April 2011 2nd Half with Video

Ohmygoodnesstheroyalweddingisthisweek!!


NOT.


We took outta here like a bat out of....a cave? You get the idea though. We decided to take the week ish off and get out of London before it got too crazy. Don't you worry though, we got some recap footage in the hotel bar (where we ended up having DINNER for all of you about ready to freak out on us).


On Wednesday the 27th we drove down to the Exeter/Devon area, which is in SW England. We first visited the Quince Honey Farms, whic supposedly is the biggest honey/bee farm in the UK....pretty skeptical about that though.




After that we headed to a place called Watermouth Castle. Yea. It's a castle alright, but not in the 'really-old-crap' style. In the "I-turned-this-cool-castle-into-a-freaky-antique-museum/carnival-thing". It was a huge disappointment, hence the two pictures :) The rest are from this little alcove down on the 'beach' right by the castle that was very pretty to look out of.





After that (we left like, as fast as we could get through it all) we headed over to the zoo. It was ok-not very full (since we got there pretty late in the day). Justin fed a monkey who was trying really hard to eat a weed outside his cage, and they had some roosters and peacocks just walking around the zoo.


These meerkats were totally posing for my camera. I'm not even kidding.

On Thursday we went to Powderham Castle. This one was a lot cooler. We only got to see parts of the inside because people actually were still living in this one. The Earl of Devon, or some thing like that :) And we weren't allowed to take photos inside, hence only the outside photos.

After we toured the castle, they had a little 'petting' zoo (I use that term loosely, but it wasn't super caged in like a real zoo) and playground thing that we went and hung out at for a while.

This is Berry Pomeroy Castle. After we left Powderham we drove over here and got in right before the last admission cut off time. It is a ruin and pretty compact compared to the one we just came from. We didn't get any good pictures of the front because it's pretty circular and so you couldn't really see much from the front.

The next day we drove over to Babbacombe Model Village. It was huge (well, maybe it wasn't, but it seemed like it to me) and pretty cool. They had letters of the alphabet hidden as characters (the K was a King, etc) all around the places.

Inside one of the buildings was all about movies-along with all these figurines they had little displays for stuff like Jurassic Park, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings. It was hard to get good pictures of the stuff though because the light was terrible and they were all in glass boxes.

They also had Where's Waldo-or as they call it in the UK-Where's Wally. You can see his evil twin Odlaw in the top middle photo there. Wally is in the bottom left, Wanda is in the bottom middle behind the K for Kign, and Woof (?) the dog in the bottom right. It was fun for Amaia to find them since she'd been looking through some Waldo books in the house trying to find him.

Then we went and visited Dartmouth Castle. It was quite a drive, and then we had to drive our car onto a ferry (see top left pic) to get across the river/bay (not sure what it was, really) to get to where we continue to drive to the castle.

On Friday, we went to Canonteign Falls, apparently the tallest waterfall in the UK. It was quite the hike, so we took the Amaia in the toddler hiking backpack and Solia in the Bjorn and hiked all the way up. It was pretty cool, but as it usually seems, the view from the top isn't as cool as the view from below...

After that we went to Castle Drogo. This castle was built over like 30 years, but it was completed after WWI so it's fairly modern as far as castles go. Some millionaire decided he wanted a castle and had it built. It's not a phone (an old one) and a pretty sweet shower, and other stuff more modern, but it's still old and still a castle. It was pretty cool though.

Here are some photos I took while Justin was driving. No kidding, like 90% of the roads around where we were visitng looked like the top left photo-huge hedges on both sides of the road that you could barely see over. It was pretty intense. And in some places, the trees were so thick like in the other pictures, that it was almost all the way dark. It was sooo pretty though.

Here are some other pictures from NOT our vacation:

The sawn, and some of the ducks (cormorants, I think they are really called) with thier *first* set of baby ducks, and a goose eating dandilions.

The Girls:

Amaia:

*If I ask Amaia where something is, she'll say "I put it somewhere you can't find it"

*Amaia will nurse her toys, and then she'll come show me and say "I'm a good mom!"

*Justin and Amaia like to play "Amaia Stuck"-the only way to get out is for her to say "I love you so much daddy!"

*When Amaia is mad, she makes this gutteral 'gulck' noise, or she says "grrrr"

*Every time Amaia sees two of something: two people in a picture, two cats walking down the street, two apples in a bowl, etc it's always "look-it's a mommy apple and a daddy apple!"

*When I start to talk to her about something she's doing, that she knows she's not supposed to do, she'll say "don't yell at me..."

*Apparently, the only reason she drinks during dinner is "to get all the crumbs outta my mouth"

*We started doing Amaia's potty training again. She'd been in diapers and we've gone back to underwear-it only took her two days to go accident free after we started again'

*If you ask her anything (yes or no) she'll say "Ya sure!"

