London

This post will be way better if you read it in a Brittish accent.

So the second weekend we were here we decided to explore a bit. We plugged in London in our Audi's GPS system and started driving. An hour later when we thought we were almost there I saw a sign that said London then pointed left as we followed the road right. I pointed it out and Chris said he plugged it in the the GPS, and we'll stick with that. However, with in 5 minutes, Chris began to recognize the road (how he did that in a foreign country when the freeways look all the same, green rolling hills and lots of sheep, I'll never know) realized we had been driving in completely the wrong direction for the last hour. Since there was nothing we could do, we laughed fed the kids their lunch and turned the car around. After another hour we finally arrived at the nearest tube station (and by tube I mean train, and by nearest I mean to to where we got lost...)

We parked the car, bought tickets and climbed aboard. Maddie and Boston thought it was awesome. They LOVED the train! We had to make a few transfer due to lines being shut down, and as it turned out had we stayed on the original train we would have saved ourselves another hour traveling to London. We finally arrived and came up out of the tube and saw this...

There it is, in all it's glory. Big Ben. I was impressed with how tall it really is! When Boston first saw it he knew exactly what it was, "Mom look!" He exclaimed, "It's Lightning McQueen's Clock! With Holly and Finn McMissile!" 

He was right of course! The only part of Cars 2 I've seen was the part where McMissile and Holly are strapped to the gears in side Big Ben, But I was impressed that he recognized it! 

Big Ben was completely pack with people. We could barely get three feet without getting separated so we decided to get the heck out of there and head across the street to catch our breath and have some lunch while we enjoyed the view of parliment and Westminster Abby. 

Boston loves getting his picture taken lately and refused to eat until I took his picture in front of "Lightning McQueen's big clock" for Noah and Emma. So Noah, Emma, Katie and Charlotte this one is for you! 

Then Maddie, who adores her brother and wants to do everything he does, jumped in front of the camera and shouted "Me!!!! ME!!!" So here she is. And how about a parent of the year award for the chocolate milk in a bottle? I know, I'm every child's dream mother. :) 

My three favorite people in front of a statue of Abraham Lincoln...of all people to have a statue of in central London. I didn't get a picture, but thought it was odd. Who knows. 

Does anybody else think it's semi-ridiculous that I've waited all my life to travel and see things like Big Ben and they get to see them in the first couple years of life? They have no idea how lucky they are. As long as they have mom and dad, a place to run, and chocolate milk life is good. 

Of Course we had to get the stereotypical family picture in front of Big Ben. 

This is the Catholic Cathedral next to Westminster Abby. It's incredible and has been around since 1500 something. Unfortunately we weren't able to go inside, but it was still fun to see. 

I love this picture! Such a beautiful building! It's amazing to me what people used to make with their hands! The detail is incredible! I just wish I could rotate the blasted picture. So You'll have to tilt your head to catch the beauty of it.  

More of the Cathedral

These are the classic phone booth pictures. Boston loves taking pictures with the red phone booths, actually any phone booth. Any time he sees one he will run in to them and tell me to take a picture of him. I'm sure I will have a million of them by them time we get home. 

Buckingham Palace. It's huge. I can hardly believe how gigantic it is! Now that I'm watching Downton Abby (LOVE) it's fun to think of the amount of people it takes to run a place like this. 

The main gate. 

 Trying to catch a view of the guards

 I'll admit, I was really hoping to see the guards in full dress with the red coats and the big, fuzzy black hats. But apparently this is their winter dress. And they definitely weren't still like you see in the movies. Can you blame them though, really? 

 Statue outside the palace. 

 My princess wishing she had a palace of her own. 

 Boston could have cared less about the palace, he just had a blast playing on the fence surrounding it. 

 Last view of the palace. 

 After we left the palace we found this large stretch of leaves along the side of the walkway. This was the highlight of the day for Boston and Maddie. It's amazing, we come all the way to London, see a timeless palace, and they are most impressed by the leaves on the ground. 

