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!!!

Summer Is Finally Here

Before I start this blog I just want to mention one exciting thing that Brian and I did. Tuesday was Brian's birthday and I was able to give him two surprises. I decided on Monday that I should get my hair cut for his birthday (he usually has to encourage me to for months before I actually get around to getting it cut). So I called the sitter that I had arranged for that night and she said that she would be able to come earlier and I was able to get the appointment with the stylest that I wanted at the time that I wanted. It worked out very well. Here is a picture of my hair, after I washed it so it isn't done as nice as it was that night.


Long ago I had decided to take him to dinner at a restaurant called fifteen. It is the restaurant/project of Brian's favorite celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver. Brian cooks from his books every weekend, so he has really wanted to know how the master does it himself. Well really Jamie doesn't always work there. The project part of the restaurant is that it takes underprivileged kids and teaches them to be chefs. For more information you can look at it on www.fifteen.net/. We did have a great dinner there as well.

Now on to today!!!! Summer has finally arrived!!!! I know most of you are probably sick of the hot weather by now but here in England we are just barely getting any. Crazy isn't it. This week has been quite nice though. As a side note this week the school kids got out of school as well. Yesterday it was so nice the kids and I went to have a picnic in the park all by ourselves.

Today I decided to take our pink jeep ball pit and fill it with water for them to play it. They had a great time. Jamie was in it for abut an hour and Lizzie for almost an hour and a half before I made her get out so that they could get dressed and have lunch. Here are some of the pictures and movies that I took of them while they were playing!!!

Here they are just sitting in there.

Here is more of an action shot. Splash!!! Splash!!!! Splash!!!!

Lizzie decided that she wanted to get out at one point, but she kept reaching in to play with the water. Jamie on the other hand was more interested in the long grass on the other side.

I soon found out why Lizzie wanted to get out and it was because I took away the toys that she used to dump water on Jamie's head (see the movie below) and she wanted them back.

So here is the movie of Lizzie pouring water on Jamie's head. She always tries to do this in the bathtub and usually misses as she pours the water towards her. Here she figured it out though.

In the end Jamie was tired of being in the pool and let me hold him for awhile. I finally put him down and let him pull the grass since no one will mow it.

Here they are showing off how well they can splash!!!

Well after all the fun in the pool I decided to let the kids try ice lollies for the first time. Lizzie really seemed to enjoy hers. . .

Jamie however was not very impressed. He did take a couple licks though.

After all this fun it was lunch time, I thought, Jamie seems to have had other plans.

Well while Jamie was sleeping (in his bed, he did get moved), Lizzie was trying a new food. After her lunch I thought to give her some peaches as we had some fresh ones that needed eaten. I peeled one and gave her a few pieces. She tried one and gave the rest back. She then begged for the peel. So I gave her some and she enjoyed it. She ended up eating the whole peal and still wanted more. I am so very often surprised by what she will (or will not eat). Yes, that is peach peel in her mouth.

Well that is our day in the sun.
We really hope that we might have a few more this year, maybe even another week, two if we are lucky. Perhaps we will even have a month of nice weather. I should say though that our sunny days usually only get up to 25C (80) or so. If it gets to 30C (90) they start to think the end of the world is coming.

Well I hope that as you all get sick of the hot weather that you will remember us just hoping for one more day of bright, warm day.

Scotland

It is true after a day in London to unpack and pack and I even did my Visiting Teaching silly me, we were off again to Scotland.

Our reason for going to Scotland was that my mom was told that there is a castle in Scotland where all the Hunters in the whole world come from, we figured we had better see this castle. So that is the first thing that we did. Here are some pictures that we took of the castle.

It has now been turned into private housing and they only open it to the public one day a year. Sadly we didn't know this so we were unable to see the inside. We did get the number of someone to call for a tour, but he was also on holiday that weekend. We hope to still make contact with him and find out more about the castle and the family that came from there.

We didn't really know what else to do while in Scotland, but we decided to go into the highlands so we drove north. We didn't have a place to stay which I wasn't so worried about because we had done some well finding places on our other travels, but here it took about 2 hours to find a place to stay. It was not fun. We did end up in quite a nice place in a remote area.

Saturday when we went to lunch mom and Brian got talking a little to some people in the line. Sunday when we went to church we found out that the man was the bishop of that ward. What a coincidence. He was happy that he had been nice to them.

After church on Sunday we took the advice of the people that we were staying with and drove up in the hills. It was a beautiful drive though again blocked some by clouds. The destination was Inveraray Castle where some Duke still lives. We had a nice time playing in the area in front of castle, but decided it wasn't worth it to go in. I think that they used to have the gardens opened but this day they didn't, so we just got to play in the rocks.

Lizzie loved playing in the rocks!!!

Here are the people that I love just walking around!!!

Here are the silly people that I love in motion!!!

After our visit we went to a pub in the town for dinner. Shortly after arriving there we noticed welt looking like bumps on Lizzie's skin. Which was odd. But we ate our dinner and these welts on Lizzie continued to get worst so we called the NHS (National Health Service) helpline and talked to a nurse and ended up taking Lizzie in to see a doctor. We had a navigation device and so we put in the address to the hospital and were on our way. We passed the entrance to the hospital while following the GPS and when it told us we had a arrived there was no hospital in sight. We all had a bit of a laugh and then drove around a bit and found the hospital again. Lizzie was looking much better though. The doctor said that it was just an allergic reaction and to give her some antihistamine and she got better quickly.

Monday we decided to see what Glasgow was like. We tried to find a tall ship that the GPS said was around there somewhere. We never did find it as the instructions just kept leading us around in circles, and even across water according to it, or maybe we were suppose to turn before the bridge. We did drive by a nice big Square and some other things but it just wasn't that exciting of a place not knowing what to see so we started towards the airport with a castle to see on the way.

This castle was quite unique to me in the fact that it is a ruin that we could just walk about as we pleased. There were a bunch of young boys there running around and up and down. Here is what is left of the castle.

And here we are inside of it. It was a self guided tour with only a few signs on the walls to let you know where you were and a little better of how this part was connected to the rest of the castle that is now gone.

Here is mom going down the steep narrow staircase out of the place.

On our drive we also saw this rather interesting looking structure up on a hill. We investigated further. . .

And found this entrance to in at the bottom of the hill on the other side. I think it is a great looking castle. Mary Queen of Scots was even kept save here for a time along with many other important roles that it played. Mom and I didn't want to pay the price for the chance to walk up the hill while Brian waited in the car with sleeping children so we didn't go in.

Well then it was time to get to the airport for yet another exciting plane ride back to London our journeys now over.

Two days later we put my mom back on an airplane and said goodbye to her. Lizzie kept trying to say goodbye to me and go with Grandma. She gave me the kisses goodbye and wouldn't let me hold her for long. It is cute to see how much Lizzie likes her Grandma.

Three weeks later and I am still trying to get Jamie to sleep through the night again. So I guess that we have yet to fully recover.

I must say though three weeks to get all of this up on the Blog to share with everyone isn't to bad, for me at least. It will be nice to get to write about what we are doing now again so that I won't forget the little fun things in our day to day lives.

I hope that you have all enjoyed hearing of our travels, we sure enjoyed having them. It is getting hard to travel with the two little ones though, so I don't know that we will be doing much more for awhile. Next plane ride might just be to New York with a one way ticket.