Recovering Well!!!

I am very happy to report that this week has been much less exciting then last week. We have actually spent most of it at home as the kids sleep a lot to get over being sick. They really have had some long naps this week and besides walks to the shops we didn't go out of the house much, until Saturday. I think that they are now well enough that next week we will be able to visit some friends and let them be around other kids.

Saturday morning I left Brian with the kids as they were finishing breakfast, and he figured out how to get the kids to help do the washing up!!! We have learned that we need to train kids in their youth. This picture was taken through the kitchen window on Sunday night when Brian showed me how he got Jamie involved.

This weekend was Stake Conference so we decided to spend some time in the city. We left a little later then planned as some people came to buy one of our cribs. Then we thought that we would go and see some fishes at the Aquarium, but there was a long line to get in so we decided to go over by the church to some of the free museums over there.

The Aquarium is over by Parliament so we decided to take a few pictures
on our way back to the station.

Lizzie started out enjoying the bugs and the fishes, but started getting very nervous with the large animals. Except with the ones that she knows from her books like the monkey and the elephant at first.



After spending some time at the Museum of Natural History we decided that it was about dinner time and walked over to our favorite Indian place. When we got there we found out that it didn't open for another hour so we waited. While waiting Lizzie got to help move the kegs around.


Brian has been going to this restaurant since his single days and so they know us there pretty well. They were surprised with how big our kids have gotten and it was as always fun to see the owners again.

Here we are outside of the restaurant.

Sadly though it made us an hour late for the adult session of the conference, but we made it in time to hear the talks of the visiting seventies. They both gave very good talks that I was happy to be there to hear.

Since selling Jamie's bed we have had to change the sleeping arrangements.

I think Lizzie kind of likes her new bed, I'm just waiting till she realizes that she can really get out of it. I imagine that she will be over playing by Jamie at nap time at least one day this next week. She can't yet open doors if closed all the way so we can still prevent her from leaving the room if needed.

This morning we arrived at Stake Conference just as it was starting thanks to the clocks being set back last night, that extra hour helps a lot when trying to get ready in the morning. Our Stake President is moving back to the States and so another presidency had to be called. To our surprise one of the newest members in our ward was put in as a counselor, he had just been set apart the day before as a High Counselor on Saturday. He found a way to get out of that calling without even having to go to one of the meetings. It was a great meeting yet again as the leaving and new presidencies spoke and again the two visiting seventies who have such great spirits and testimonies. After the meeting we got to visit with a few of our friends from the stake before leaving the very crowded building.

To end here is a fun video of Lizzie looking at her baby animals book!!! Enjoy!!!

Funny Video

I all the craziness of last week, I did get to watch this pigeon trying to eat an apple off of our tree. I found it so very funny I thought that I should take a video. I hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

A Few too Many Visits to the Hospital

We have been going to doctors and A&E (Accident and Emergency) far to much this week or so. It started with last Thursday when I went to my local doctor to let him know that I was pregnant and to the the process in hopes of getting the early scan as the pregnancy did quite feel right, so I wanted some confirmation that all was well before leaving the country since I didn't know how long it would be before I went to a doctor again.

Saturday and Sunday I went to the A&E as I was bleeding and could tell there were complications. Monday we returned to the hospital and it was confirmed that I had miscarried the baby. It is very strange how much peace Brian and I have felt through this whole thing. I guess it just wasn't meant to be that we would have all of our children really close together, or that the timing would be wrong with the move and all. It is interesting that even though we planned this one, we have so much peace about our plan not working out. After Sunday we said we were going to avoid the A&E from then on. We figured that we could do that with just over a month left before leaving the country, but we were wrong.

Monday afternoon we went to see again to our doctor's surgery to see the nurse about if we should get the vaccinations for Jamie a little early or wait until we are in the states. It was decided that it was better to get the shots late then to get them early. Tuesday and Wednesday Jamie started getting a little sick. On Thursday he woke up early and as I was laying with him in bed I noticed that he was breathing quite loudly, when my ear was near his chest. I decided to take him to the GP, so back to the doctor's surgery that morning. When the doctor listened to Jamie breath she said that we had better take him to the A&E as he sounded quite bad and they could treat him better there. So off we went back down to the hospital. There is a separate A&E for children, which is just off of the regular A&E. When we got called in they took us right to the back though so I didn't get to see what it was like except for the examination rooms. They looked at him and listened to him breath, gave him medicine to bring his temperature down, they put him on a nebulizer, with much waiting in between the different parts. they said that he has bronchiolitis or something like that, which is a virus of the bronchioles. I have done some research so that I could figure out how it is spelled and found that it is most commonly caused by RSV.

