The Silver Lining...London

My last update told you that I had a computer crisis that lasted the entire month of November. While it was endlessly frustrating to be without my computer for so long, this challenge did indeed have a silver lining! While I was unable to work my regular schedule the kids and I had the flexibility to go with Trey on a research trip to London. As soon as I realized my computer was going to be gone for a while we planned the trip within 3 days...got on the phone to book a hotel and walked down to Waverly Station to buy some train tickets. I checked out a book from the library and let Emerson decide what she wanted to do for the entire week. While Trey spent his days at the libraries reading the pages of Nehemiah's journals, Emerson, Ward & I got to see the sights.

Emerson's plan for Day 1- The Pirate ship in Kensington Gardens. This amazing play park is part of the Princess Diana Memorial Gardens. Because these beautiful gardens are the place that J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan there is a Lost boys theme to the park, complete with pirate ship, teepees, and wooden fort. We were so pleased to get to meet up with Laura and Sophie so that Sophie could play with my little reds. Laura filled me in on all the helpful tips for navigating the tube with 2 kids. We were blessed with blue skies and a great day.
The ship.


The top of the mast.


Emerson at the top.


Blue eyed baby.


Ward found a "lost boy" carved into the tree.

Having fun together.

Emerson's Day 2 Plan- The London Eye. The Eye was only about 2 blocks from our hotel. It surrounded by a boardwalk with street performers and very convenient to a park. It was a really fun day to play outside. Emerson and Ward loved the Eye, this is Emerson's primary memory from our trip. We all had an amazing day and there were so many fabulous pictures that it was very difficult to choose.

My world traveler.

Playin' it cool.

Hanging out under the "eye".

Look Mom, no hands!

Emerson pushing Ward on the swing.Emerson took the photo of Ward and I. I thought she did pretty well...Ward wasn't so sure.Emerson befriended the living statue.

Day 3- Playdate at Sophie's house. This was perfect timing as it was typical British weather, grey, rainy and cold. It was so wonderful to visit with Matt & Laura and it was so fun to have a day to let the kids just play and relax. We were sad that Jack couldn't play too, but of course being mid-week, he needed to go to school.

Computer-less

Just as I was gearing myself up to be a better blogger and post more frequently my harddrive crashed. I have spent the entire month of November computer-less. It has been a complete departure from our normal lives as I have been unable to work and being so far from friends and family the computer really becomes our life line.

Normally a hard drive could be repaired quickly, however my situation is somewhat complicated by my location. Because my computer is still under warranty in the US it seemed logical to send it to the US for repairs rather than pay in the UK....although now that my laptop is stuck in the customs system I am doubting that plan. My computer re-entered the UK on the 15th of Nov but has still not been released by the customs department because they are reviewing the paperwork (all 3 pages of it!!!). Trey has been working diligently which means I have rarely had the opportunity to use his laptop, giving me precious little computer time at all in the last month and have therefore been absent from blogging and facebook.

I am hoping that as we enter December the new month will bring good luck and the customs department will have a wonderful wave of Christmas cheer and send my computer on it's merry way. Here's to hoping!

Happy Halloween

Emerson and Ward loved getting dressed up to go Trick or Treating. Emerson dressed up as Cinderella (what else but a princess??) and Ward was a turtle. Here are some of our best pics from tonight's main event.

Emerson trying to be very still while I fixed her hair.

Emerson loves to dress up.

Ward's not so sure about this.

Ward's face once he realized there were sweets involved.

Emerson checking out her sweeties.

The pile just wouldn't do for this little perfectionist...wonder where she gets that?!

Weekend Away

Well blog readers- hold on to your hats, this is a current post! I have decided to skip over the 400+ backlogged pictures that I just downloaded off of my camera and jump ahead to current life. Maybe along the way I'll try to get back to some of those end of summer/early fall happenings but with the way things have been going on our little blog here, I was likely to never catch up. So here we are, with an update from this very weekend!...





Emerson has been on Autumn Break from school this week, and we had discussed plans to travel from the beginning of the school year. But, with Trey's recent research trip to Washington DC and all the other things we've been juggling lately, we felt like organizing a mini-vacation was too much. After a week of rainy cold days spent indoors, though, we felt the need to get out of the city. So, at the last minute, we rented a car and hit the road for two days . On day 1 of our little adventure, we headed through the country. The forcast called for rain and snow, but we had a clear, crisp autumn day. Our drive in the country was beautiful as we headed south toward the Scottish border. We spent Friday checking out the sites around Dumfries.

We took in Caerverlock Castle. The castle itself is mostly ruins but it has a huge mote which sets it apart. One of the castles we visited over the summer had a mote, but it no longer had water in it, this however, was the real deal.





Our second stop was the New Abbey Corn Mill. Of course we are in Scotland so they are not exactly milling corn. "Corn" just means the primary grain, so here that would be oats. The mill is only operational during the summer months so we did not get to see it in working order. We got to walk through all three levels of the mill and we were the only ones there, so we got the whole mill to ourselves. On the way out of town Emerson and I hit the National Museum of Costumes.









On Day 2 of our little expedition we went to the Almond Valley Heritage Center. It is a farm in Livingston, just 30 minutes outside of Edinburgh. Unfortunately our weather wasn't nearly as cooperative. Thankfully the farm had lots of indoor activities for the kids. We did get a short break in the rain to let them ride the little tractors. Ward has a tractor obsession so we'd like to go back this Spring when the weather is better and ride on the real tractor!