Go Ape

Each year Brian's work sponsors a fun day. This year Brian had a hard time deciding between two of the activities. His mind was finally made up as everyone on his team wanted to go to one activity which would leave no one there to do the job. Brian volunteered to go to the other activity but then decided that he would take me to "Go Ape" for my birthday since he couldn't go with his work. I as happy that he didn't get to go with his work, I hate when I have to be jealous of the fun things he gets to do there.

So on Monday we got a babysitter and were off to play in the trees. Here are some pictures of the routes that we took between the trees.

Look how far apart Brian's legs are. He was really struggling.

All that training for the circus sure did payoff for me!!!!
(Of the five courses that we went on, this course in the background (course three) was our favorite.)

Just don't look down!!!
(This is after the tight rope on course three.)

He sure does make it look easy!!!

Now Brian is just showing off!!!!
(I wonder how many steps he took like that, I didn't even dare to let go with both hands.)

In this picture you can see most of course four, wooden beam somewhat hiding.

On the course there were two extreme level challenges. This was the first one which was on course three. It takes a lot of work to find those little stirrups. One of the people shortly after us just pulled himself across the line, not bothering with the feet.

This is the starting area for the other extreme one on course five. I am getting all hooked in to jump. Isn't the background lovely!!!!!

And away I go!!!

And what do we get to jump into, a net. Which we then have to climb up to the platform.

And that was about all of course five, very short. I should mention that course one was also very short, but much different. It was a training course so that you could go through it all with an instructor watching. Up a latter, across a bean and down a zip line. This on was about like that just with a 20 yard jump in the middle.

Here is the video that Brian took of me coming down the last zip line. You can hear me long before you can even see me.



Just to get him back, here is Brian getting off of course four. I did kindly stop it just as he was falling over.

Go Away - August 19 - 23

Well another two weeks has gone by since I last wrote, mainly because I have been so tired. I am going to only write about that last week and save this week for a different post.

On Tuesday, the 19th just after finding out that he had passed his test, Brian started to feel sick. So much so that he didn't go to work on Wednesday. We started to tell this sickness to "Go Away".

On Wednesday while Brian was home resting I decided to take the kids to the mall and get Lizzie some harder puzzles and we have started to find out just how good she is at them. I bought her a box with six puzzles in it with four to six pieces each. Here she is sitting among them. She is getting very good at them.



Wednesday night I had a presidency meeting at my house which was a lot of fun. I have got a great presidency and they are so much fun, sadly two of them will be leaving the ward at the end of next month. On of them just told us that night.

Thursday, the 21st, being my birthday I didn't want to stay home all day so I arranged with some friends to go to a park. Here is Lizzie playing with the two other girls that came to the park.

Here is the girls mom, feeding Lizzie so that Lizzie would like her.

And here is Jamie sitting around on the grass, just to prove he was there!!!

After getting home from the park, I started not feeling so well, but I had already got my heart set on a birthday dinner at one of my favorite restaurants, Wagamama's. After dinner both Brian and I felt much better.

Sadly mine didn't last and I was still feeling pretty bad for Friday and Saturday. Brian was so good to me Saturday though and let me just rest while he took care of the kids. However, I found it very hard to be in bed with my kids awake so I did get out to be with the family quite a lot of the day. The "GO AWAY" got even louder for me.

Sunday I put Lizzie's hair in a ponytail for church for the first time. I had put her hair in one once before but just for a short time. She seemed to like it and she looked really cute with it in.

Sunday really did wipe me out. I was pretty much out of my head by the end of church. I had to change the VTing assignments and pass them out. I think because I was sick or still getting over being sick it really did do me in.
Jamie had a rash on him, most likely due to him being sick as well, but some of the girls at church thought that it might be the measles. Brian took him to the doctor during RS, since he was just hanging out with Lizzie in nursery anyways, as no one was there to teach her. Turned out that it wasn't measles after all,, but probably good that he got him checked out. The one who had started this worry was very happy to hear that he was okay and had to give him a kiss before she left. That night we had invited a couple from the ward over for dinner, she is about to have a baby and her husband got scared with us all being sick, so they canceled. We invited the missionaries over since we had a big roast and needed someone to help eat it. Brian was then able to have correlations as well so it worked out good in the end.


The real reason that I have called this post "Go Away" is that Lizzie is starting to string some words together. Her favorite is something that sounds like "Go away". It is usually very cute, but not when I am sick and tired and the kids are crying and I just want to join them, as I felt on Friday afternoon. It is also not very cute right after you tell Lizzie that you love her, go away is not what you want to hear. I did finally get her to say it with the camera rolling, even if she isn't paying any attention to it.

Well I will be back soon with the adventures from this week as it has been another memorable one!!!!!

My Early Birthday Present!!!!

