More Indian Summer

Well it is time for another weekly update.

This week has been another beautiful one. Summer here seems to hit in September, even though it doesn't get as hot as it might get on nice days in July, if we get any. I have however been very bad at taking the camera with me, so I don't have any pictures until Saturday.

I don't remember what I did Monday. Tuesday I went to visit a friend of mine and her new little baby boy. He is such a cute boy and so very little. I always think that newborns look so little, except mine, which don't seem like newborns to me when they are born. I don't remember much of Wednesday either.

Here is a video of Brian and Lizzie reading books. It is so cute that I just had to include it.
Here is my little monkey!!!!

As we have had some nice weather, I have been taking the kids to the park. Thursday when we went I had a very difficult time. Lizzie went down the slide once and decided that she didn't like that any more. I couldn't find anything that she did want to do. Jamie is happy do anything but as he doesn't walk yet it takes a lot of my energy to carry him around to the different things, as Lizzie is just wondering around the play area. We finally sat down, had a snack and came home.

Friday, we ended up going to the park again for some crazy reason, but I am very happy that we did, it turned out much better. Lizzie was still dependent on me to help her to the slide most of the time, but she did want to go down the slide and would work her way over to it, once even mostly by herself. I was also more willing to let Jamie crawl around, so that was fun. There were also some other kids there and I even got talking to one of the mums, which was really nice. It was very nice for Lizzie to get a little braver with playgrounds as well.

On Saturday we took what will most likely be the last day trip in our car. We went up north an hour or so to visit some friends that used to be in our ward. They cooked us a great lunch and then we went to a park near their house. It had many animals and some play areas. Lizzie actually liked this one, all of the other farms that we have been Lizzie has not liked the animals very much, except the ducks. Here she had a bit of a problem in the first house but after that seemed just fine with the animals. Here she is by some strange ducks.

I know that the ducks didn't look so strange in that picture so I had to take one of them walking, they stand up so very tall, it looks funny!!!!

This is a great slide that both of the kids got to go down. (My hips barely fit on this slide.)

Look at the smile on Lizzie's face. The slide is one thing that she does usually like.

Jamie was also very brave, he got quite close to these wild ducks. I was very proud of him.

And very close to this very big cows, before he got to scared. He did also get on a plastic cow, but started crying before we could get the picture.

This is us with the friends that we were visiting. Lizzie did even let Tanya hold her much of the time. I love to see her liking other people.

We had so much fun on Saturday that I didn't get to prepare to well for Sunday. Sunday evening we had over all of my presidency and visiting teaching coordinator and their families over for dinner. I had each of them bring a dish from their home country and we had some very great food. There was English, Italian, Philipino and American besides me. I had decided to do it as one of my councilors had moved the day before and it was their last Sunday in the ward. I thought it would be nice to all get together one last time. It was a lot of fun and good for us to all be together one last time, well maybe not there are some events coming up that might bring us all together again. I should mention one interesting thing. As the English dish, since they were in the middle of moving and didn't have the tools to cook any longer at home, they brought an Indian curry. The funny part is that this works for the following reasons, 1. Indian curries were actually created in England as the English people wanted a gravy with their meat, 2. Indian take-away have become more popular then fish and chips. Who would have thought an Indian curry would be English.

Well that is all from us this week.

John and Rhonda's visit!!!!

Most of these last two weeks my brother John and his wife Rhonda have been here visiting us. It has been great though it felt far to short. Monday the 8th was spent preparing for them to come, cleaning and moving furniture around to make up their bed. Tuesday morning they arrived and we had an enjoyable day here at home as they got use to this time zone and played with my kids. It was fun to see how quickly my kids started to play with them. It does take them a while to warm up to people.

Wednesday, the 10th, we went into the city to see some of the points of interest there. Starting with Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.

We then walked down to the horse parade, where the Queens life guard. We learned that this gate is the official entrance to Buckingham Palace. Which means that whenever the Queen leaves that palace in a carriage she goes through this gate with these guards surrounding her. The many times that I had been here before I have never realized why there were guards here, I just like their hats and their horses.

We were there at the time when they changed the guards, and it was fun to see that although it wasn't the big show they still did funny proper things to change the guard. This picture is of the two horsemen being inspected or something just before leaving. We also stuck around for another hour while finding out more about the guard until they did an inspection, and seemed to put the horses away for the night leaving just a few guards out to watch over the place.