Finally, the doctor came to see him and after much debating he decided that as a precaution he should stay in the hospital for the night just to be careful. I called a friend, Josie, who lives near the hospital as she came to get a very bored and tired Lizzie. Then they took Jamie and I upstairs to the Children's Ward, where they have a nice little playroom and other fun things for children. Jamie however didn't get to see any of that as he had to stay in his room the whole time, they put him in isolation so that he wouldn't infect any of the other children.

I was quite interested to see the hospital crib that he would get to sleep in, so I asked Brian to bring the camera along with our other items for the night. Here is my attempt at taking an artsy picture of him in his crib.

It was good that we were in the hospital that night as his fever raised and it affected his breathing and he wasn't getting enough oxygen. They took a chest xray and took some blood, both of these to see if he had an infection, they tried to put a baby iv thing in order to give him antibiotics if there was a infection, they put an oxygen mask on him, they were giving him nebulizer treatments ever 40 minutes with just a saline solution in it, to help brake up the junk in his lungs, plus others with medicine stuff in it however often. They even notice that the machine, they hooked him up to, read a few times that his heart rate dropped to 80 so they gave him something to shock his system into working. I really think that they over did it a bit. It was crazy, thankfully he slept through most of it.

Here is a picture of him sleeping with the oxygen mask on during the night.

Thankfully, when morning came and he got up he was back to his normal playful self and by the middle of the day that his breathing was sounding very good, and they stopped even listening to him breathing. He was still getting nebulizers of the saline solution every few hours and an inhaler at the same time. They still wanted to keep him one more night just to make sure that the same thing didn't happen as the night before. Thankfully, Friday night he slept well the whole night and had no problems.

Here is Brian giving Jamie the nebulizer. After this Lizzie wanted to try the little machine as well.

Here are just some pictures of Jamie playing in his crib.

The bed really does tilt far, as does the feet, and the bed rises up so the Jamie was taller then me.

After such a good night I thought that they would easily release him. However when the doctor came in the morning and listened to his breathing, he was wheezing a little. So they gave him the inhaler again and kept him around to see if it helped. I was very disappointed with this news as 1. I really wanted to be out of the hospital and 2. Our friend Sara was getting married that day and I really wanted to be at the wedding. This news came to late for me to get to the wedding, but Brian came to be with Jamie so that I could go to the reception. I had a great time at the reception and she looked stunning.

While I had been staying in the hospital with Jamie, Brian was having quite a hard time with a Lizzie who was also getting sick and being miserable. She was sleeping really badly and being very demanding. So when I called Brian to see how they were doing as I left the reception, I was more disappointed then surprised when he told me that the doctor had told him to take Lizzie down to A&E so that she could get checked out. Jamie was sleeping at this time. When I got to the hospital 45 minutes later, Lizzie was still in A&E so I went down to be with her and let Brian go back up to be with Jamie. Almost an hour later I was getting very antsy as I had promised Sara and Andrew that Brian would be there to be a witness for their temple sealing, and the time was getting close for if he could get there on time. He didn't realize it at the time but the only people they had invited to the sealing were those who were to have a part in it, which is why he really needed to go because otherwise they would have to find someone at the temple that they didn't know to be their witness. So I went up to relieve him. As I got there they were just releasing Jamie as well as the doctor had just gone down to see to Lizzie. I forced him to leave and cleaned up the room then returned to A&E so that Lizzie could be seen to. After another hour or so Lizzie was also released and they both came home with inhalers to use a bit often if you ask me. After the first day I have only used them as needed.