Today, I got the best birthday present ever, even if it is two days early.
I can't take a picture of it, but I know that around May of next year I will really appreciate it. Today we learned that Brian has PASSED his final CFA (Certified Financial Analyst) exam. I am very proud of him and very happy for me!!!!!!! Brian has been taking these tests since before I have known him, so every year, except our first one married, I have had to spend May watching him study or having him away a lot to study else where. But no more!!!! He has passed the final (third) exam and he will not need to study for it ever again!!!!!! However, I have no doubt that in a few years he will figure out some other letters that he wants to put behind his name and it will start all over again.

I just want to Congratulate him on passing!!!!!!!!!! I knew that he could do it!!!!!!!

Our Week

I guess it has been a while since I have posted anything. I have decided to once again follow the example of my dear sister-in-law and start to put up more of our day to day life. I sometimes write a letter to send to all of my family each week, but I don't seem to be able to figure out how to do that and keep things up on here, so I have decided to combine them now. Good news is that you might not see that our life here isn't as exciting as some might think. Of course the bad news is that this blog may get a whole lot more boring.

Well I guess that in talking about this week I have to put in a few words of last week. A week ago on the Monday I got a call to tell me that an elderly lady in the ward had passed away. I knew that it was going to happen soon, she has been very sick for quite a while. She is an amazing lady, who really did as much as she could for just as long as her body would let her. She is wife to the patriarch. Anyway much of last week was spent trying to get things arranged for the reception after her funeral, and how to feed two hundred or so people. As well as trying to help her daughter who is my good friend through the week. Well that funeral took place on Monday of this week. It was a very long day at the church for my kids especially since it was right during their nap times. We ended up not giving them a nap and just putting them to bed early which seemed to work okay.

Tuesday I think I was still recovering from the funeral, and I don't that day. In the evening I had signed up for an exercise class. So when Brian got home I put on my workout pants and a t-shirt and my flip-flops (since it is a yoga type class and you don't wear shoes for it), as it didn't seem to be to bad of weather out, and headed out the door. As I left I notice that it was getting a little cloudy. About half way to the gym (which is only a five minute walk) it started to ran and it was a down pour by the time I ran into the gym. I was cold and wet. I waited a bit for the class to start and then when it did they were doing an aerobic warm up. I thought it was a bit weird but joined in. The teacher came up to me and told me that I couldn't stay in the class with my shoes, and that the class that I wanted was in an hour. So I left and started walking home. When I left the gym it was just lightly raining and by the time I got home it had stopped. I realize that I sometime complain about the weather here, but really does it need to go from sunshine to downpour back to sunshine in less then a half hour. That is the story of the weather for most of the week here.

Wednesday and Thursday I did some mystery shopping things but other then that I again didn't do much. Wednesday I did also hear of the passing of a elderly brother in the ward. His passing was very unexpected, and surprising to all of us.

Friday We got a babysitter and I went to meet Brian down by his work for his work summer party. It was very fun we all loaded onto a boat and went cruising the Thames for three and a half hours. They gave us dinner as well as all of the drinks that we wanted, which got some people a little crazy, and there was some dancing as well though very little that Brian and I could dance to. It was fun to be able to see the fun sights on the Thames. I was sorry that I didn't bring my camera as it would have been nice to take some pictures of the sights. The boat started and finished right below the Tower Bridge. We ate dinner with a couple who the man was from nearby SF so he was able to tell us something about the area we will be moving to and they also have a young son. It was fun because we really did have a lot we could talk about. We ended the night with one last dance in which we could look up and see the tops of the towers. It was a fun night even though I was a little worried since we usually skip out early on the parties.

That pretty much sums up the week, I didn't do much at all. Brian did have a very busy week as he had a course on presenting which he really did enjoy. He is still trying to catch up from our holiday though so he did still have lots of work to do and very little time to do it. He did have a few late nights, but I guess that have to happen sometimes.

There is however a reason that not much got done this week at it is this. . .

Last Saturday we started a puzzle. It is called a Wasjig. On the box we got this picture . . .

And the puzzle is what the man in the cart is seeing. We finished this puzzle on Saturday. It was a lot of fun and made us decided that me might have to get more of these some day. In the beginning especially it was much fun to try and figure out what was happening and why there were so many angry faces.

The funnest part of doing the puzzle was on Saturday as we let Lizzie sit up to the table with us. She started by taking random pieces and making her own little puzzle which was fun to watch. Then when we got so close to the end that we needed to be able to see all of the pieces we moved the puzzle closer to her and she actually put in one piece all by herself correctly. Afterwards we tested her and took out a few pieces for her to put back. She really seemed to enjoy this. Here is a few pictures of her doing the puzzle.

As for Jamie's big news this week, I started to realize that he was getting very close to starting to crawl and I had yet to take a video of how well he is getting around pre-crawling. Here is just a picture of him.