Wednesday night Brian was away visiting a client somewhere. Thursday we spent another relaxing day at home as we had done a lot of walking Wednesday and they wanted to relax some for Friday. Thursday night I had an enrichment meeting, where I taught the sister some cross-stitching. There were only about ten sisters that showed up but we still had a good time. While I was gone Brian talked to his soon to be boss in NY, which started the whole thinking about the job mentioned in change of plans written about below. It was a hard night. I also sold nine things on Ebay, out of the 24 that I had listed.

Friday I sent John and Rhonda into the city to go to the Tower of London. They stopped by Buckingham Palace on the way as we hadn't gotten there on Wednesday. I got to relax a little at home, and didn't get anything done. When the kids woke up from their naps, I rushed them out the door and when down into the city to go to my favorite restaurant, Wagamama's over looking the Tower. We then took the bus home. While waiting for the bus Lizzie was running around and she tripped and hit her head quite hard of the cement, giving her a goose egg which you might notice in the pictures coming up. It was fun to ride through the city on the bus, even if we did get home late, and the kids got to bed late.

Saturday we went to Hampton Court Palace. Lizzie was so tired from the late night before that she feel asleep shortly after we had left the house, while eating snacks even.


Lizzie loves to play with the rocks wherever we find them. Here she is in one of the gardens of the palace, playing with the rocks.

Here we are by a fountain in this same garden, with this newer portion of the castle, built by King William and Queen Mary, behind us.

Here is John drinking the fountain. I love this picture so I had to add it.


And here the older, Tudor part, built by King Henry VIII, can be seen behind us. We couldn't take pictures inside the castle so we didn't get very many pictures.

Sunday we again spent the day here at home. We enjoyed a wonderful English roast dinner, cooked by Brian, and just enjoyed the day together.

Monday and Tuesday we let John and Rhonda use our car and drive around the countryside.

While they were driving about I sent off seven of the things that I had sold last Thursday. Monday I worked on getting the packages ready, mostly that night with Brian's help. Then as we were ready to go to bed, Jamie woke up and would not settle, thankfully Lizzie was sleeping in the back bedroom since John was gone and didn't wake up to his crying. Finally, 1:30 or so I fed him a jar of food and he calmed down and went to sleep. Tuesday morning I took the seven items to end them. This is what the stroller looked like as I was walking to the Post Office Tuesday morning. I only had seven as one was being picked up and another just before wrapping it, I tried it and found that it didn't work, opps.

After sending off the packages, I went down to Baker's Street to get lunch for a mystery shopping job. I was quite sad when I got there as I notice a Quizno's down the street from where I was going and thought that I would much rather go there. After lunch I walked past the Sherlock Holmes Museum and took this picture for John as he missed it when he tried to take it from the bus.

We then had just enough time for a walk through Regents Park and to let Lizzie chase the birds. I got this cute video of her, even though it is hard to tell that she is chasing the birds. She does catch on though, just as she catches bugs that are in the house.



Tuesday night John and Rhonda returned quite late from their drive and a session at the temple and got loss as they exited the a stop to early and ended up in a bit of a scary part of town to be lost in at night. They called me and I thought they were just where I wanted them to be. It took a few minutes for me to realize I didn't know where they were since they places had some similarities. Finally I was able to realize where they were as I had been lost there before while looking for a flat, and I was able to lead them home again.

Wednesday, I again sent them into the city on their own to watch a musical called "Wicked", probably my favorite one that I have ever seen. It tells the back story to the witches in the Wizard of Oz. When they got back we went out for fish and chips at our local place. Brian was sadly out of town that night at his big client event, so he didn't get to join us. I did order fish though and I actually enjoyed it, even if it was huge and my daughter wouldn't help me eat it.

Thursday they finished packing and we took a walk on our main street once more, which me and the kids had to quickly leave from after Lizzie threw up. After getting her cleaned up, we took John and Rhonda to the airport to fly away. It was very sad. I had really enjoyed having them around, even though it felt like such a short time and that I didn't get to see much of them. The kids were asleep when we dropped them off so they didn't get to say goodbye. I then came home and tried to convince my children to go back to sleep, who slept for those two hours in the car, so that I could get some rest. That didn't work, so I laid on the couch while they tried to play with me. I couldn't even keep my eyes open.

