London: Stonehenge, Salisbury, & Windsor Castle

Bright and early Sunday morning we drove over to Stonehenge.

(Please know that when I look at distances on a map I think it can't possibly take that long and I'll be able to get there faster. Multiple times I have been wrong about this but it has not deterred me. Don't vacation with me. I cannot be reasonable, I vacation us beyond the point of exhaustion.)

Tilt your head to the right a little and you won't notice that I didn't hold the camera very well. 

I'll edit the photos eventually...

This place was amazing.

Part of the amazing thing is that they have a lot of ways to express that they have no idea why these stones are the way they are. There are many ideas but no absolute truths. Most ideas center around the theory that they were built according to the pattern of the sun.

Our next stop was Salisbury Cathedral. They have 1 of the 4 (?) original Magna Carta

documents that still exist. Although very dated that document was used as a basis

for America's modern political system, along with other documents.

We could only take a few photos inside but it was beautiful.

I loved the courtyards that were everywhere.

While this picture is nice I was hoping it'd be a bit more like the one above,

only with us in it. 

Next vacation I'm getting a selfie stick.

As I explained earlier, I have no control over myself and not doing too much in 1 day;

therefor it was decided that we would "stop by" Windsor Castle before going to London.

Believe me when I say that we had to run from the car to the ticket booth because it was closing 

in 4 minutes. We just got inside and then had a rushed tour of the place.

Just my speed!

Thankfully Scott never looks at this blog so he'll never know I posted this.

While the outside was stunning the inside was equally as magnificent. Of course, no pictures were allowed. We got to tour many of the rooms and saw an incredible dollhouse that was lifelike in detail. I'm not into dolls but I would love to have that dollhouse.

For our Sunday service we went to Evensong in the nearby cathedral 

or chapel that looks like a cathedral.

While this photo seems pointless I just was so amused at how city-centered Windsor Castle was situated. There's this enormous medieval castle right across the street from modern business.

Stay tuned for the next 8 days of London (perhaps with some realtime updates mixed in).

London: Oxford & Bath

We went to London Oct 3-13. Scott has gotten a bunch of miles with work and I've wanted to go to London forever. Initially we weren't planning to be gone for so long but with flights it just worked best to be gone this long. In the end, perhaps it was a bit too long but we had a great time.

Yes, I know that Oxford and Bath are not in London. We landed Sat, Oct 4 in the morning, rented a car and spent 2 days in the countryside. It was terrifying and beautiful. Terrifying was driving on the other side of the road. Being in the county was actually really difficult because you didn't have a car to follow and keep yourself on the correct side. We had a few close calls... The happiest moment of our trip was returning that rental car and knowing that someone else would do the driving for the rest of the trip. Stress.

If you look closely at the water you'll see that it was POURING in Oxford. We pre-booked a river cruise so that's what we did. Thankfully they had a top so we stayed dry.

It was beautiful to wander around campus and enjoy the architecture and rich history of our surroundings. Oxford is actually a conglomeration of 34 (?) colleges so there's not really a "main campus". Everything we saw was beautiful.

After a nice lunch we drove out to Bath where the weather was much better.

As with everywhere in Eurpoe: there was a cathedral

and it was beautiful.

Our main attraction in Bath was the Roman Baths.

We got an excellent tour of the saunas and other amenities the Romans added.

Don't mind these photos with no real context. 

I already forgot why I took the picture but it's for your viewing pleasure.

And the bath itself.

These stacks were below the flooring and they would pump fires nearby and blow the smoke around the stacks to heat up the floors. Poor slaves who maintained them.

We spent the night near Bath and then it was onto Stonehenge, Salisbury and Windsor Castle!

Jackson 2.0

Some days

are better than others!

Baby #2 is coming June 1, 2015 (if they want to).

This pregnancy has been a bit weird because I feel like it's 

an exact repeat of the last one. Jackson's due date was June 3

so all of my appointments are at the same time so I don't

spend very much time looking at a calendar, wondering when

we'll find out the gender or other things.

The very few of you who read my blog are finding this out before Instagram!

And now of the outtakes...

Tales of Babysitting

 Scott and I went to London in October (and I promise to post about that starting next week) in exchange for Melissa watching Jackson for 10 days I watched Logan for 5 days while they went to Disneyland. When booking my trip 10 days didn't sound very long; when Melissa asked me to watch Logan for 5 days I felt like that was going to be eternity. We had a really good time but it made me more sympathetic to her watching Jackson for so long.

When Jackson is around a younger baby he starts to regress...

We survived church by just being locked in a classroom

and we played with the trash can.

At home Jackson made quick work of harassing Logan.

Seriously, poor Logan couldn't even breath without Jackson trying to sit on him 

or push him over or do something else annoying.

Meals were impossible...

And Jackson showed me that he can climb up on the dresser!

Although unsafe, we're kinda proud of him.

He had to swing the rocking chair just enough to lunge up on the dresser.

And the day after we returned Logan we watched another baby.

Jackson continued his antics.

We're happily just back down to 1 baby. For now...

Halloween Festivities

Since Jackson can't talk yet I decided to take him to community Halloween events 

instead of going house to house after his bedtime. Seeing as how it rained Halloween night 

that ended up being a very wise decision.

Tuesday we went down to Santana Row with Hailey.

Both kids were more interested in the water than the candy.

We met some ward friends there and everyone was so cute!

My highlight was getting candy from Tesla.

I was really hoping they'd give out little miniature Tesla's.

Jackson thanked me after by throwing a fit when I fed him lunch instead of candy.

Friday we double-dipped. 

We went down to Willow Glen with some friends.

And later we went to Los Altos. 

It was a downpour there and perhaps not my best parenting moment!

We stopped by Scott's work to show him off and then it was a much needed nap.

He's one tired, wet baby.