Here are some pictures of Amaia from our vacation

365 Pics 1:

Solia:

*She's only ticklish or giggly when she is super tired

*Solia clicks her tongue on the roof of her mouth

*She has gone on a baby food strike-she'll only feed herself

*Solia plays Peek A Boo by herself using her blanket

*Solia can Clap

*Solia has started climbing like mad...

365 Pics 2:

And here's the link to the video for April:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQkTU0HDAM

April 2011 1st Half

Holy Crap, Batman.

Ok, so after like 15 attempts of uploading allll the pictures down there, I think I'm ready to start.

We left off with Justin's Parents here for vacation. On Friday, April 1st we went to visit the Eiffle Tower. (Side note-I remember Justin played a really good April Fool's Joke, but I can't remember what it was. I know it was good though, because he's a really good liar--I mean, actor.)

It was only like a 15 minute walk from our hotel. When we got there, we had just enough time to get bombarded by a bajillion Eiffle Towerl Key Chain Seller Guys (who would not believe us when we said we had no cash! We always use card) and walk across the street to get our 365 picture of the girls in front of the Tower, before we decided we had to leave. I needed to nurse Solia and had forgotten a blanket for her, and it was getting really windy.

Justin's paretns stayed and went up to the top of the tower, and we went back to the hotel. When they got back we headed back to London on the Eurostar again.



Saturday morning we went to Stonehenge:



It wasn't as cold as it was in January, but it still wasn't warm (hence the gloves).

After Stonehenge, we took a short ride over to Salisbury and visited the Cathedral there. It was pretty sweet.



On Sunday we went downtown London and walked around (but not into) Parliament/Big Ben and Westminster Abbey.



After Justin's nice road bike got stolen (I think end of March? can't remember....) he went and bought us a pair of beach cruisers and a bike trailer for the girls. It's nice because we can load up the trailer with a blanket and lunch and the camera (of course) and bike to the park to hang out.

Here we have a few random pictures from the month, including Justin actuallymowing the lawn. :)

Here are some random pictures of the girls...

Amaia this month:

*She calls the elevator the 'elephant gator'

*She's started trying to sing along with all of her Disney movies-even when she doens't know the words

*When she gets mad, she'll say "Don't talk to me about (whatever it was we were talking about)!!!"

*When she gets mad she'll yell "I'm mad right now!" and then she'll yell "I'm yelling at you because I'm MAD!"

*When Solia does stuff Amaia doesn't like, Amaia will say stuff like "Stop touching my book goobie lovey honey!"

*If you ask her something (again) she'll always say "I already SAID that!" all attitudey like.

*She's got an awesome crazy face-see it down there? Bottom left. She can do that look on command.

Solia-All I've got for this post is that she calms down or stops throwing a fit or fighting me every time I start singing Popcorn Popping

365 Pictures 1:

365 Pictures 2:

Spot the Difference {7}

Well, I'm sad to report that we won't be having another installment of Kids Say the Darndest Things for a while. Since I'm kind of slow on the posting (like it's almost July and I just barely posted the March posts) I've been keeping a running list of the Darndest things that Amaia says, and every time I post one of these I grab a few off the list (in chronological order, of course). Somehow, however, between syncing my list app with the online list thinger, my list was shortened from like 30 things, to like 9. Five of which I'd already used, and the rest I used last time. I dont' know how that happened, but it did, and I'm sad, but what can you do?

Nothing.

Except continue on with the Spot the Difference post (since this list in perfect condition):

*People here call every thing "Brilliant" or "lovely". If you look nice today, it's "Wow Emily you just look lovely". But if something is clever, smart, a good idea, amazing, etc it's "I saw the most brilliant thing yesterday..." (now that word has no meaning...I've said it too many times in my head just now)

*In the states you can use "bucks" as a slang for "dollars". In the UK the slang for 'pounds' is "quid"

*They don't have lemonade here. Well, they do, but it's nasty and carbonated and not anything like real lemonade. And if you ask for a lemonade at a restaurant, you'll get a Sprite.

*Flipping the bird is not offensive here-although some variation or waggle of your two first fingers (peace sign style) is just the same.

*If you are telling some one your phone number, for example, you wouldn't say "5-9-6-4-4-5-2" you would say "5-9-6-double 4-5-2

*And last but not least, the trunk of your car is called the 'boot'

General Conference/Church Boredom Buster

Ok,

So I can't take credit for this idea, because it wasn't mine, but for the life of me I can't remember where I saw this (some super crafy blog, that's all I know).

*Update* It was Brown Paper Packages found here:

http://www.brownpaper--packages.com/2011/03/general-conference-treat-buckets.html

Anyways, it was an idea to keep kids interested and paying attention during General Conference while you are watching/listening at home. And this worked for Amaia (who isn't yet 3) so it can Work for you, too.
You get some small cups/bowls (we used silicone muffin cups) and fill each one with a different type of small candy: m&ms, skittles, tic tacs, chocolate chips, runts, fruit snacks, etc. Whatever you have. I'd say it's best starting out with only 3 or 4 cups for younger kids, and more as they get older and can remember better.

