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.

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!!

My cute girls
Me and Melissa

Getting ready for surgery

4th of July cuties

Me and Bella at Oceanside Beach
Bellas first time in a pool
Disneyland(my favorite place)
Sea World First time in the sand-she tried to eat it of course

May

So May brought us Tanners 6th birthday. He had a great time having his first friend party. I will say that 10 six year olds is a hand full-but it was a great time. Tanner also graduated from kindergarten. It was so much fun to go to the graduation and see all the fun things they have learned this year. He has grown up so much this school year-and especially since Bella was born. Tati finished 2nd grade being her teachers favorite. Bella is growing like a weed. She started to develop a blue lump on her eye that the doctors thought was a clogged tear duct-so she went to a specialist to get it checked. He agreed that was what is was and told us to push on it to try and open it up for 6 weeks-more to come on that story.

Troy and I celebrated our 10th anniversary. It has been a wonderful decade! I am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful man. He is my best friend and an awesome dad. He is just the best. It is hard to believe it has already been 10 years and yet it also seems like just yesterday we were young and planning a wedding and life together. I am just one lucky girl.

Sorry no pics for May-Troy downloaded them onto his computer and then erased them before I could put them on mine.

Summer Recap-

Okay so I have been awful at updating this summer. It has just been so busy and is now almost over-school starts next week. I am going to try and give a month by month recap-highlight reel-hopefully I will get it done today and I will try to be better.

Easter Fun!!

Easter was great fun this year. I dressed all the kids up in matching outfits-a first for me-but it was way cute!! We enjoyed a wonderful church meeting learning about our Savior and the great gift of the Atonement. We then had a wonderful dinner with Troys sisters. Saturday we colored eggs and saw Monsters vs. Aliens. It was a fun weekend.

Here is Bella all dressed up
Troy and Bella

Please ignore my claw hand :)

Me and Bella

Cute Tanner

Beautiful Tati

All matching in Springy Green

Bella playing with the toys the Easter Bunny brought

All ready for Church

Bella's Blessing

Sorry I have been a slacker when it comes to updating the blog-but who has time when you are loving on this sweet girl each day? :) We had a wonderful blessing day for Bella. Many family members came to support us and it was truly beautiful. Bella looked gorgeous, but hated her dress and hollered about it a lot-until we took it off. She is such a sweet baby girl. She has added so much to our family and we feel so blessed. It is wonderful to see the priesthood in action and I am so grateful for a husband who honors his priesthood.