 Seriously, it was their absolute favorite part of the day. Sad to say, it was basically all down hill from here. 

 Boston had a fit and demanded that we take a picture of him and Maddie at the main fountain at Trafalgar Square, but Maddie refused and only wanted to play in the water...so that didn't work out. At first he threw a fit but got over it fairly quickly. 

He likes to be the star of the show. I think Trafalgar square was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole day. There were so many people and an amazing museum there. Chris and I would have loved to continue exploring, but the kids had hit their limit and were about 30 minutes past done. So we packed them up, got back on the tube and headed home. They both we completely unconscious within about 10 minutes, but you can't really blame them. We didn't have a stroller and so they had basically walked around London all day and were completely exhausted. 

Chris and I are hoping to go back in a few weeks and go see a couple shows without the kids. We'll see if it happens. Overall, it was a fun day, and we all had a good time. It's so odd to think we're here still since so much of our life is spent in our little apartment, but Slowly but surely we're seeing new things. To be honest I will be sad when it's time to go back home. 

Tour of the Apartment.

Wow, I can hardly believe we have been here three weeks! We've become much more comfortable and actually feel very much at home in our little apartment. For the most part it's fully stocked and has everything we need. We have bought a couple things just to make life a bit easier, such as a small crockpot and Britta filter. The filter we had to buy because Chris is a water snob and can't stand the water from the tap. Apparently there is an odd taste, pretty sure it's all in his head, but if it makes him happy I won't complain at all. Ok, so let's start the tour and then I'll catch you up on some of our outings and other happenings.

Here is the hallway to get to our apartment. Maddie and Boston love running up and down and I'm sure it drives our neighbors nuts. 

 This is our apartment, good old #36. Notice there is no doorknob. It took me forever to figure out how to unlock the door, and then another three days to really figure out how the stupid thing locked and unlocked. 

 This is the view when you first walk in the apartment. Maddie's room on the left and Boston's room on the right. 

 If you look left you'll see the living room and the kitchen. 

 To the right is our bedroom. 

 Thank heaven for command hooks! 

 On the way to the family room is the kids bathroom. 

 Here's the living room. 

 More living room. 

 Here's the kitchen. We're pretty lucky. We've got a full sized fridge and a dishwasher. 

 This is basically where we spend most of our day. Do you like Boston's moves? 

 The view of the gardens from our apartment. Boston and Maddie LOVE running around in here. 

 The hallway. So captivating. 

 Maddie's room

 Boston's room

At any given time of the day you will be able to find Boston in his underwear, jumping on his bed. 

Our room. This bed is a full, we're used to a queen. Enough said. 

Our Bathroom. We're glad we have our own bathroom. 

Our Shower. It seriously the smallest shower ever. Shaving my legs has proven to be a tricky thing. 

And the tour wouldn't be complete unless it included a peak of our daily activities so here is Boston showing you some of his tumbling moves. This is a cartwheel in case you were wondering. :D 

Well, it's now 10:18pm and I've been dying to watch Downton Abby, so I will have to catch up on our trip to London and Windsor Castle another day. Cheers!

England!

We made it! We have officially been here a week and it's starting to feel like home. Ok, that's a lie, but to say we are happy, healthy and have a great apartment would be an accurate statement.

Things that feel like home:
-I can still blog and listen to Shaun Hannity before bed. Thanks iheart radio.
-I turn on the TV and can find shows like NCIS, Everybody Loves Raymond, Friends and The Big     Bang Theory.
-The apartment smells like fall
-I can still get BBQ sauce and cilantro at the store
-Boston still running around in his underwear
-Boston and Maddie fighting/making messes everywhere they go.

