Spring Break 2018: Part I--England

A few years ago, we started talking to the kids about traveling together as a family. We wanted them to try and save for the trip so we started putting money in a souvenir coconut bank I'd brought back from Hawaii. We talked about where we wanted to go. Eventually, we settled on London and Paris. A big draw to London was going on the Harry Potter studio tour and a big draw to Paris was the food. :) We thought we could do a trip kind of like I did with my sister years ago. We saved a bit and then I think the kids kind of lost hope thinking it would take too long. 

Fast forward to winter break this past year, I saw an ad for cheap flights and decided to look into how much it would cost for all of us to go. I was looking at airbnb's and everything simultaneously and figured out that we would have enough if we used the money in our travel fund and our credit card miles. I called Joe and we made the decision to go for it! It was exciting and scary. After that, we started making plans for our trip over spring break. We also cut the kids' allowance way back to finish up saving before the trip so we'd have money for meals and other stuff.

Before we knew it, it was the Thursday before spring break. The kids missed a day and a half of school and we left that morning. We walked to the BART station and we were quite the spectacle! 

The kids loved the moving walkways:

I was really impressed with how well the kids all managed their bags throughout the trip. We were able to borrow these kid-sized bags from a friend and they were perfect. We carried Eli's for him but it was light.

We flew from SFO to Iceland for a quick layover (we flew WOW air). We learned why the tickets were so cheap--it was definitely a bare-bones kind of transatlantic flight. No movies, screens, free food or drinks. We managed it fine, though, and some of us even slept. It was quite the sight. Nate and Lizzie were on the side two seats--Nate on the floor and Lizzie on the seats. The other four of us were in the middle seats--Joe managed to fit on the floor and let Eli lay on top of him. Natalie and I shared the four seats.

Beautiful view:

We had a layover in Iceland. I slept a bit more on a bench while Joe and the kids got some food. We all enjoyed seeing that the word for toilets in Icelandic is "snyrtingar."

We had about a 3.5 hour flight from there to Gatwick airport and then took a train into London to Victoria station which was close to our airbnb. The walk to the apartment was tricky since it was raining and we had trouble finding it but we finally did.

We were on the third floor:

We all crashed when we got there (after Joe and I ran out to get some groceries) and I didn't think I'd be able wake them up for our Harry Potter studio tour but we got out the door fine and took an Uber about 45 min outside of London for the tour. It was freezing there but once we got in and got some hot chocolate, we were ready to go. 

Don't be fooled by Eli's faces in these. He loved it! He just doesn't like taking pictures. :)

Entering the Great Hall was one of the coolest parts:

The age line:

The actual costumes and invisibility cloak!

The kids got to ride on a broomstick in front of a green screen:

Buckbeak!

Number 4 Privet Drive:

The gorgeous model of Hogwarts:

It was really fun and we were glad we did it!

The next day was Saturday. After sleeping in quite a bit, we headed out to take the tube to see some sights. 

Big Ben (under construction):

We went to Westminster Abbey first:

Eli didn't love that but the other kids seemed to.

Then we walked to the London Eye to get tickets for a ride later. We found a super fun park right by it and the kids loved climbing around for a bit there:

From there we walked to Trafalgar Square:

We'd planned on going to the National Gallery but we were all hungry at that point so we decided to walk to Fortnum & Mason's for tea service/early dinner.

The weather was so nice that afternoon:

The service was expensive but I thought it was all delicious and so worth it. 

I loved this label--"delightfully still":

Then it was back to the London Eye to ride. Such a beautiful view:

We were all spent after that so we went home to crash.

The next day was Easter Sunday and also my birthday. Joe got up early to walk to the rental place to get our car and saw a lot that way. He even picked up some chocolate for the kids so they could have a little bit of an Easter. 

We tried to get out the door pretty early so we could drive out to see Stonehenge.

It was awesome! It was so crazy to see something like this just off the freeway. The stones are huge! The kids loved hanging out at an arts and crafts area in the visitor's center and making things from clay:

The shuttle to Stonehenge wasn't running for a little bit so we walked out there. It ended up being quite far! At least for Eli. He didn't love it. I stayed back with him while the others went ahead. We finally made it there and he was disappointed to see he couldn't climb on the stones. I'm not sure where he had gotten that idea.

From Stonehenge, we drove to Waverley Abbey where we met up with Matt, Melissa, Andrew & Ivy! It was so fun seeing them. They were on the tail end of their trip and I'm glad we overlapped a bit. We had fun exploring the ruins of a 12th century church and seeing a bit of the English countryside.

The local wildlife:

We let our kids climb all over stuff and only realized later what a bad idea that was. Dumb Americans!

At least this tree was probably safe:

The house was beautiful:

We got dinner at a really yummy pizza place after that and then went our separate ways--them to Oxford and us back to London. The next morning, we were up early and off to Paris on the Eurostar.

Spring Little Things

Time to catch up on some of the everyday moments from February and March...

Date night! At one of our favorites places--dishdash:

It was oh so delicious.

Eli's preschool teacher sent me this picture one day:

He loves magic!

We dog-sat our friend Clark again. It was a bit rougher this time. They admitted that they let him sleep in their bed now and so I think he wasn't used to being shut out of rooms at night and whined a bit. He's still pretty easy, though, and my kids sure love him. One day I came down at night to find him like this:

He knew he was in trouble. :)

I can't remember where Eli got these glasses but he insisted on wearing them for awhile.

