Adventures of Supermans Mommy

Friday, March 11, 2011

Attn: Tanner Hansen

Please go to the following link www.LaurenandTannerProm.blogspot.com

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Day Seven-London Again
On Friday we went back into to London to see the Tower of London. This place is absolutely amazing!! It is nearly 1000 yrs. old! We of course took a tour with the Yeoman Warder-who was hilarious and had some awesome stories to tell. We drove over the Tower Bridge which is stunning. We saw Tower Green where Anne Bolyn was beheaded, traitors gate and of course the Crown Jewels. We couldn't take pictures in there, but they were impressive. Some parts of the Tower date back to Roman times. It is so amazing to see so much history in one place. The White Tower was very cool and they had an awesome display featuring armor and other things from Henry VIII's time. After the Tower we took the Tube to Kings Cross Station and found Platform 9 3/4-we tried to get to Hogwarts, but didn't have enough magic-I guess we are true Muggles. Tanner wanted to take a "2 headed" bus, so we hopped on a double decker. Tanner and Troy scored awesome seats in the front on the top and we enjoyed riding through London. We drove down Oxford Street and got off near Harrods. Harrods is absolutely HUGE and the window displays were quite impressive. They were holding a Winter Festival in Hyde Park that was lots of fun. It had lots of rides and fun booths. Troy and the kids rode a ride and we stocked up on Gummis. It was an awesome last day. On Saturday we headed to the airport and once again ended up lost and barely making our flight, but we had so much fun. It was truly an amazing vacation. England did not disappoint in any way and I can't wait to go back again some day as there is so much more to see-Troy says I have to see Italy first though :)

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Yeoman Warder

Traitors Gate

Henry II Throne

The White Tower

The Tudors

Guard outside the Jewel House

Tower Green

On the Tube

Bella didn't want to go to Hogwarts

Double Decker riding down Oxford Street

Harrods

Our Hotel-a 16th century Country Estate

ENGLAND

Day Five-Hampton Court Palace
On Wednesday we drove out to Hampton Court Palace. This palace was one of the homes of Henry VIII. I love Tudor history so this was a must see for me. It was built in the early 1500's. It is massive. We spent the entire day exploring. We were lucky to be there during the celebration of 500 yrs since Henry VIII became King. So they were having reenactments of his last marriage to Katherine Parr. It was so fun to see the actors and it really brought the history to life for the kids. They came home pretending they were ladies and gentlemen of the Court. Tanner had fun pretending he was Sir Thomas Seymour. It was really cute to watch. Tatiyana read all the plaques in the different rooms explaining the history and what the room was used for. It was a bit rainy but not too cold as long as we were bundled up. The rooms were beautiful, the gardens amazing. This was one of my favorite days.

Outside Hampton Court

Henry VIII

Troy pretending to be King

Tudor Kitchens

Gardens

One of the Royal Apartments

Day Six-France
On Thursday we decided to take a ferry from Dover over to France. We didn't go all the way into Paris, but went to a cute little town called Lille. It was so pretty. We kept the kids busy on the drive by counting all the churches we saw. Each town has its own church. We counted somewhere in the 30's on our way from Calais to Lille. This was our coldest and rainiest day yet, but we still had a great time. It is amazing to see the difference between France and England in the buildings. We found a darling Christmas Market. I was so excited to buy an ornament. When we went to Germany before we were married I loved the Christmas markets. The smells again reminded Troy of home. We found yummy crepes and managed to get by even though we know absolutely zero French. We then decided to drive into Belgium. The kids slept through the whole drive, but Troy and I enjoyed seeing the sites. We stopped at a beautiful cathedral in Tornai, Belgium that looked a lot like Notre Dame. We then drove back to Calais to find some dinner and catch the ferry back across the Channel. The kids now have two stamps in their passports.

Cathedral in Belgium

Town Center in Lille, France

Christmas Market

On the Ferry leaving England

(right before I got super sea sick)

ENGLAND

DAY THREE-LONDON
So on Monday we decided to drive into London to see the Tower of London. We got up early and headed in. Unfortunately we didn't know that the day before there was a fire in the Blackwall tunnel-this is the main way to get into London from Kent. So traffic was at a standstill. We sat and we sat-of course since we didn't really have a clue where we were we didn't know how to bybass it-so we spent several hours in traffic. Finally we decided to go to Westminster instead of the Tower. It gets dark at like 4 pm so we didn't get to see anything in the daylight. We did make it to Westminster and Big Ben. It was awesome!! I just love how old the buildings are and they have so much history it is amazing. We then walked all over this part of London. We went to Trafalgar Square and found a nice little Italian Resturaunt to eat at, we then walked down to Buckingham Palace. We walked along the Princess Diana memorial walk. It was really beautiful. The gates on the Palace are so ornate. Sadly since it was so late we didn't see any guards, but we did have the area completely to ourselves. London is crazy busy with people everywhere, but it has such an awesome energy.