Things that are going to take some getting used to:
-The accent. Most of the time I'm like "Whaaat?" in my head.
-Stupid electricity is different and has burned out many of my favorite things. (and by many I mean two: my blowdryer and my scentsy candle warmer, ruined my day. Ok, not really, but put a damper on my spirits. If my flat Iron goes, I'll probably loose it.)
-The washer/dryer being the same machine in my kitchen
-Only being able to dry about 5 items of clothing at a time
-Taking 6 hours to do one load of laundry (that was even BEFORE i found out that you had to dry only a few things at a time)
-The money (pounds, etc)
-The eggs aren't refridgerated in the store. They're just in an isle. A regular, non refridgerated isle, like where you'd find bread and cereal. (If my grandma hadn't warned me about that, I probably would have freaked out and refused to buy eggs because I was convinced we'd get food poisoning. Apparently, eggs don't need to be kept cold. It just helps them last longer.)
Driving on the right side of the road/sitting in the passenger seat on the left.
-going left in round abouts.
-No phones
-no internet except when you're in the apartment.
-Stupid front door, and no doorknob. (more on that later)
-The shopping carts. It's like an entire ab/body workout to control them.

Things you can't find at the store:
-Grape Jelly/Jam
-Chocolate chips (i'm talking normal size you use to make chocolate chip cookies)
-Spice cake mix, Yellow cake mix
-Pumpkin smelling candles
-Macaroni and cheese (they have it, but it's in a can...no thank you)
-Sour cream
-family packs of chicken (most you'll find in a package is 6 chicken breasts.)
-Slides. Like park slides and swings. I know these aren't at the store and therefore shouldn't be included in this list, but you won't find them here unless it's a place you pay for your kids to get into because the government decided it's too dangerous....

Awesome things you can get here you can't get at home:
-Double Cream
-Amazing Custard
-Incredible Indian food from a jar! (it's like their Mexican food, entire isles of it!)
-Rice yogurt. I know it sounds weird, but I'm obsessed.

Weird words:
Trolly=shopping cart
pudding=dessert
ring them=call them
There have actually been a whole lot more, but I don't understand what in the world they're saying yet. Half of the time I feel like saying "Speak English!" Except they are. ha ha. Ok, I wouldn't really yell that, but I've noticed that if I'm not focused on them when they're talking I catch only about 10%. I may or may not have even kept on walking while nodding and smiling while someone was trying to talk to me because I could not understand what he was saying to me other than "Ma'am". I did however have a facsinating conversation with a worker at ASDA (think Wal-mart) who asked me if I was from New York, and told me he could listen to me talk all day. It was so cute. Anyway, as I figure out more what the heck people are saying and the words they are using I'll write them down.

Being here only one week, I still have a lot to learn, and I'm hoping I have time to adjust (happily I might add) to the way things are here in England. Chris is doing fantastic! I haven't seen him so awake and alert for three years! He will send me a message during the day saying he's amazed at how productive he's been and it's only 11 am in the morning! And at night we actually have time to hangout sans les enfants that's French for without the children. I don't know where that came from, maybe it's because I'm closer to Paris than I've ever been in my entire life. ha ha ha. The kids are in bed by 8pm (which happens to be 1pm Utah time in case you were wondering). We've been told by many we HAVE to watch Downtown Abby, so since it's 9pm we're about to start so we're in the in crowd.

Things to catch you up on:
-Disneyland
-Airplane ride over here
-getting settled and the first week.

Be excited. Be very excited. (ok, I'll be honest, there's not much to get excited about other than a few funny stories, but it's still worth reading. :)





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To Do list

So it's 12:29am and I finished cleaning and then decided I just wanted to sit for a bit so I watched Castle on the laptop and now I'm blogging. I'm trying to get back in the habit of it so that while we're in England I can update everybody (all two of you who read this) on our experiences and life in general. 

I knew that September 30th was coming, I just can't believe how fast it got here! It's hitting me I only have a few days left to get everything on my "to do" list done. Let's be honest, most of it isn't really necessary for us to go, I would just feel better leaving things nice for my brother. 

