Europe! The Beginning

I have to admit that these pics aren't the most exciting ones we took on our trip.  But then, as I was thinking back on it, the first part of our trip really wasn't that exciting.  I mean, I guess it's all relative.  Going to Europe= exciting.  But compared to everything that we did, this was less exciting.

Said Goodbye to our kiddos.  I took a picture of them in the car at the airport so I could look back on my camera at them when I got homesick.

Here we are on the airplane.  How happy do we look?!?!
I took a Lunesta and was out for 4 hours.  Fastest plane ride ever. (6 hour flight from Chicago to London)

Here I am in London!  So, we arrived at 7:00 am London time.  Felt like midnight.  But since I had slept on the plane, I was OK.
We had made plans to stay in the temple hostel that first day and do a session while we acclimated ourselves to the time change.  Good idea in theory. Super hard logistically to get to the temple from the Heathrow airport.  Expensive too.  But it was the temple and we got blessings for going so I'm glad we did!  Here I am on the temple grounds.

After the session, we decided to go running.  Our run was an adventure.  We ran to a tiny town about 3 miles away in the pitch black.  We kept thinking there would be street lamps, but there never was.  We passed by the cutest, coziest little British houses that still had their Christmas decorations up and we could see families through the windows gathered together in their living rooms hanging out.  I came to two conclusions on that run.

1. We are spoiled as Americans.  We don't need as big of houses as we think we do.
2. Less is actually more on Christmas decor.  You should have seen these cute, Charles Dickens houses and you would have to agree.  They had like one strand of lights across the front with a tiny Christmas tree in the window.  We loved it.

We ate dinner at an Indian restaurant in the little town.  We got a lot of strange looks by waltzing in there with our running clothes on.  Apparently in Europe, people get dressed up to go out.  Oh yeah, only Americans go out to eat in their sweats.  Oops!

The next day, we woke up way early to take the train to Paris.
Here we are waiting at the Lingfield train station to take us to the bigger train station.

Coming up Next:  PARIS!!!  The city of love!
PS. I do love America and Americans and wearing sweats, just want to be clear.

I'm Baaaack!

Hi, remember me? I used to blog.
When you get too far behind, it's just easier to put off blogging. 
I never wrote about Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, nor our 2 week trip to Europe!
I don't even know where to begin.
I just dug out some pictures- now I can knock out Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  I'll do bits of the European vacay over this upcoming week.
And then I'm caught up! YAY!

Halloween:  I know it is ridiculous for me to even post about this, it seems SO long ago.  But anyways, Noah was a kitty cat, inspired by Dora.  Halloween is his favorite holiday.  Well, maybe it's tied with Christmas.

Suzy reused the giraffe costume of Noah's from last year.  Cute.

Noah went trick or treating with his cousin, Jack.  Do you like how Noah was so inspired by Dora that he is even carrying a Dora backpack?

Thanksgiving.  It came and went.  We ate with our awesome family here in Arkansas.  I somehow managed to not take a single picture.  Dang.

Christmas.  It was awesome.

And there you have it!
Now, let's see if anyone reads this.  My sitemeter showed 3 page views today! :)  I love the 3 of you that stopped on by today.  You are the ones that have faith in me.  Watch out, I won't disappoint this week!  I have a lot of cool Europe stuff to talk about.

Europe in less than a week!

Today I packed for Europe!
We leave next Tuesday.  I know I packed a week early, but I want to enjoy Christmas and everything about the season and not worry about it.
Plus, it made me REALLY excited!

We are headed to London first, then taking the train to Paris for 2 days.  Highlight while there:  Tchaikovsky ballet/opera:  Oneguine by John Cranko here at the Palais Garnier: (anyone been?)

Then, back to London for some New Year's Eve action here:

Followed by hanging out with friends, then something from my bucket list:  seeing Les Miserables in London.  And I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited about the Jean Valjean replacement.  I was very sad to see Alfie Boe go, but thrilled to hear that the person who played Enjolras in the 25th anniversary performance (Ramin Karminloo) is the new Valjean.  Love him and his voice!  Like I have a crush on his voice. (far right)

Then after that, we catch a flight to Malaga and we are going to visit friends from Spain and then meet up with my parents and sister (who arrived home from her mission in Paraguay today!) and basically HAVE THE TIME OF OUR LIVES!

I'm just so excited.
If any of you have been and have tips/advice/must do/sees---let me know please!

Thoughts

I'm not even sure what I am going to blog about right now. But it's 8:30 pm, the kids have been in bed for an hour, Jared has been gone doing homework since 9:30 am, my house is cleaned, journal is written in, paint project is finished, "The Sing Off" episode I missed last week has been watched, and I'm in the mood to blog.