On my way back from the reception I remember that the teacher for Sunday had called, on Wednesday, to say that she wasn't going to be able to make it and I hadn't found anyone else to teach. Which meant that I had a lesson to prepare. The lesson was number 19 in the Joseph Smith Jr. book which talks all about trials. I figured that I knew a little about trials after the week that I had, but I soon realized that what I had been though was not even close to what JS Jr. and others of that time were asked to suffer. It also made me wonder just what Joseph Smith thought as he went through these trials. Thinking back on my week and how some may say that it was simply an terrible week, yet through it all I have felt peace, I have been comforted and I have know that all will work out. I imagine that Joseph Smith also was given a lot of comfort in his trials in which we look at them as much worse then he would have. It was also nice to be reminded that we all need to be proved and tested in order to be found worthy to live with Heavenly Father again.

As I was finishing my lesson a dear friend, Suzi Gregersen who was in the ward about two years ago sneaked into the back of the room. After church I enjoyed talking to her and her husband and knew that Brian would enjoy to see them as well, besides they never got to meet my kids. So they came over for dinner and we had a great evening with them even though we fear that we kept them to late for they did have someone else to visit afterwards. It was a great surprise and so wonderful to catch up with them.

Well I guess that I had better end there, I'm sure I have written far to much. But it was a much more exciting week then we usually get, for which I am glad, I'm not sure what I would do if every week was like this one.

Moving and Giggles

Well at the beginning of this week I was able to make another CD of pictures so that I could finally clean off my memory stick which wasn't going to let me take very many more pictures. Today as I went to look for pictures to put up on this blog, I found only pictures of things that we are trying to sell and the video below. I guess that shows what we hav been focused on this week, MOVING. We have now bought our plane tickets so we finally have a date of departure, November 19. I can now start counting down the days (which by the way stand at 38), it is kind of sad to think so definate about leaving. We are also trying to sell and get rid of all of our stuff. I put a huge list on the internet on Friday and have gotten a lot of interest in it so far. Two people have come and taken away a few things each. One of them was interested in seeing everything that we had in our kitchen, thankfully she didn't take it all thought she did take some things that we will miss, like our measuring cups and spoons. We will be able to survive though. Brian even made some good bread today without them or the bread pans, so they are round loaves. Hopefully things will keep selling.

Now to the fun part. Thursday night the kids were being so very cute and playful together. I got out the camera which distracted them from the game that they were playing, but I did still get a cute video of the kids playing and giggling together. They are starting to play together so much better, which makes making dinner much nicer as they will play together instead of crying for my attentions. It is great!!!!! Here are my silly kids!!!!

Lizzie Turns Two!!!!

Well another week has passed. The weather has again turned rainy as it always seems to do here. We did however make it to the park on Monday, and I even remember my camera. It was a little cold though and everything was a little wet, so we didn't get to stay long. Jamie likes the swings or maybe he just can't get out so he pretends to like it while he is there.

Here is the playground part that I am always trying to get Lizzie to go across to the slide and which she never likes to do. She is getting better at it though.

This is the cute kids on the play ground, though Lizzie wants off.

I have also been trying to get Jamie to eat off of a spoon this week. He is doing okay, but it is early stages yet.



One of the other days it seemed to cold to go to the park so I decided to just blow some bubbles outside. The bubbles are great as they don't pop very easily, however their residue gets everywhere and is impossible to clean up. We had to have baths that night just to get the residue out of their hair.

Another night while I was cooking dinner I had the door open a little to let in some of the cold air. Lizzie got one of the bowls out of the cupboard and was taking it outside and picking leaves and grass to make a salad. It was quite funny, yet in the end it all ended up on the floor and she got to pick them up. I have now learned that among Lizzie's may ways to be helpful around the house she can sweep. This picture was taken after she had already taken the first load to the garbage, and spilled most of it back on the floor as the garbage can is a bit tall for her with the dustpan. She is a cute girl.

Saturday Lizzie turned two years old.

She really enjoyed blowing out the candles. (Sorry about the terrible singing.)

We did all enjoy eating the cake!!!!

Jamie even got to practice for his birthday coming up. That is cake in his hands.

This is just another cute picture of the kids from Sunday. Sitting right next to each other brushing their teeth.

Well I think that is all for us this week. We hope that you are all doing well!!!

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!!!!