Friday was also spent recovering from their visit. The late nights this week really caught up to me, and I have been very tired.

Saturday we decided that we should take a trip out of the city as it would be one of our last weekends with a car. We decided to go on a hike in a place called Wendover Woods. I still being tired wasn't to sure that I wanted to put in the effort to go, but I did want to go so I didn't let it show. We started off on about a two hour hike and half way through I was starting to feel quite weak. We found what we thought might be a short cut and decided to take it. It was a very steep climb on a very small path and I almost turned back. About 50 yards later we met up with the path again and it had cut off a lot of the path, leaving just enough of a walk to the end. Lizzie even got down and did some hiking.

This is from a view point along the way. I thought that I had better take a picture of the English countryside so that I wouldn't forget it.

I figured that Jamie and I should get our picture taken also since I had taken so many of Brian and Lizzie walking, so here we are.

I even took a video of Lizzie hiking. It was so cute how she wanted to walk and was so careful of all of the roots and rocks.

After our hike we went to the cafe in the area and I had a huge hamburger and Brian a sausage. They were great, fresh from a local farmer. After returning home Brian let me have a nap while he played with the grumpy kids who wouldn't sleep. I could hear them crying, but was still to tired to get out of bed. He finally told Lizzie that she could come find me, and shortly after that I had both kids in the bed attacking me. After dinner and getting the kids bathed and ready for bed, I left to go to a bridal shower for my friend, Sara, who is getting married next month. It was a great party with lots of good food and belly dancing among other kinds of dancing and games. On my way home I ran to the store getting their just 15 minutes before it closed to get some food for Sunday.

Today has been a good day, not to stressful, even with ward council which made it a very long day at church. For dinner Brian made me my new favorite pasta dish!!!! Well I think that is all from us for now. Love Ya'll!!!!

Change of Plans!!!

Hi there, this is Brian. I haven't ever posted a blog, so this is new for me. But for this entry, Debbie and I agreed that probably I should post the blog. I got a bit of a surprise last week when I got an email from my future boss in the States. His email asked me if I was available for a chat. I knew as soon as I read the email, this potentially spelled trouble. I was in Oslo at the time, so I asked him if I could call him when I returned to London. When I returned from London the next day, I gave him a call as soon as I could, because by then curiosity had gotten the best of me. So I spoke with him and he explained how they are doing a complete reorganization of the teams in the US. Then he said to me that they are going to be creating four new teams and they came to the conclusion that they wanted me to be the manager of one of these teams. Of course I was very delighted by the opportunity, however there was a catch. He did not feel comfortable with me managing a team that was based in New York, if I was living in San Francisco. So he gave me the choice, I could have the opportunity to manage a team in NY or I could move to San Francisco and be a member of a team and not have any management responsibility.

He left us to think about this issue over the weekend and we found it an extremely difficult decision. We were really looking forward to living in San Francisco and living near Brad and Jersha. I don't think there was a day that went by over the last several months when we weren't day dreaming about the day we would move to California. Debbie and I had several discussions about what we should do and Debbie even got emotional a couple of times. After praying about it we both came to the conclusion that it probably made sense to go with the management position because it would be better for my career growth and future opportunities. Over the last year or so, we have continually said to ourselves that we didn't want to move back to NY since we have both been there in the past and we've served our time there. But, it looks like maybe there is yet more for us to do there.

So, our current plans are to return to the US the week before Thanksgiving. We will then begin settling in New York during December. Debbie will still go to Utah early in December to spend a good part of December with her family. I will then go to Utah around Christmas time and then we will return back to NY after the new year. It is still going to be hard to think that we are not going to be in California next year. However, we are still keeping our eye on San Francisco and hope to be able to move there in a couple of years.

Well, that's the update. So, if any of you ever find yourself in New York next year, please stop by and visit.