You know how every once in a while things in life don't go the way you plan and so you do something to have some kind of control? Well, that's what I did about two weeks ago. I called a talented neighborhood friend of mine and asked her if she would help me re-do my bedroom. What I initially intended to be a four day, finish that weekend project, has now become a not even started, but now has to finish in three days or it sits undone for two months, project and just one more thing on my to do list before we go...however, if this particular one doesn't get done, it's not like not having time to mop the floor or clean the bathroom, it's like your brother and sister in-law having to sleep in a mattress on the floor, exposed planking and random colors of paint splattered all over your bedroom kind of mess, and then having to come home and finish it all anyway. 

So, tomorrow (I guess it's today) my friend and her husband are coming over to measure and put up the boards in my room, and then originally my plan was to have somebody come in and paint so I didn't have to deal with the headache of taping and multiple coats, etc. The first guy I called told me he could do it for $450 (!!!!) Outraged, and feeling like I was being taken advantage of, I called a second guy who quoted me $600!!!!!!!!!! Triple outraged, I decided I'd save myself at least $400 and just do it myself. Good Grief. 

So here's my plan, Clean the house (done). 

Thursday: Move all of my bedroom furniture out of my bedroom and into the spare bedroom. Throw out my bed frame. (it's broken and being held up by a tupperware container). Clean my car. Mail a package to my brother and sister. Visit a friend who had a baby. Sort through my clothes and set aside what I'm going to be using/bringing to England and pack whatever is left in my dresser, closet and bathroom up in a massive container and store it downstairs then help put up the boards, spackel and sand the planking and get it ready to paint. Go out to dinner with the family. Tape the baseboards in my room, and begin painting. 

Friday: Finish painting and do second coat in my bedroom. Pack up Maddie's room.  Clean bathrooms, pack carry on bags for kids, drive up the canyon with kids to see leaves. Clean Boston's room. 

Saturday: Move furniture back into bedroom, clean bathrooms, vacuum house, laundry, finish packing completely with exception of Pj's and what ever we'll be wearing to the airport.  Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving point. 

Sunday: One last load of laundry, throw those clothes into luggage, change sheets on beds, walk Brother and sister-in-law through the house and show them how things work, head to the Airport. 

Wow, just writing that down made it easier to sort through. I know that was completely boring for you, but very therapeutic for me. 

On a side note, I found this amazing quilt at Gardners Village and I can't stop thinking about it. That means you're supposed to get it right? You know, so you don't regret not getting it later on...? 

Seriously, it's exactly what I want in my new bedroom! And it's on sale from $200 to $139...So I would be saving $60...I may have to go get it before we go...

I'm even considering using my photography money which is saying a lot. 

best. family. ever.

Alright Friends (all 5 of you who read this) I have been horrible about blogging, but I'm determined to be better at it, especially as we begin our new adventure across the pond!
As I have never been out of the country for more than a few hours I'm pretty sure I'm going to experience culture shock and I plan on documenting all of that here. We are ready...mostly...It feels like everything to do is last minute since it's mostly stuff we use on a daily basis that we will be bringing.
I used the excuse of "clothes are more expensive over there" and went on a shopping spree for my kids. I now have all of there fall/winter clothes set and ready to pack, I just need to pack them. I deep cleaned every room in my house...with the exception of the downstairs bathroom as it's the grossest and I've been avoiding it like the plague. You would to if you saw the state that it's in. I'll get to it before we turn the house over to my brother and sister-in-law. 

This Thursday we're going to DisneyLand and we are probably more excited than the kids. We ARE more excited than the kids. We turn in to little kids just thinking about it! We thought it would be a good test run for the kids on an airplane. We'll see!! 

I've been wanting to get our family pictures done, and our favorite photographer moved to Nevada, so I had to find someone new. I was so excited when I saw Heather Telford's photography I knew she would be a perfect replacement for Dayna (who you should really check out here). 