Label each cup with a sticky note things like Jesus, Scriptures, Prayer, Family, Prophet, Tithing, Heavenly Father, etc and inform the kids (if they can't read) what each cup is for.

*Edit: An even better idea for kids who can't read, is to get onto your computer and print out clip art for each of the words or phrases you want the kids to listen for. Most recently we used a picture of Christ, President Monson, a picture of our daughter folding her arms (for prayer), a temple, and the golden plates (for scriptures). Since she's not old enough to read, the pictures help her remember which cup is for which word. This is my 1 year old, super excited about Jesus:

Now as you watch conference, if your kids are listening and hear the speaker say Jesus (for example), they go and grab ONE piece of candy out of the cup labeled Jesus. It's that simple! Once they get the hang of it, they won't want to stop!

Now, to take the idea even further....we did the same trick for Stake Conference, but you could also do this on a plain on regular Sunday if your kids have a particularly hard time being quiet. We chose Stake Conference because it was two hours of sitting in one chair as opposed to one hour that's broken up with quite a bit of singing and praying.

We found an empty hair tie thing, but you could also just use one of those 7 day jobbers for pills.

Label each one with a word-we wrote it in permanent marker but realized that was a bad idea-what if we want to switch it up for next time? Luckily it looks like it will come right off this plastic, so no worries.

You don't have to fill them all. Now you have a travel size spill proof little conference buddy! Easy to stash in your already overflowing church bag!

March 2011-2nd Half w Video

Justin's parents came out for a visit-they stayed for about a week and a half. On the first Friday they were here, Justin, Doug and I went to go see the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre. We had some awesome seats right in the middle front section. We left the girls with JoAnn, who survived (thank goodness).
Saturday we went downtown-we were going to go do something.....(crap-I forgot what it was) but both of the girls were burning up and lethargic and icky (of course we travelled all the way there before they got sick) so Doug and Jo did the basic sight seeing around London while Justin and I took the girls home.
On Sunday we took the Eurostar to Paris and visitied Notre Dame.




On Monday we visited the Louvre Museum (which is ginormous...)





Tuesday, we hopped in a car and drove North towards the coast, stopping along the way at Normandy.



When we got to our hotel, it was late, so we just went to bed. But hold that thought just for a minute...

The next day (Wednesday) we went to visit this place called St Malo. It's like a castle, with a small city built around it, on a giant island/harbour. What's craziest about this place, it it's a real town-not just a tourist trap. This place is small-like the size of a neighborhood in the States, but it's got stores, churches, the castle of course, schools for the residents, and of course, all of their houses/apartments. It was so interesting to see the kids on their way to school all mixed in with tourists and souvenier stores.



One of the craziest things about this place was the tide. We got there as early as we could, and stayed as late as we could (even though it was raining and freezing) so we could see this (you might want to open the picure larger):



Those tide changes happened all in one day! Every day! Isn't that insane?

On Thursday we spent the day walking around our hotel.....wait what? Sounds boring right?

Except when your hotel is at the base of this castle!



It was pretty sweet-once again this whole little place is surrounded into it's own little community, except this place actually still has the "hi I have a chamber pot under my bed" feel-it still felt very mideval and stuff. Not that it smelled.....





We didn't go home after this, but since it's the last day of the month, the rest will come next post. Sorry!

Solia:

*Solia can wave good-bye. She always waves at Amaia as we're leaving her for her nap
*Solia can say Dadda-she looked right at him one day and I swear she said "Hi dada!"
*Solia can officially crawl on her hands and knees, and go up stairs. She also cruises along on the furniture.

Here are some pictures from walking around Paris:

Here are some pictures of the girls-the ones that didn't make the cut for the 365:

Here is the first set of 365 pictures:

Here is the second set of 365 pictures:

Amaia:

*She likes to go around saying "wait, what?!?"

*She's gotten rather bossy lately: "DON'T talk to me about that" or "I told you I wanted that!" or " Don't look at me!" etc

*Amaia does this awesome crazy face (which you can see up in the top right corner of that collage)-if you ask her for the crazy face that's what she gives you.

Here are some random pictures I had...

So, instead of uploading the videos to the blog (it takes forever and then I have to dumb them down, and you can't see them for crap, etc) I've just started uploading the videos to YouTube. You might have seen my post that says I have a link to YouTube on my sidebar-well I deleted the link. It takes you to my channel on YouTube, but since I've listed all my videos as 'unlisted' they don't show up on my channel. The only way to view the video is with this link (which you can copy/paste if you want to forward to anyone):

http://youtu.be/YwPJsrJhoPk

I'm in the process of uploading the previous blog videos-so far all I have are Jan, Feb and March of this year. I'm thinking I might add links to each specific video on the sidebar once I get them all uploaded, other wise you'd have to go find the specific post to watch it....we'll see.

Adios!