Debbie's Note: As heart broken as I am about this change of plans, I am very happy about the position that Brian will have. It is nice that he is in a company where we can be such a great asset and that they realize that he is very valuable member of their company. I would just like to point out that four years ago the NY office didn't even hire him. It is hard after looking forward to something for so long to have to change that idea, but I'm sure that as we get our heads around the idea of going to New York we will be able to get a little excited about it as well. At least we will still have some family there as well as some friends. I'm sure once we are there we will enjoy it and have a great life there for however long we will have to stay there.

Jamie is 10 months old September 1 - 7

On Monday Jamie turned 10 months old.
He is getting to big it amazes even me. Here is one of his new tricks, pulling himself up. He started in his crib which made it very hard for him to go to sleep, but not he can do it on most any piece of furniture.

Well on Monday I had a job to have lunch down by one of my favorite parks. So I decide to take the kids to the park and let them play in the sand for a while as that seems to be their favorite thing to do at parks. What cute kids they are.

I don't remember Tuesday.

Wednesday, I left the kids with their friends Sara, Andrew and Lilly while I went to find out about flat screen TVs. I decided that they are to expensive to get one now. Brian was out of town that night and I set about weighting things and taking pictures of them so that I could list them on Ebay the next day because they had a reduced posting price day.

Thursday, yes, I spent the day in front of the computer listing things on Ebay. I got 24 things up to sell by the time I went to sleep, so far only one of them will sell but there is still time.

Friday, we were expecting terrible rain storms with gall force winds. It was a rainy day, but not that bad so we did spend most of the day inside, except for a short walk. Our friend Emily did brave the rain to bring us cookies to thank us for dinner last week, she also shared lunch with us as she had a doctors appointment right afterwards. That night on the news I heard of how this storm actually hit southwest Wales and many homes flooded. The storm was moving northeast so it missed us on Saturday as well.

Because the weather wasn't so bad on Saturday we started the day at a stake service project where we planted bluebells. The kids really just enjoyed playing in the dirt. Lizzie came home very dirty and I felt bad that I didn't have my camera with me. We also that day found homes for all of the things that I had pulled out to list on Ebay. In order to clean up the house for my brother coming this week. We even cleaned out our WC which we usually use as a storage closet since we don't need it when there is just the two of us.

That night we finally got around to working on this terrible puzzle that we have had up for a week. In my excitement I climbed up on the table to see the other side of the puzzle and the leg of the table broke off. Not a smart move, especially as this is the table that we will be eating at while my brother is here. I spent the next hour or so, moving the puzzle to one half of the table, while holding the broken side up, and gluing the leg back into place. Hopefully this worked!!!

Well that is our ever so exciting week, now lets get to the fun part, pictures of the kids. As so few of you have yet got to met Jamie, I though we would focus on him a bit. Let you see the kind of boy that he is. Here he is playing with his puzzle.

And this is him playing with his puzzle in motion!!!!

Here he is looking cute as he is getting ready to crawl away. I really have to take another video of him crawling as he has started to crawl on his hands and feet. He really just wants to walk, but doesn't have the balance to do so.

Last night we found something else that he likes to do, talk into this microphone on our dancing bear toy. I tried to take a picture of him doing it but was always just a little to slow.

So I decided to take a video!!!!




I really do have to mention a new skills of Lizzie's that we discovered this week. She was begging to come help me with the dishes so I let her. The bowl that she is dipping her brush into is of soapy water, which is how I was washing the dishes.

I guess that I should also mention today. I was able to teach the Relief Society lesson today and I recognized that this will by my last time doing so. Because of that I shared some of my favorite quotes and poems with the sisters. As well as thanked them and told them how much I have enjoyed knowing them and serving them. I want to share my all time favorite quote with all of you as well. I sure I have already shared this with some of you, but I still like it.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

by Marianne Williamson from A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

Our Week Aug 26 - 31

Well our work week started with Brian working from home for a few hours before going to the memorial service for an elderly man in our ward who had died quite unexpectedly about two weeks ago. It was a great service which Brian added to as he got to be one of the speakers. Then we hurried home to have lunch and send Brian to work. The day went as normal after that.

Here is a cute picture of our kids brushing their teeth that I am inserting here so that it doesn't get to boring. (That is what I learned in my advertising classes, kids get people's attention!!!)

