things at home) and feel a bit of normalcy.

When we checked in for our carriage ride excursion they stuck these little green stickers on us to mark that we were part of the tour. It seemed kind of funny and easy to lose if this was how they were identifying us as we went out into this city. Tagged as tourists...like our cruise apparel wasn't stamping us as outsiders already...

After our phones failed to download any real news of interest in time for us to leave on the excursion, we went to catch our carriage ride partners for a little look at Belize City. I think the key here is the word "City" - not the Belize we had pictured which was this:

There aren't any beaches in Belize City so in retrospect we should have trekked further out for an excursion the 30 or 40 miles away for what we had "pictured" or according to our tour guide - just gone to San Pedro where all the movie stars have houses.

This lighthouse had a tomb beside it for a great benefactor of Belize (Barry Bliss) who is also recognized by a national public holiday in Belize. He was an Englishman whom left a large sum to the city. More fun facts here.

We were still interested in learning about Belize and its history and enjoyed such as we trotted through the city in first a horse drawn carriage and then a little bus. We also went into a museum that was pretty interesting. Some snapshots of the trip:

Standard carriage ride photo op.

Waiting for our tour to start at the Museum of Belize.

Iguana we spotted during our tour. There was a kid apparently hunting them as we drove by.

We stopped at a nursery that had some exotic plants and medicinal herbs (Not the kind that are legal here in Washington) and were also served some strange gingery coconut candy (not my fave) and then some AMAZING tamales that we are still talking about!

This was the longest bridge in Belize (I think - but my vacation mind is fading a bit) and it was really short which was supposed to be funny. But, the coolest thing about it was the view of our cruise ship in the distance and these sailboats - I just really love this picture.

After the tour was over, we found the passport stamp location once more to get our stamps so we had the old fashioned well traveled feeling and then meandered through some stores and once again didn't buy anything because we are the worst tourists ever.

Eventually we found a cute little cantina for some food and drink. And then....it got pretty funny

Extremely delicious coconut shrimp with bean and rice (not rice and beans, which is apparently a different thing!)

Belikin Beer, "The Beer of Belize"

More of the shrimp which I was really passionate about...and getting more so as that drink went down!

Finished with the shrimp and now empowered to take pictures like this...

This may be the same drink...or maybe it is a different one (wink wink). I have posted this picture on my Instagram as well - because it is my favorite picture from the trip! Pretty nice...

The port from aboard the tender boat.

After that shenanigans, it was back to the boat (someone was in charge of that!)! We were lectured to hurry back to the boat and be on time because Belize is not a safe city and definitely not a place to be after dark! We jumped back on to the tender boat and onto the Navigator of the Seas...and to the rocking of the waves.

Farewell Belize! Next time we will probably just go to San Pedro and visit the postcard side of your country! Thanks for my new favorite mixed drink of all time (whose name is not appropriate to share!)

Back on board to in time to watch the sunset!


Found a rowdy crowd of fellow cruisers in the casino...because that was the inevitable place we ended up after we were back on the ship!

Overall, our day in Belize was a great adventure and we kind of wished for another day at sea to rest before our next port - but, alas that was not the schedule so...

The next stop is Cozumel!!

Cruise Vacation: Day Five - Hello Roatan, Honduras!

2014-11-22T20:55:00.004-08:00

It is fairly easy on any vacation to lose track of what day it is; Royal Caribbean solves this problem with removable slats in the carpeting on the elevators that change each day with the corresponding day of the week. It is pretty hilarious really...and yet kind of brilliant! You will inevitably be in an elevator five thousand times a day so, you can keep your days in order as long as you look at the floor. The only down side is if you really wish you didn't know...

We were glad to be on track with the days of the week because Wednesday was our first day in port and we docked in Roatan, Honduras! Almost everyone who was part of the wedding group for the cruise went on an excursion together to an island called Little French Key. They had snorkeling, beaches and fun activities. They also had dry land which is what I had been hoping for since the motion sickness had really been beating me up. They had quite a bit of it actually...for an island.

We took a bus from the port to the island and our driver filled us in on the little country. It is the second largest country in Central America actually, Wikipedia also informed me that it has the largest rate of intentional homicides in the world. Thanks Wikipedia! It seemed quite nice while we were there and we saw almost no homicides at all!


Here we are on the bus on the way to the island. It was a tight squeeze but, most of us made it on the bus. Heather and her family followed in a separate car and I was sure I would never see them again...I was still able to smile for this picture despite my worry. They did arrive safely as well (despite the scary driving) and had enjoyed a lovely trip with their knowledgeable driver as well.

This was the only picture I took on the trip to the island. Our driver pulled over so that we could take this picture (and perhaps buy some necklaces from a street vendor). You can see the carnival cruise ship docked behind the old shipwrecked cruise ship...just the kind of thing I want to see while on a cruise. Where is the nearest airport?

So, this was a beautiful island surrounded by gorgeous blue green water with a fun atmosphere and lots of different areas to lounge in hammocks and relax under grassy huts in the sun. I have no pictures of me on this island sadly...and the reason is that this just wasn't my favorite day.

I hate to have to admit it - especially to the whole world - but, I can be kind of a bummer. Even looking back later that day I wished I hadn't been so blah - but I got a few of my little buttons pushed and I was pretty much that, blah. I know this is a fun cruisy review but, since it is about my trip - let me tell you something about me: I have anxiety. Not a little antsy, shakey nerves here and there anxiety...but, real honest to goodness anxiety. And things hit me a little funny now and again (in foreign third world countries especially) and I just don't feel comfortable.

The greatest moment of my day was being dropped back off at the port where I could see the ship and do some shopping. Seeing the ship was a big deal to me... I can be completely fine and not worried at all and then one little thing can shake me up and I end up sitting in the shade underneath a tiki umbrella thing counting the hours until I can get back on the ship. Weird I know...and a waste of a gorgeous tropical island. So, this wasn't my best day. But, some other people had an awesome day and here they are enjoying the Little French Key as it was meant to be enjoyed.

Heading back to the island after a long day of fun in the sun!

The Bride and Groom jumping into the water - she is in her wedding gown for a little "Trash the Dress" fun! Kyle and Lance did this too and I didn't get a picture!

Safely back at the port a little early with time for shopping, a bucket of beers and whatever fruity drink I needed (beer is no bueno for me). Actually it was probably an amaretto sour...I was on an amaretto kick during the whole cruise.

Mom, Kelly and I relaxing after some shopping.

Kyle & I got the first stamp in our passports!

While it wasn't the best day I've ever had - it was a great glimpse at another country and culture and some unique experiences and stories that we won't soon forget.

After we got back onto the ship we followed our regularly scheduled program with some food, more drink, hot tubing and some good ole layed back vacationing!

Tomorrow we are headed to Belize!