Archive for June 2014

Day Ninety-Two to One-Hundred-One: Catch Up, again...

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

So time has gotten ahead of me again as we live the day to day life here...things have been normal and good and pretty calm, which is always a good thing. Here is what we have been up to, along with a little photo dump. 

It has been funny and a little odd and also sentimental for me to see the boys slowly forget things from the states and adopt a new way of life here. The other day Tagg asked me, "Wait, what was my teachers name in Texas again?" They have both forgotten at times various friends names, and also that we still have a dog! Also, both boys have picked up some London lingo including saying "toilet" instead of "bathroom", "ice lolly" instead of "popsicle", "tidy up" instead of "pick or clean up" and various other things. Tagg also calls crosswalks, Zebra crossings, with the Zebra pronounced with the e like "egg" instead of the sound like an e like "tea". That made me laugh and also kinda threw me for a loop. It is funny. 

Here is my view morning and afternoon, walking behind these two scooter boys. 


So, here we are again at the local grocery store. Completely blocked aisle. It still makes me laugh. You wouldn't believe how good I have gotten navigating Tate's stoller around! 


Nothing entertains Tate more than having a little photoshoot. This boy cracks me up.











Tate was SO scared of the vacuum for the longest time. Fitting with his personality, he has now warmed up to it and actually loves to help me vacuum and sweep. We have a lot of fun during the day by ourselves.


Thatcher is such a sweet brother to Tate. Pretty much every morning he asks if he can go get Tate out of his crib as soon as he hears him wake up. He is so sweet and caring and always looking out for Taters needs. He plays with him and reads to him and I couldn't ask for him to be a better brother to Tate. He is has such a sweet nature and always is my big helper boy, with not only Tate but with everything. I so appreciate him as the oldest of these three brothers. 

Catching Thatcher reading a book to Tate...melts my heart. 


Well that pretty much catches me up! Yay!


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Day Ninety-One: The Highlands

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Today has been a LONG day in the car. Too long. But the one thing we realized from today was that Scotland is beautiful. Breathtaking even. But we also learned that we spent waaaaay too long in the car!

We woke up and got our stuff all together, ate breakfast, and then checked out. On our way to pick up our rental car, the door man at our hotel got us into a taxi and I tried to snap a quick pic of him. I loved that he is was in his full Scottish garb...including kilt. 


We got our rental car and heading out on the road to see the Scottish Highlands, including the town of Inverness and Loch Ness.

The trip up there was about 3 hours and we really loved watching the outside scenery turn from urban city to beautiful countryside.




We got to Inverness and Loch Ness and stopped for a bite to eat. Then we headed out to the famous Loch Ness, but we didn't see Nessie! But it is beautiful.





We stopped by a few famous sights, including a castle right on the lake and then turned around for the long trip back to Edinburgh, and then caught our flight.


This is how the boys were when we finally got to Edinburgh airport. Everyone was beat and SO tired of being in the car.


The trip home was fine, the boys were SUCH troopers today. We really ran them all over the place and there wasn't much complaining. Such sweet kiddos.

When we landed in London we were anxious to get home to our flat and in our own beds! We had a taxi driver waiting for us and we had a long hour ride home. I am not kidding when I say it was the CRAZIEST ride in a taxi ever. For some reason this guy kept slamming on the brake for no apparent reason. It was so jerky the whole way home, Todd and I both got car sick. It was NUTS. We had never been so happy to see our flat, and get out of that car!

So we are home, tired, but happy to have had a few days in Scotland. It was such a great opportunity to see it!!


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Day Ninety: "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry..."

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Today we woke up and we just hit a wall. Especially me. I was exhausted. After getting the boys to breakfast, and coming back to our hotel rooms, I just collapsed. It's been a busy couple of weeks, heck..months! We have been doing a lot of touring and I was just beat. Todd let me sleep for 3 hours, which was insanely nice. Our plans today were to go to the Highlands, but we just rescheduled for tomorrow and took it easy. It was much needed. 

In the afternoon after lunch we went to the hotel pool for some swimming. I unfortunately in my hustle to get us packed, forgot my swimsuit. So I sat out and took pictures, which was fine by me!

My guys...the Four T's...


Love this picture! Todd is such a good Dad. His kids bring him pure joy...


Taters was very nervous at first, typical Tate. 



But he quickly warmed up and had a blast. 


 I love this pic of Tagg, he is so crazy I love it. 