Westminster Cathedral

Big Ben

Trafalgar Square

In a phone booth

Buckingham Palace

Day Four-Canterbury

On Tuesday we decided to explore Canterbury. It was just a short drive from our hotel and was so adorable. It was so quaint. The downtown area was closed off to vehicles and was all cobbled stone streets. There were darling shops and resturaunts. Troy loved Canterbury, it reminded of being home back in Germany. We loved exploring. We toured the famous Canterbury Catherdral. It was so so beautiful! I was in awe at how ornate everything was. The stained glass windows were amazing. The tombs were so interesting. Many important people were buried here. We saw the shrine of Thomas Becket and tomb of Henry III and his queen. It was such a nice relaxing day, the sun was shining and we didn't have any rain.

Downtown Canterbury

Inside the Cathedral

Shrine of Thomas Becket

Canterbury Cathedral

ENGLAND

So I am going to start my backtracking with our trip to England!! Since most of you don't know me well I will give you a little history. I LOVE LOVE LOVE almost all things British. I have had a love affair with english history for nearly 15 years. I will read just about anything that has to do with the English royal families and their history. I know it is kinda nerdy-but I am just facinated by it. So when we were planning our vacation and our timeshare had an opening in Canterbury(just 1hr outside London) we jumped at the chance to go. IT was AMAZING!!!! I loved every single minute of it. We were so lucky to find an awesome deal on plane tickets so we took our kids and I am so glad that we did. They were so good and still talk about all the things we saw to this day. They can't wait to go back to Europe. I think that because Troy and I were excited for all the things we were seeing it really rubbed off on the kids. It will definitely take more than one post to document all the awesome things we saw.

Day ONE-the kids were so awesome on the 12 hours we spent on the plane. They slept almost the whole time-which was so nice. We started our decent into London in the morning and since Troy had already been there he let me have his window seat. We were in a holding pattern to land at Heathrow so we flew down the Thames and back again. I was seriously like a little kid-I could barely sit still as we flew over Big Ben, the Tower and Tower Bridge. It was a beautiful clear and sunny day and I was in Heaven!! We rented a car since we weren't staying in the city and let me tell you what an experience that was. Driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the car was interesting to say the least. Troy was a pro by the 2nd day, but we did have lots of adventures as we ended up lost quite a bit :) The GPS was a lifesaver and totally worth the extra money. We drove through London from Heathrow to Greenwich just to see the scenery and then headed down to Canterbury to find our resort. We finally made it to the hotel after dark as we couldn't figure out the address to our hotel and ended up out in the English countryside driving on 1 lane farm roads, but the GPS got us back on track and to the hotel safe and sound. We were of course exhausted but needed a trip to the grocery store, the girl at the hotel gave us awesome directions and off we were to Tesco-the food is very different than here but we managed to find a few things we would all eat :)Sadly I didn't take any pics cause I was just taking it all in.

DAY TWO- DOVER

Today we slept in-we were all exhausted. We decided to take a drive down to Dover and explore the area. We saw the White Cliffs of Dover which were way cool. We then found a cute little English town where we found some lunch. It was Sunday so most places closed early and it was rainy and cold, but we had a great time exploring this area. IT was sooo beautiful! I have never seen any place so green even in December. We went back to the hotel to get enough rest for our 1st day in London.

On the beach on the English channel

it was super windy

English Channel

White Cliffs of Dover

Me and Tanner seeing the Channel for the first time

MIA

Hi all I know it may seem that I have fallen off the face of the earth. But I am still here-just busy being a mom to 3 awesome kids. I have lots to post about as the last 8 months or so have been full of fun and memorable things. So bear with me while I get back into the groove of the blogging world.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Summer 2009

So here is a summer recap-Sorry the pics aren't in order. In June we went to San Diego and had a great relaxing week. We went to the beach, Sea World and Disneyland. It was fun to spend that time together as a family. At the end of June Bella had her first surgery on her eye. At first they thought it was a clogged tear duct, but found out during the procedure that it isn't. It is a hemangioma-it is a type of birth mark that actually shows up after birth and then goes away in 2-4 years. But since it is on her eye and was starting to block her vision we chose to have them inject it with steroids which is suppose to make it shrink. We did that in July and by August there wasn't a lot of progress so they ordered an MRI to take a closer look. It is quite big and actually wrapped around her tear duct making it a difficult one to take out. So as of right now we are just watching it. In the last 6 weeks or so it has shrunk a lot so we are glad to see that progress. We enjoyed the 4th of July parade and fireworks. We also got to visit with my good friend Melissa on her 30th birthday. The kids took swimming lessons, Tanner did basketball camp and Tati did volleyball camp. Tati made the level 4 gymnastics team so she is competing this fall and we are so proud of her. So there it is our summer in a small nutshell. Enjoy the pictures that are in no particular order. Next up Back to School time!!