a conversation about home.

Last week I woke up late on the morning we were supposed to go to playgroup. It's quite a drive, so I had about 25 minutes to get both Jaden and me dressed, fed, packed for lunch and out the door. I bolted out of bed determined to win the get-out-of-the-house-on-time race. I skipped the shower (gross but welcome to motherhood), threw on clothes and ran to get the baby out of bed. Of course he was completely soaked through his diaper. Okay, no problem, quick bath. While he was in the tub, we had a conversation that went like this:

Mommy: Jaden, do you want to go see your friends at playgroup today?

Jaden: shakes his head no

Mommy: No? You don't want to go see...insert long list of children's names here at playgroup??

Jaden: No....uhm (home)

Mommy: surprised Home? You want to stay home today?

Jaden: ES! (yes)

Mommy: Okay, I guess we'll stay home.

Jaden: beaming EHHHHS!

Followed by a nice long bath and a leisurely morning. This may not seem like a big deal, but this is the most verbal communication at once in actual words Jaden has had up to that point. I was so proud of him! And it was mostly significant because I was amazed that he understands what home is and wants to be here. He even recognizes that when we turn into our neighborhood he's almost home and he shouts UHM! excitedly. While I don't want him to be a total homebody, I hope that he always loves home and feels like it belongs to him. I hope as he grows he can recognize and feel the spirit here. And I hope that our home will always be a safe haven for him, a refuge from the storms of life. So while I'm sorry to Cassie, Necia, Heather, Marinda and Denise for not making it last week, I guess we just needed to be home :).

our little pianist

london. (the real link)

As promised, here is London! We took a train from Paris to London on Saturday morning, which was my first actual train ride (aside from metro systems and that one Durango one in Colorado when I was little). It was so exciting to be in the train station! I told Steve it was like we were going to Hogwarts! Haha. 

We spent Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday morning on another hop on/hop off bus tour because the one in France had been so nice. This one, however, was FREEZING! And rainy. Welcome to London. :) When we finally got off the bus at St. Paul's Cathedral, we ran inside an athletic store nearby to get Steve a hat and gloves. But it was still a good method of transportation and it included a river cruise on the Thames, which was fun.  

Things we saw on Saturday and Sunday: 

St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square 

(It also needs to be said that we got some REALLY good Thai food one night right by our hotel in Kensington. No pictures but I just need a note so I can remember that :))

Here's the picture overload (it's so hard to choose)  :)

We spent time walking through the stores around Piccadilly Circus until we found Hamley's - the coolest toy store ever. Steve would have spent the whole weekend in the nerf gun section if I had let him.

Randomly came across a Diwali festival in Trafalgar Square on Sunday

Views from our River Cruise:

Okay, time for the coolest part of our trip. Did I mention in the last post that we had each picked a must-see? Mine was Versailles in Paris, and Steve's was Windsor Castle.  Oh my, it was AWESOME. We got to tour a huge 900-year old castle that the Queen still lives in (well, on the weekends).  We toured the State Apartments, which unfortunately you can't take pictures in, because the Royal Family STILL USES them for functions. So cool. We watched the changing of the guard complete with the band and just became more and more fascinated with how royalty lives and works. Good choice, Steve :).

We could see why the castle was built on this hill. Check out that gorgeous view of England!

Because of Hurricane Sandy, both of our flights through JFK were cancelled on Tuesday and the soonest we could get out was Thursday. It was exciting to stay a couple extra days, but kind of difficult when we had to 1-find and change hotels, 2-spend more money that we hadn't planned on, 3-figure out how to work around Steve's need to be back in the office when he had a huge deadline that he would be missing, and 4-pick ourselves back up because we were physically and mentally exhausted from such a long trip. Not to mention getting sick.  But the advantage of being in London (there are so many) is that they do actually have quite a few free things to do and see, like most of their museums. So here are other unexpected highlights of our trip we didn't think we'd have time for: the British Museum (we only had about an hour before closing so we headed straight for the Egyptian rooms), Kensington Palace and Gardens with the Princess Diana Memorial Waterfall and the Prince Albert Memorial, the Science Museum and of course HARRODS. We were so tired that we just took it easy and barely even got the camera out. OH! And one night we saw Skyfall, the new 007 movie. We felt like we were a big deal, seeing it IN LONDON two weeks before it opened in the States. What better cultural way to spend your time in London than with James Bond? We couldn't think of one :)