 I think this one is my favorite! 

 I love Boston's face on this one! It's totally him. 

Heather did an incredible job! It even looks like my kids were happy and cooperative the whole time! 

Announcement!

Last week Chris came home with some exciting news! We are officially moving to England the first week of October! We will be going from October through most of December and will be home right before Christmas (which the grandparents are extremely grateful for!)

We will be headed to Milton Keynes, England with two other families from Chris's team. So all together there will be 6 adults 5 kids ranging from 5 to three months and a 6th will be born while we're over there. Brave woman!

Boston is super excited to finally go on an airplane, but his parents are super nervous about the long plane ride with two young kids who hate holding still for more than 10 minutes at a time.

We are leaving our house to my brother and sister-in-law and their sweet baby so we don't have to leave our house empty or pack anything up while we rent it...but who would want to rent for 2.5 months? We are just taking clothes and a few familiar kid items and leaving the rest behind to move into a small two or three bedroom flat.

Things I'm worried about: The plane ride, Adjusting to the schedule, transporting car seats and a pack n play, and ability to get things to cook yummy Mexican food.

Things I'm excited about: Being just our little family, Cooking my own Thanksgiving dinner, Being in a new place, finally being able to use my passport, seeing Chris's mission, the opportunity for Chris, coming home right before Christmas and doing all my Christmas shopping! :D

There are actually many things I'm excited about, but I could go on forever and Boston is over my shoulder begging to watch a clip of Mater as a fire truck on Disney.com. lol.

I'm so excited for this new adventure for our little family!

The Fire

I wrote to Mary and Destin (my siblings on missions) this right after we got evacuated so that I could remember how I felt and everything that happened before the memory faded/became less exciting.