Like I mentioned in my last post, I love and hate my blog.
Love going back and re-living past moments.  Love writing.  Love watching my family grow.
Hate how I compare myself to everyone else's awesome blogs.  Hate how I don't take good pictures or even enough pictures.  Hate how no one comments on blogs my blog anymore.

Anyways, things are going pretty good over here.  Jared is supposed to graduate on the 22nd--- in 3 days.  He is SO close.  But he's not going to make it.  Our new deadline is December 1st so he can avoid rematriculating and paying the fee to do so.  He'll make that deadline for sure.  And you better believe we will be partying over here.  Jared and I have been married a little over 4 years now and I have put him through his entire Bachelors degree.  When that diploma comes in the mail, I am adding my name to it in Sharpee marker.  And then we will be done with school until August.  The plan is for Jared to start on his MBA at the University of Arkansas next fall.  Of course he still needs to take the GMAT, so I guess there will be no break over here. ha!

I love my kids.  They make me so happy.  Suzy is out of her clingy stage.  She is now the same size as her brother.  Ok, well, Noah is taller, but skinnier.  But they are both in the same size clothes.  18 months.  They are more than 18 months apart too!

If I were to predict what my kids would be like in high school based on their personalities now, this is what I would guess:
Noah- artsy, into music, runner, soccer &/or baseball player, the smart kid
Suzy- dancer, sweet, nice, really good girl, quiet
I guess we will find out if I'm right in about 13 years!

I'm really excited to start reading the Harry Potter series.  I read the first book in high school and decided I didn't care to read anymore.  But then this last year, I decided to watch all the movies to see what all the hype was about.  And I got hooked on them.  And since the books are WAAAAY better than the movies...(right?) I decided to dive in.

And with that, I think I'll head on over to Pinterest to find some Thanksgiving stuff to make.  I'm hosting this year for Jared's family. 

Be back soon xxx

Update

Blogging and I have a love/hate relationship.

A few of you have started updating your blogs lately and it has inspired me. 

Here is a quick update.

Suzy

Suz is about as cute as she can be.  She is such a happy girl.  Noah gave her the nickname 'Suza' and it has pretty well stuck.  She loves being outside and running around.  She is wiggly and giggly and fun!

Noah

Noah is a sweet kid.  He is very smart and loves to make deals with us.  Negotiate privleges.  A business man, just like his daddy.

Courtney

I have been up to:

Activity Days

Cleaning

Laundry

Teaching Piano

Playing Piano

More Cleaning

Taking Care of Kids

Yoga

Running

Reading

& Daydreaming

Jared 

Jared is pretty much doing it all right now.  He has to have all his assignments in for graduation on November 22nd.  Then we he will finally have his MUCH anticipated Bachelors degree from BYU!  He is putting in a lot of hours at Pfizer, the job he got back in August.  He's also doing quite a bit of traveling, to the jealousy of his wife. (even if it is business traveling, it is still a break from kiddos and mac n cheese!)  He continues to work a little for his old company on the side.  In addition,  he has been running and training for races- he will do another half marathon this Saturday.  Jared is amazing.  I don't see much of him and am hoping this will change when he graduates. 

That's it for now, hopefully I'll be back again soon---I still want to post about Suz's birthday (in September), my birthday (in October), and Halloween. 

Noah on Fog

Kids are funny. This morning, I got the kids up early to go watch Jared and his brother, Caleb race in the Chili Pepper 10K.  Noah was not happy about being woken up.  I told him it was going to be a great day.  He said "NO, it will be a MEAN day!"  Here's the rest of the convo:

Me:  "Oooh, look at the pretty fog."
Noah:  (yelling)  "I don't like dogs!!!"
Me:  "I didn't say dogs, I said FOG."
Noah: (still yelling) "I don't like frogs!!!"
Me:  "I said FOG, not frogs."
Noah:  "What's fog?"
Me:  "It's when clouds are on the ground and not up in the sky."
Noah:  (yelling again) "I don't like clouds on the ground!!!"

Nothing like waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Ha ha

Noah's Daily Schedule

I am such a planner. I have our entire week planned out before Monday morning even hits.  I always know what we are doing each day.  But Noah doesn't.  (Or should I say didn't.)  Noah is so much like me (personality wise), so I figured it might help his behavior a bit if he knew what was going on (he doesn't do well changing activities).  And sure enough---it has!

I came up with the idea of a kid schedule one night when I wasn't sleeping and about 10 hours later (it seriously took a long time to make, much longer than you would think) here it is!

We have been doing it for almost a month now. 

Noah LOVES it.

Each morning when he wakes up, the first thing he says to me is:

"Mom, let's go look at our schedule."

or

"What are we doing today Mom?  Let's go see our schedule!"

He is SUCH a mama's boy!!! ;)