And here is a short picture of him getting around. He does backwards and around in circles very well it is just the forwards that we are waiting for.



However our wait came to an end on Sunday night. So here is a long video of Jamie's first crawling actions. He is finally moving forward and we are starting to get ever more fearful of the future and all of the things he will soon start to get into.



Well there is our week as boring as it may be. Hopefully I will start remembering to take my camera with me more often so that I can put up more pictures of the exciting stuff that we do and not just of puzzles.

Lizzie Strange Eating Habits

Lizzie's eating has continued to surprise us this week with what she wants to eat. Earlier I posted this picture of her eating a peach skin instead of the fleshy part.

Well things have continued on this strange, but good, path this week. She also ate some apple skin that had been removed from the apple, but not the flesh. She also really likes nuts (mostly cashews) and seeds and dried bananas. She begs for me to feed her frozen peas, but has complained if I thaw them. Last weekend I made some broccoli salad, Lizzie love it, except for the raisins, which I found a pile on of the side of the plate.

And this weekend she has been eating salad. It started Friday with a spinach and strawberry salad. and then today with just mixed lettuces, tomatoes and cucumbers. Here are some pictures I tried to take of her eating it.

Notice that she is eating the salad rather then bread or spaghetti.

We think that this strange eating started on our trip. One because that is the first time that she really eat lettuce. Also this weekend both salad had an oil and balsamic vinegar dressing on them. We suspect that she grew a taste for that after dipping her bread in it in Italy. After the salad was gone she did dip her bread in the left over dressing on her plate. I was very nice seeing her beg for more salad. She finished all of the leaves and so I thought that she wouldn't want anymore and I put the rest of the tomatoes and cucumbers on my plate to finish it off and she even begged for those from me. Not what I would expect from a girl who will be
22 months old tomorrow!!!!! Happy Birthday to her!!!

Brian thought that I should mention one more interesting thing that Lizzie loves to do while I'm talking about my crazy daughter. She loves to peal onions. When ever we are pealing onions, even if she has been in the other room playing with brother, she will come in and beg for them so that she can peal them. She doesn't however like to eat them though she has tried a few times after pealing them.

Mystery Shopping

I had an interesting experience this last week. I have heard of shops paying people to shop in their store and give their opinion. I have thought this would be a great job to bring in a little extra money, but I have never been sure as to how to do it, or how to sign up. Well this last week a reliable source gave me a place to sign up, retaileyes.com, so I decided to try it out. Wednesday I did my first job. I went out to breakfast with the kids at a little sandwich shop in the city. It was a really nice breakfast and then I have to fill out this really long survey answering all kinds of questions.

I did learn a few things from it though. Breakfast is not a good time to get out of the house with the kids. It isn't wise to pick a job where the transportation cost is greater then how much they are going to pay me. It was fun though riding into the city with Brian for once. On yes and my double stroller doesn't work on the underground, not a good idea at all, it was a good thing that Brian was with us. We did also get to spend a nice morning at one of my favorite parks afterwards.

I really did enjoy it though and am excited to be able to do another job. The jobs that are up now though I either have to order a coffee (some of them an alcoholic drink as well), or go to a health club that is further away then the one I already have a membership to. It is kind of a fun way to hopefully earn a little extra money. Well that is my fun story for the week now I will get back to working on my post with fun kid pictures.

Jamie is Nine Months Old!!!!!

Well my little man has now turned nine months old so I thought I would once again post some pictures of him and all of the fun things that he is learning to do.

Here is our English boy trying to crawl. He still just pushes himself backwards, but I don't think it well be to much longer before he starts going forward. That is going to be trouble.

He is also starting to figure out how to feed himself, though no very cleanly. This is him after a particularly dirty dinner. We felt he really needed a bath with that mess, and he hands were just as bad.

This is the new trick he was demonstrating in his bed tonight, pulling himself up. The bed isn't low enough that he can pull himself all of the way up so his legs are actually sideways/kneeling.

Here is the true fun part the videos of two other new tricks, clapping and walking while holding hands. This little boy is adorable.

Here are the two cute kids together. Lizzie has really taken to sitting on Jamie's lap. She used to like to have him sit on her lap, but now it is the other way around. I think it is so funny but Jamie doesn't seem to mind so I let her do it.

She does still like to give him hugs and will often come up and hug him or just laugh in his face while he is walking around. She also wants to help him walk around and will grab him and start pulling. She even tries to help him crawl by pushing his feet just like she sees mom and dad do. It is fun to see them together.

Well there are some of the exciting changes in the live of our little man. He sure is growing up and becoming so much fun.

I must say when I get blogging, I really go all for it. This is three posts after the kids have gone to bed. I don't always get much time for such fun so I have to make good use of the time I do have. I figure Sunday is a good day to to it as well since I am usually trying to figure out a good Sunday activity and this keeping a family history.

Have a great week!!!