Being a cowboy:

For some reason the kids all decided to tape their mouths one night. 

I didn't complain! :)

Eli really wanted some homework of his own so he made himself all these math worksheets.

It's still a little tricky to read his handwriting but the math was good (3-4=-1; 3-5=-2; 5-2=3; 0-10=-10; one I can't read; 5-5=0)

Natalie really loves the color green now and plants of all kinds and one day she wanted some leaves in her braid. I thought it was cute:

I ran a 5K with my friend Whitney. We were hoping to motivate us to run more but it just wasn't long enough so neither of us really prepared at all. It was a fun race, though.

You might be able to see me at #93 with a 10:20 pace. Not so good but that's OK. 

We had a really bad bout of poison oak going around. We eventually figured out that Joe had gotten it from helping clean up the baseball fields and must have somehow given it to Eli. They both had it really bad and we had to cover the rashes with a vinegar solution. Eli would just itch and itch at night, especially, so his stuck around awhile. It was all over Eli's arms, face and neck:

He looks happy, but it was miserable.

A sleeping picture just for fun:

Natalie caught a beautiful butterfly in our backyard:

We had some amazing rainbows so I snapped these on the way to school one morning:

In mid-February, our good friends the Ashbys had their baby girl! I watched the other kids and got them to school while they were at the hospital. Eli was so excited to get a chance to hold her!

She is the cutest and we all fell pretty hard for her.

Joe went to a BYU/Stanford basketball game with some friends and they had pretty good seats so we could spot them on TV. See him in the white pullover and blue hat just to the right of the aisle?

I went on some more fun hikes including this one up Vargas Plateau right at the height of the greenness in the hills:

It was really cold, actually, but really fun, too.

More solo hikes:

I love these green hills so much!

Eli playing with his best buddies--Tess & Kate. Every day he would ask if they could come over and play. They always played really well together!

One day when the girls were over, we found this little guy in our backyard:

Joe was kind enough to throw it over the fence for us. 

Wearing about five shirts, just for fun:

We had Mary & Andrew over for dinner again and Joe got to have this moment with Nora:

So sweet.

Joe was able to get tickets for our whole family to go to a Warriors game through his work. It was a lot of fun! 

Riding BART to the game:

We were in different areas so Eli and I sat in a different spot for awhile. He didn't love the noise but he was definitely interested and love chowing down on his popcorn:

Elizabeth's a Teenager!

Time to catch up on this blog of mine! 

We had another big birthday around here--we are now the parents of a teenager! It was a pretty quiet celebration. It was hard to pin her down even on gifts that she wanted this year but we did our best.

Of course, she got a gift card to buy books--what she really wants. :)

The sad thing about getting behind on blogging is that I don't remember a lot of things, including what else she got for her birthday. I also forgot somehow to get a picture of her cake but she did decorate it herself and I stole these screenshots from the video of her blowing out her candles:

She loves to decorate cakes!

Elizabeth's 13th year was a big one for her! She started her first year of junior high with a pretty challenging load--lots of honors classes. It was tough for her, especially her accelerated math class, but she is doing great. She's had some health struggles, too, with some increased migraines and asthma issues and we're still figuring out how to help her manage those better. She took art her first semester and had fun making a self-portrait. They were on display in the district office:

(Hers is third from the right on the top row)

She had a big rollercoaster project for her math class. They had to design a rollercoaster according to certain specifications and send a ball bearing through it. This involved a lot of group meetings with her friends Medha and :

Here's their finished project. They did an ancient Egyptian theme.

Then, at the end of the school year, their class got to go to Great America. Elizabeth loved that. She really loves going on scary rides, the scarier the better. They don't phase her one bit!

Elizabeth started rock-climbing more regularly this past year since we got her, Natalie and Joe memberships. It hasn't been easy to be consistent but we're hoping she'll join the rec climbing league so she can perfect her skills. She is really good! She did a season of swim team and didn't love it. It was tough competition in her age group but by the end of the season, she was doing a lot better. She had some bad migraines, especially with sitting in the sun on meet days (and reading, as she often does, so she doesn't notice it coming on). Anyway, she finished out the season and we told her she didn't have to do it again. She also took golf through the junior high intramural program. She didn't love that either although Joe thinks she could be really good at golf if she wanted to be. She has a good swing. We're still figuring out how to make sure she gets enough exercise regularly, since she doesn't love sports. 

She's still in piano and has progressed a lot. She is playing much harder songs which she loves to play as fast as she possibly can. She doesn't like to play things slowly. :) It is impressive, though. She has been earning a lot of money babysitting and is a great one (from everything I hear). She has also grown about 6 inches in less than a year! As of writing this, she is JUST about to pass me up. We'll see if she keeps on growing or if she's almost done. 

She still has a passion for reading. She loves reading so much she spends pretty much every lunch period in the library. I wish she would eat and socialize more but it doesn't seem to bother her much. She even took on the unabridged version of Les Miserables recently! She reads a lot. :) She still loves arts and crafts, too. She can crochet really nice-looking things, now. Her stitches are really even and it's fun to see her make things. She loves board games, too, and can hold her own in monopoly against Joe. :)

We sure love our Lizzie! Our family life is so much better with her in it.