Thursday evening a fire started above our neighborhood at the shooting range. It grew quickly but wasn't too bad and crews were working on it so I wasn't too worried. Friday morning we woke up and could barely see the sun there was so much smoke. So I started thinking "I should probably get some stuff together like important docs etc. just in case something happens." but then I realized Maddie was out of formula and diapers so I figured I'd run to the store and do it after I got home. So as we were leaving the neighborhood I looked back and saw the fire line was right there. Super close to the top houses. I went for my phone to take a picture but it wasn't there. I wasn't planning on wanting to take a picture so I left my phone at home. Lame. So I drove in marveling at how dark the sky was. I picked up the things I needed, plus a few extras like pj's and yogurt and other random things. Then, as I was walking out of the store I overheard a security officer say something about starting the evacuation. My stomach dropped, I bought my stuff and rushed home. As i drove home i turned on the radio to find out that the fire was dangerously close to an explosive plant right behind our neighborhood. When I got close to my neighborhood I saw a barricade of police in front if the entrance and a huge line of cars waiting to get out. So I pull up to get in and they ask me if I need to get medication or children. Rats. They got me. I had my kids, and didn't really need anything. I asked if I could just get my cell phone do I could call my husband. The cop said unless in getting meds or people he couldn't let me in, but he let me use his phone. I had time to call Chris and tell hi we're had to be evacuated and he said come to his office and the cop said he needed his phone back. So I drive away watching a huge plume of smoke rising behind my neighborhood, feeling completely weird about leaving with pretty much nothing but my kids and the clothes on our back. This was just supposed to be a quick trip to the store! I was so close to tears not from fear but nerves. I felt like my house would be ok, but with fires you never know. I started to calm down a little when I realized everything in the house could be replaced and the pics that were priceless to me were online. I figured since I was supposed to watch Camie's little boy and I didn't have a cellphone I'd drive to her house. She was sweet enough to give me a change of clothes for Boston (he was in flannel pajamas and the temp was already 90 degrees) diapers and wipes. We then left and headed over to Qualtrics. I had a feeling that once my family was all together I would calm down and I was right. As soon as I saw Chris I calmed down. We hung out for a bit, then headed over to Target to get me something to wear other than my flannel pj's. The rest of the day was kind of a blur. We dropped Maddie if at Chris's parent's house and took Boston to go see the new Disney movie Brave. While we were there we found out that the evacuation would last for 24 hours. Normally, that really wouldn't be a big deal, however Chris was supposed to leave for London the next day at noon. So after the movie we dropped Boston off at a friend's house and decided to at least try to get in to our house. We figured attempting would be better than going out and buying an entire new business wardrobe, which was our only backup plan. In the way we hear that they've completely closed the road. We were so close to throwing in the towel and just going to Khol's but now we are so glad we didn't! There were four cop cara blocking our neighborhood, but we pulled around one of them and as we rolled down the window to explain why we needed in (we were fully prepared with a rebuttal and resorting to begging)  but the cop standing right there was in our ward. Chris told him he was leaving for London and they let us through, not even a police escort! We ran home grabbed all the dirty laundry (all of Chris's clothes were in there since I had put off doing it until that day) packed his luggage, grabbed bathroom stuff, stuff for the kids, and anything else we needed/felt was important and threw it in the car and left. We were lucky. Most weren't allowed back in and had only two minutes to grab what they needed during the evacuation.  So our kids were safe, and we had everything we needed to survive if we lost everything. Now we just needed to find a place to stay. We were amazed at the outpouring if support from friends and family. Some called and offered us their house for the weekend others offered any help they could. By the time i grabbed my phone i had 25 calls and several messages fron people checking to see if we were ok. We ended up staying the night at Dan and Kim's house. In the morning we got Chris off to London and then I took the kids to hangout in Cedar Hills. We played I. The river, watched movies and just had fun until we got word that the evacuation was lifted, but with a caution that if we came back we may still have to be evacuated in the middle of the night if anything changes. When we finally got home there was still ash in the air and it's still heavy with smoke, but not like yesterday. There is a fine layer of ash on everything outside and I was going to go outside tonight and spray it down but when I finally got the kids to sleep and went out there the wind is blowing hard from the south and still carrying ash straight toward us. So I'm going to wait until they put out the fire to spray off the outside of my house.  As I drove away from my house on Friday I couldn't help but think about the pioneers who were driven out from so many places without time to pack. Many only had the clothes on their back and sang praises to the Lord every step of the way. It's amazing how when you have the possibility of losing your earthly possessions the only things you care about are that you have your family around you.  *today only sacrament meeting was held because so many decided not to come home until today. The spirit was so strong and I almost started crying when we sang the opening song Count Your Many Blessings. I really am so thankful for Heavenly Father and I know he watches over us! FYI the fire is now 70% contained and not one house was lost!  It really was this black. These are firefighters sleeping at the entrance to the neighborhood. The kept watch all might to make sure our homes were safe. This is what the air looked like when they evacuated.  One street up from our house. It's right over the ridge. The view from redwood road. This is up by the Sants house at the top of the neighborhood.  That last one is of an incredible picture showing how close it got. It's only the picture nothing else so you should be able to go there.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

I know everybody has their own recipe for no bake cookies, but I'm sharing these anyway because I honestly am counting down the minutes until they're cool enough to eat. Could be because I haven't eaten all day, but I'm pretty sure I would be salivating over the peanut buttery/chocolately goodness regardless.

I got the recipe from pinterest which took me here. I thought I have all the ingredients for these so why not? It's a perfect Lazy Sunday dessert.

I started making them only to discover I only had about two cups of oatmeal so I had to improvise, but I'm glad I did. For the last cup of oatmeal I used  betty crocker oatmeal cookie mix. So good. Try it out. It's honestly so good!

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies
1/2 C Butter
2 C Sugar
1/2 C Milk
4 Tbsp Cocoa
1/2 C Peanut Butter
3- 3 1/2 C Quick cooking Oats
2 tsp. Vanilla

 I'm going to go back to hovering over these cookies with Chris until they're ready to eat.