Wednesday I had a mystery shopping job in our old neighborhood that went all wrong. They had warned me that there were two of these stores in the area. I got there and found both of the stores but no one could tell me which one was the one I was meant to go to as no one recognized the address that I had. Finally, I had Brian call the store I was to visit and ask them where they were located. Also while walking up and down the street looking for the store, I heard a bicyclist hit a woman, and latter saw them giving her CPR. It kind of scared me and gave me a bad feeling. So I wasn't feeling that great when I entered the store, only to find out that the store only sold men and kids clothing, I had taken the job in hopes of getting me some nice exercise pants. The really hard part was that I had to buy something, but none of the running pants were what I wanted. After much deliberation I did finally chose something to buy, only to get it home and it didn't fit, I'm just a little to big for boys clothes. What a mess. The good news is that since we spent so long looking for the store, we drove home at the time that the kids would normal start their naps and they fell asleep so well in the car that they didn't even hardly wake up when we got home and put them to bed. Sadly that meant that they didn't get lunch.

That night we had our friends, Sara, Andrew, Kim and Lily, over for dinner. She is Italian and he is American and a great lover of Mexican food. So I cooked up a hardy Mexican meal, of enchiladas, for them. I think I might have helped to convince Sara and her girls that Mexican isn't so bad and maybe they can serve it in their house, now she just needs to figure out how to cook it. The couple are getting married in October, so hopefully I can teach her some of my tricks before then.

Thursday I had decided to go to the park and invited a few friends to come as well. Sara and her girls were the only ones able to meet up with us. We enjoyed some lunch and some play time in the sandbox. Here are Sara's girls playing with my kids. It is fun to see how much these girls love my children.

Friday, Brian got to go to his fun day for work and went down to the South Coast of England, a place called the South Downs, and rented a bike. Him and his coworkers spent the day biking around the area. He said it was fun but he was left a little sore and tired and even had a scratched up knee. He says he got it getting off his bike at the end of the day, but who is to say.

Meanwhile back at home I thought I was going to die. Right after finishing my breakfast, I got a really bad headache, probably the worse one I have ever had in my life. I even left the kids while they were eating their breakfast to go lay down for a bit. My stomach also started to feel upset not long after and I got really cold and weak. I was so weird. I got the kids ready for the day and then let them play as I again laid down. I finally gave Jamie some milk and put him down for his nap and put Lizzie in her bed as well, in order to get some rest myself. She was quite happy in her bed for 20-30 minutes, which was great. I then got her out and she was happy to play in the living room while I laid on the couch for the next hour. By this time I was feeling a little better and knew if I could just get through lunch and get them down for their naps I would be okay. Well it did work and I was able to take a nap with them. I think the evening went pretty well even. It was quite scary not to know what is wrong with you or if you are going to die while all alone with the kids. Especial with them so young and not able to take care of themselves. They would be crying and so very hungry by the time that Brian got home, not comforting thoughts when you are sick.

Saturday was a bright and beautiful day. It even got up to 27 degrees which is quite warm for here. We played a little at home in the morning and gave Jamie his nap. I love watching how these two are interacting with each other, though it is hard for me to get many good pictures or videos of them playing together. Here is a picture of them on Saturday morning. It kind of shows them interacting!!!

Since the weather was nice they actually got to wear some of their summer clothes. Jamie is a little England football player and Lizzie is our California girl, where we are and where we are going!!!!

After playing in the morning and trying to get some things done, we went to one of our nearby parks, as the weather was so nice. Here we are visiting closely with a deer. The kids were not sure they really liked him being so close.

Then we went to get some great Italian ice cream. I actually got a sandwich as that sounded better to me at the time, after all it was lunch time. That made Brian have to share his ice cream with both of the kids, poor guy.

After our snacks we went to Lizzie's favorite part of the park (besides the sandbox), the duck pond. She loves to watch the ducks and chase the pigeons. Then we had to head home for nap time once again.

There seems to be one thing about London that you can count on, it is rain. Saturday was so nice and sunshiny, Sunday was very rainy with downpours, thunder and lightening. It was a very nice day though. Church was even a little relaxing. That evening we had our friends, Emily and Tyler, that we were going to have over the week, before for dinner. We had a great evening with them and Lizzie even ended the night sitting on Tyler's lap doing her puzzle. It is fun to watch Lizzie become friends with more people.

Well that was our week, a little busy but fun!!!