We had kind of a sad end to a really wonderful dream trip. Steve woke up at about 2 in the morning throwing up over and over. It was horrible. We had to be out the door by 6 am to catch our flight and he almost had me call Delta to reschedule, it was so bad. But we decided that we just needed to get home, so he threw up one more time and we were out the door. I was feeling queasy by the time we got to the airport and figured it was because I hadn't had breakfast and I had been listening to puking all morning. So I tried to stomach a baguette in the airport while Steve was off throwing up in a flight bag somewhere because he couldn't find a bathroom. (I carry a flight bag everywhere I go now after being pregnant and losing my lunch in every inconvenient place possible.) By the time we got on the flight, he was feeling better and I was feeling lousy. The flight attendant loaded us up with flight bags and ginger ale. Steve ended up being okay on the flight and I ended up puking--count it--FOUR times on the eight hour flight to Atlanta. I blame it on the Japanese food we had the night before, but Steve thought it was just a 24-hour "tummy bug" as the awesome British guy in the airport pharmacy called it. Anyway, because we had been delayed for two days, it felt like we had been trying to get home forever. And we still had another flight after Atlanta AND a several-hour drive home from the airport. And I REALLY missed my baby (and was so sad that I had missed his Halloween). Those thoughts were so discouraging and overall I was miserable. But long story short, we made it home and our view looked like this: 

Oh home never looked so good. It was a sad ending to a fantastic trip full of adventures and experiences. I was SO grateful for the opportunity to go, though! We had the time of our lives and it's these memories that we'll be looking back on when we're old. I'm so glad I married Steve who thinks it's important to have a life well-lived and well-traveled. Thanks for the awesome adventure, honey!

paris. october 2012.

Steve travels every October to a huge international trade show. He alternates between Paris and Cologne, Germany. Having been to each show once now, he told me he thought I would really love Paris and wanted to make it work for me to go with him this year. I was, of course, all for it, but a little skeptical as to whether or not we could pull it off within our budget. But somehow between saving, skymiles, credit card points, wonderful Christmas gifts last year toward the cause, and the time that the company paid for hotel and food, we made it work! (Until Hurricane Sandy happened and delayed us getting home for two days, but that's another story...) The biggest reason it worked was because my wonderful amazing mom was so willing to come spend two weeks with Jaden while we were gone. She was so supportive of me taking advantage of the opportunity to travel with Steve, and basically kicked me out the door! I owe so much to her, especially because she organized my linen closet, Jaden's closet and tupperware cupboard while I was gone. I can never repay you for those, Mom. :)

Our trip was (initially) 10 days--traveling all day Sunday Oct 21st and arriving Monday morning. Monday through Thursday Steve worked and I played, Friday we spent together and traveled out to Versailles, and Saturday morning we headed to London where we stayed until we could finally get a flight out on Thursday morning Nov 1st (we were supposed to come home the 30th).  

Oh first, I just have to put these pictures up. My SIL Britt encouraged me to make a paper chain back in August one night while Steve was away on a two-week business trip. I had told her that I didn't feel like Paris was ever really going to happen and she said it would make me more excited. So I made one and put it in my bathroom where I already had a picture of the Eiffel Tower above the toilet. And she was right, paper chains work. :) I was SO excited!

