Our Dream Vacation!

We're back! Ok, we've been back for a month but still! Here's the run down on our trip:

Day 1: Arrive in London, take a train, two subways, and a 1/2 mile walk to get to fancy schmancy hotel (I love cheaptickets!). Crash for 2 hours. Take a bus tour and walk around Buckingham Palace, Parliament and Big Ben. Take another two subways and make it back to the hotel in one piece. Total jet lag crash.

Day 2: London Eye--super cool. Tower of London--I LOVED IT!!! We spent 4 1/2 hours walking around the castle and taking a billion pictures. Walked along the Thames and up onto Tower Bridge. So much fun!


Day 3: Quick trip to Westminster Abbey, wasted 36 pounds touring Kensington Palace (they did some weird modern art exhibit inside, it was dumb), walked through Hyde Park (lonnnnngggg walk), checked out of the fancy schmancy hotel, caught a taxi to King's Cross Station....found Platform 9 3/4's (and yes I was the only adult in line to get their picture taken but I had fun!), and then took the Eurostar train to Paris. We were instantly pegged as tourists and accosted by a kid who kept trying to get us to pay him to get us a taxi. We dodged him and had a gourmet meal at McDonald's and then found our own taxi. Got to our not so fancy schmancy hotel and hit the hay.


Day 4: Eiffel Tower! Dream come true! Went up to the second level (the line was HUGE!!) and enjoyed every minute of it. Went to the Arc de Triomphe (it's very big), hopped onto the metro and went to Sacre Couer--beautiful. It was sunset so the atmosphere was relaxed and peaceful. We took the elevator up (Sacre Couer sits on top of a hill about the height of Hill Cumorah and it's just as steep), and walked back down. Dinner on Champs de Elysees (sp) and spent $17.00 on two tiny bottles of soda--eek!




Day 5: Notre Dame, St. Chapelle (cool medieval church with stained glass windows all around), went to Pont Neuf (first bridge in Paris), spent an hour looking for a bathroom, saw the outside of the Louvre because contrary to what was in our tour guide book, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. Visited Jardin de Palais Royal and Jardin de Tuileries, ice cream in the park and laughing at the snotty waiter, Palace de la Concorde (and yes we actually survived crossing the street), hopped the bus to the Trocadero (a building across the river from the Eiffel Tower), got dinner at an Italian Bistro next to the hotel and went to sleep.

Day 6: Boat ride down the Seine. Visited the Louvre--Mona Lisa is just a picture, I didn't find anything remarkable about it, went to Pont Alexander (another cool bridge), went back to the Eiffel Tower and went to the tippy top. It was freezing!!!! but I loved every minute of it. Came down, ate an ice cream crepe and sat and watched the carousel. It was magical.


Day 7: Versailles. A-MAZ-ING. Huge and grandious and just absolutely stunning.
I love the view from behind Apollo's fountain looking towards the palace. It's easy to see why Marie Antoinette got her head chopped off. Everything at Versailles is bigger than life--absolutely breath-taking. Came back to the Eiffel Tower and took pictures of it all lit up and glittering.
















I had a fantastic time and loved everything about London and Paris. The time flew by, I'm already thinking about where we'll go on our next vacation. What'cha think about an Alaskan cruise? Of course, this will be on our 15th or 20th anniversary but you can never plan too early right?

Au Revoir!

See you in a week, with tons of pictures to scrapbook and fun stories to tell!

The Smell of Spring

It happened. A wonderful thing that has quite possibly changed my attitude for the entire day.

Today, it smells like Spring.

I couldn't tell you exactly what Spring smells like, just like I can't tell you how I know what snow smells like--but I can smell it and for the first time in my life I'm so happy to say goodbye to winter and HELLO! to spring.

Take a whiff, you'll smell it too...

Snow Days Rule! Day 2!

Well, the powers at be have decided that the kids needed to have another day off, so we are at home again. The funny thing is I had already been approved for a personal day for Friday because Kathy and I are going to the temple for the Stake Temple day. I will not be back at work until Tuesday. Yeah, I am all broken up about it too.

Snow Days Rule!

My superintendent closed schools before we left yesterday for today, so I’ve known since about 2:15 that I would not be going to school today. Kathy had to wait until yesterday around 6 or 7, I think. Anyway, I am enjoying my day off, although some of my coworkers are predicting tomorrow we will either be off or delayed as well. We will see what happens. I am going to wait a little longer until I proceed with round one of shoveling the driveway. Anyway, here are some pictures I took around 10am this morning. Enjoy!

Good ridden 2009! Hello 2010!

I wanted to share with you all a few pictures from Christmas with Kathy’s family.

This is Kathy's Birthday present. Memories of a Christmas tradition with the Cornman family.



This is Kathy's neice, Morgan. She is showing off her unicorn she got for Christmas.



This is Kathy posing with the fireplace/heater her Dad got for us.



I say good ridden to 2009 because there were many ups and downs, although toward the end it felt like more downs than ups. Kathy’s mother passed away toward the end of June and everyone is trying to get adjusted to what will be the new normal in the family. Fortunately she was very much about keeping the family together, so that is what is we are doing, sticking together. As if that was not enough, in December we found out that Kathy’s father has cancer in his bladder. His treatments are going well, and the prognosis is very positive, so that is a good thing.

Still, let’s hope the bad news goes away with the year 2009.

We booked plane tickets for London and Paris the other day for our spring break in April. We have about 11 days off all together so we are planning on spending most of it in another continent. We are busy making plans to take advantage of every second we have there.

Welcome 2010.

Happy (uneventful) Halloween!

So my Halloween started on Thursday...and is blissfully close to an end.

The kids at school were wired all day Thursday and that culminated with a Halloween parade where, as usual, I'm the M.C. I don't mind, it's actually kind of fun and I can blabber on and be my cooky self. The only downfall is the sore throat afterwards but that is quickly rectified by endless amounts of cupcakes and candy--supplied of course by every student in the school.

Yesterday was the ward Halloween party and although it was not fun for me...most of it is actually a blur or chili, bowling pins, and endless amounts of yummy goodness...I think it went well. Not fantastic, but well. I don't think I spoke to anyone, I was too busy running around making sure everything was going relatively smoothly.

And now, we sit and wait for Shadow to bark like a maniac which means that 'strangers' aka 'trick or treaters' are coming to the door. But I am actually ok with that. I like seeing the kids in their costumes and I like that I have any excuse to sit around.

WAIT!!!! A major surprise! Lela, Linda, Scott, and Spencer just made a surprise visit and I am STILL giddy about it! We took Shadow with us while we went trick-or-treating up and down Kate Terrace and I have to say I had a great time. Yeah for great surprises!