Love this little fishy...I have three boys who LOVE the water! 


So the funniest thing happened while we were at the pool. The hotel shares a pool with a spa that is joined to the hotel. There are designated times for family free swim, and we went during this time. In the back of us playing were a few people trying to swim laps. Todd was swimming to get one of the boys and he accidently bumped into this lady swimming laps. He said he was sorry and motioned to her to please go ahead. She stopped dead stroke and started yelling at him that she was pregnant and he needed to watch where he was going because he almost hurt her baby. I was watching the whole encounter from the side of the pool and couldn't believe what I was seeing. Todd told her that we weren't doing anything wrong, it was free swim, not lap swim. She totally went crazy on him. I was laughing from the side! We got a kick out of it, and just chalked it up to her pregnant hormones. But then she got out of the pool and went and talked to a pool worker and was ranting and raving and probably trying to get us kicked out. It was hilarious. Oh the Scottish are feisty all right!

We went back to our room and ordered pizza and hung out watching TV. Good day. Unexpected day, but good. Tomorrow we will go see more of Scotland and the Highlands, and then fly home late tomorrow night.


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Day Eight-Nine: "Great Scot!"

Friday, June 13, 2014

We woke up today bright and early thanks to a little critter named Tate. No blackout hotel shades can fool this kids body clock! No way, Jose! So we went to breakfast and while we ate we disturbed every business man and older vacationing couple around, we then got ready and headed out to explore Edinburgh!

Our first stop, the famous Edinburgh Castle. It is perched high atop a large mountainous rock called a cregg, and honestly to me it looked like what I always envisioned Camelot to look like. 

"I hear, it never rains till after sun down..."

We walked up the hill to the castle and on to the Royal Mile which is a street going from Edinburgh Castle to the Holyrood Palace.  

Here are the boys with us standing looking down the Royal Mile with the castle in back of me...
(those are such fake smiles I can't handle it...ha!)


Ahhh...some real smiles! All it takes is bribes and ice cream.
Here is Edinburgh Castle...



It was super cool! So large and gothic. I loved this lamppost outfront with the crown on top. 


Here are the boys finishing their first bribe of the day...


Edinburgh Castle has a very cool history, but I have always been intrigued with the history of Mary Queen of Scots. She gave birth to her only son here, who became King. 


We got our tickets from the ticket counter and honestly I had to stop myself from getting so distracted by their Scottish accents. SO cool to listen to! 


You get a great view of Edinburgh from the castle...





We walked around the grounds of the castle and enjoyed listening to the audio tour and learning more about the history.  

There is a prison here that housed prisoners from the revolutionary war. On the walls are carved american flags. It was so neat to see, and moving. Also a great teaching moment for the boys. I wanted to yell, "heck ya, we are awesome! Go USA", but decided against it for the social ramifications. 


They were putting up these stands for the music festival that takes place later this month. 


The dark stones that cover everything are really cool, but man it must be depressing when it is so grey and cloudy and everything is so dark! 





It was funny, Thatcher had a loose tooth and actually lost his first molar while we were touring the castle. I took a picture to commemorate it. He'll always remember losing a tooth in Scotland! 

I asked this boy to take a photo of us in front of the castle and when I got my phone back I had these pictures on it. Nice. Good one random kid. 



Here is the family picture in front of part of the castle. I didn't notice until we looked at this pic that we are all wearing green and grey! Ayyy! "Matchy matchy green squared!"...should've saved this for Ireland!


We saw the Crown Jewels, which do not allow you to photograph, and then we had lunch at a little cafe in the castle. We went to the gift shop to get our souvenirs and then we left the castle and walked down the Royal Mile and saw this wonderfully gothic old church.


More of the Royal Mile...


After a little while of walking we all realized we were getting super tired, so we jumped on one of the hop on and off again sightseeing buses...

Just a bunch of goofy tourists...


Snapping pictures from a moving double decker bus is a skill I do not possess. But we had a great time on the tour...

A memorial...



One of the oldest department stores in Scotland...


And of course a Scottish pub...


After our bus tour we were hungry and tired, so we headed to dinner at Wagamama's and filled up on yummy asian cuisine. Then we headed back to our hotel and chillaxed all evening. The World Cup started tonight and the boys watched part of the first game. I also watched this amazingly horribly filmed, low budget British TV show called Dinner Date. It was so bad it was good, like a train wreck ya know?

Now we are off to bed tired from our Edinburgh adventures!




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