 

I don't know what details to add and what to leave out, so sorry if this is too much. I just know I'm not realistically going to document this anywhere else before I start forgetting the little things. But I KNOW I can't do both Paris and London in one post. So here's Paris:  

My favorite pictures of the Eiffel Tower:

And proof that I was there...

Side note: It is SO awkward asking strangers to take your picture when you're by yourself, especially when you don't know what language they speak. I tried to be polite and ask in VERY broken French. It usually ended up sounding something like, "Excuse moi, photo sil vous plait? Merci." Followed by whoever was taking the picture saying, "Okay one, two three, CHEESE!" Whether they spoke English or not. Haha.

I was a little nervous about getting around for four days, so I ended up taking a two day hop-on hop-off bus tour. It required me looking like a total tourist, but I was actually really glad I did it. I'm kind of a nerd and love the commentary on the history of the buildings and neighborhoods that we drove through, and I got to see just about all the main parts of Paris because there were four different routes. And the best part was that I didn't have to walk everywhere and I traveled above ground instead of using the metro and missing everything. I love that you get to hop off wherever you want and just get back on when you want. I thought it was the best way to see everything I wanted.

This bridge was cool. There's an old Italian tradition that came to Paris where lovers would come to the bridge, write their names on a lock, lock it to the bridge and then throw keys into the Seine river, "locking their love." Aww, romantic crap, as Steve would say, haha...

 

This was our hotel for the first four days. Rockin' sweet floral wallpaper and pink ceiling, eh? 

It was right across the street from the Pantheon, which is this sucker. SO cool.

And we were right up the street from the Luxembourg gardens and palace, which is where I went one day to just sit outside and read. Oh man, it was heaven.

 I reserved all day Wednesday to go to the Louvre. After about five hours though, I had to call it quits because I was exhausted! It is HUGE! I told Steve that you know you've been in a museum too long when all the naked people start looking the same, haha. Maybe I'm just not cultured enough. That's probably it. But really, it was fascinating and I saw everything that I had been dying to see. 

Like this lovely lady, for example. It was crowded, but you can't travel to Paris, go to the Louvre, and NOT see the Mona Lisa.

 Steve's favorite part of the Louvre: The Code of Hammurabi. Oldest written code of laws. The commentary was fascinating. Apparently there are sections in it regarding the family unit, divorce, etc. Interesting that the family has always been the fundamental unit of society. And it always will be.

My favorite part: the Napoleon Apartments. So gorgeous it's disgusting.

Read my scriptures outside the Louvre here until I froze and had to start walking. :)

Steve wasn't with me when I went, but we walked by it on Thursday, so here's the outside view.

After the Louvre, I saw Sacre Coeur, which is the huge cathedral up on the hill with a gorgeous view of Paris when it's not overcast :). I loved the surrounding town with the cobblestone streets and little shops and restaurants more than the cathedral itself but the whole thing was worth the trek out to see.

 

I was wondering the same thing you are...

 On Thursday I went to the show with Steve for a few hours while they cleaned things up and talked to a few more people. Then we spent time walking around the Place du Concorde, Louvre and up to the Paris Opera House. And this is my favorite picture of the entire trip:

Oh and we had to get some of these--nutella crepes with banana. Oh man, can I just tell you, our palates tasted everything from $3 crepes on the street to $400/plate meals in one of Paris' five star restaurants. Eating as a guest on other companies' bills was a very nice perk to this trip. We were definitely taken care of and it was great to see how Steve spends his time when he travels. He's made a lot of friends in the business and it was fun to meet the people who I hear so much about.

 We spent our last day in France doing something on my must-see list: Versailles. It was worth every penny, even though it was freezing outside. I wish we could have spent more time in the massive gardens, but oh well, I guess we'll just have to go back! I definitely recommend taking the time to go there, even though it takes a whole day. We decided October is the best time to go Europe because we had mostly pleasant days, mixed with a little rain, but we didn't have many lines the whole trip. It was awesome.

Whew. That was a lot. Next up is London!