Picnic in the Park

One of my ideas of a perfect day have to include the day we had on Sunday.  We took our time getting ready and then headed out to pick up food at Whole Foods before going to Hyde Park for a family picnic.  There's nothing I enjoy more than hanging out with my two boys on a beautiful day at the park!!!

Reed spent the majority of our picnic playing golf.  People around us are always impressed at how well he does, lol!

He refused to wear his hat any other way there for a little while.

The Golden Girls in London!

My grandmother, great aunt, and two of their friends are here in London for two weeks.  These traveling gals will be traipsing around many different places in Europe during their two weeks here.  As I write this they have already been in London several days and spent four days in Scotland.  Up next on their itinerary is Paris and then more of London!

Why do I call them the Golden Girls?  Well, that's pretty easy to see once you see their picture below.  But, I was also inspired to put this nickname because as I purchased our bus tour tickets on their second day here, the guy selling me the tickets said "it's like an episode of The Golden Girls".  I told them what he said and they said that they get it all the time.  I love it!!!  How awesome to have such great girlfriends at their age, let alone any age, that you can travel the world with.  And be compared to the awesome characters that are The Golden Girls, it can't get much better!!!

Aunt Jean, Jo (my grandmother), Joyce and Doris in Piccadilly Circus.

The Golden Girls having tea at The Wolseley.  Everything was so yummy!

Reed enjoying his "espresso" aka foam milk.

Another palace down!

And I honestly don't believe we could ever see them all before we leave London.  We would probably have to spend the rest of our weekends here touring palaces, lol!  I don't think that's necessarily exactly how we want to spend the rest of our free time.  Hampton Court Palace is included in the annual pass that we purchased for the Tower of London, so it was a no brainer to go see it for free.  So, we did Chris's favorite thing on Father's Day, we toured a palace.  I kid, I kid.  If we had been doing his favorite thing, we would have been at a golf course.  We should certainly try to get to one soon!

Hampton Court Palace is one of the many palaces in the UK but it has not be inhabited by the royal family since the 18th century.  King Henry VIIII lived in the palace, but we heard on the tour that the King and his court used up so much of the local resources that they could not stay at this particular location for very long.  I have to say that I am not surprised, haha!  This palace really is a lovely one to visit in London.  It sits on the River Thames and is surrounded by beautiful gardens.  

Hampton Court Palace!  If you were feeling sorry for Chris, it really wasn't a good day to play golf.  It either looked like rain or rained on us pretty much all day.

Henry VIII certainly winning an arm wrestling match.

A pantry of sorts.  This narrow hall with rooms off of it were designed so that sunlight could not get in and it would always stay cool.

Once the palace fell into Henry VIII hands, his first project was to build a kitchen large enough to provide food for his 1,000 member court.

I mean, seriously, shouldn't her parents tell her that that's not a good idea?!?!  Haha!

The Great Hall

Original Tudor staircase, very cool!

If you look closely at the center panel, the emblem on the right is an H entwined with an A for Henry and Anne.  After Henry had Anne Boleyn beheaded all of these were removed from the palace except for this one.

King Henry VIII's apartments.

Fountain Court designed by Sir Christopher Wren.  Great job on the picture taking Chris!

Very cool trees outside of the palace.

The Gardens.

Another exterior shot of the palace and probably the prettiest.

Another garden.

We even completed our first maze.

Dead end, my bad!

Yay, we made it to the center!

Let's just call this a Meet the Babies trip home!

We recently took a short trip home to Georgia for 6 days while Chris had training in LA.  Yep, while we were busy adjusting to a 5 hour time difference, he had to adjust to an 8 hour difference.  Fun times!  It was a very quick trip home for Reed and I, one that certainly made us miss home even more.  And even though it was a whirlwind trip it was lots of fun!  We can wait to get back in 9 weeks!  The countdown is on!

Before I begin with what we actually did on our trip, let's talk about what a rockstar flyer our kid is.  On the flight home he took his regular afternoon nap and then woke up in a good mood to play with play-doh, color, watch movies, and then play with the people behind us.  He never cried once!  He was so good!  And on the flight back, he went to sleep before we took off and we had to wake him up when we landed.  You can't ask for anything better than that.  AND, even though we booked him as infant in arms, we ended up with a seat for him on both legs of the trip, woohoo!!  Call us the luckiest people in the world!!

Snoozing away!

Watching Finding Nemo and chowing down on his apple.

And the reason for the title of the post.....I had three good friends have babies while we have been away.  I was super sad that we weren't around to meet the babies sooner but this week was reason enough to see all of them.  I first traveled to Birmingham on Friday to visit with Abbey and her precious baby girl Aidan.  Sunday, I flew to Dallas, TX(my first trip to Texas), to meet Teal and Laren's baby boy Tripp.  I flew home on Monday.  Tuesday, Reed and I headed down to Atlanta to meet the Bruner's baby boy and Brick's baby brother, Thatcher.  It was certainly a busy week for me but totally worth it.  These babies would have been way too big if I had waited to meet them once we got back!

Sweet Baby Aidan!

I think she was a little hungry.

Little Man Tripp!

Sweet boy!

Cheese!

Baby Thatcher!  Look at all his hair!!!

Reed wanted to "hold da baby" but he quickly became disinterested and started rolling over on him.  Thatcher doesn't look too thrilled.

We, of course, also spent tons of time with Mike Mike and Kath and Nana and Granddaddy and the rest of our family while we were at home.  Reed was able to get in some pool time at Mike and Kathy's as well as some playtime with Brick and the Broggi kids that he talks about all the time!  It was a great trip surrounded by great family and friends, which made it even harder to leave.  But, like I said earlier, only 9 weeks to go.  It's going to fly by, I'm sure of it!!

Playing in the pool!

Sweet boy!

Relaxing!  And, as he is saying right now looking at this picture "mommy's got you".

The Grassy Knoll.  Teal and Laren were sweet enough to take me on a mini-tour of Dallas, which included the scene of Kennedy's assassination.  If you look closely on the left side of the picture, you can see the x that marks the spot.  It was unfortunate to see people walking out to the x to stand on it and have their picture taken, smiling of course.  Seemed a little, okay a lot, odd to me.

Reed and Brick having fun playing together after a long hiatus.

Reed basically shot basketball the entire time that we were at our house.  He wanted to bring it with him and continued to hold it while he napped.  Too cute!

A confession.

I was just thinking today about a movie that I wished was on TV so I could watch it, like, right now.  That movie is....now hold on to your seats here........Tremors.  Have you heard of it?  Maybe not but it's a favorite of mine.  I literally have to watch it anytime it's on TV.  Chris knows better than to let the guide linger for just a second if he sees that it's on, because he knows I will beg him to watch it for the 40 millionth time, lol!

I am thinking that my love for this movie stems from my love of Kevin Bacon in Footloose and I kind of love watching Reba talk about all her guns and such.  It is a hilarious movie, one where people get eaten by a giant worm, but I love it.  Weird, right?!?!  Check out the trailer below, makes you want to watch it right?!?!  LOL!

So, here's your chance to let go of the secret that you've been holding onto, surely I can't be the only one with random movie favorites.  Please let me in on your little secret of a ridiculous movie that you can't turn away from when it's on.  This could end up being a pretty hilarious list!  And maybe I can even add a few to my list.

And, just in case you're still not convinced, here's another movie that I would love to see right now!  Teen Witch!  It doesn't need any explaining, it's just pure 80's awesomeness!  The second video is a little off but it is still worth watching!  Does the lead actress look familiar?  She might look a little familiar because she is Robyn Lively, Blake Lively's sister.

Now, get to commenting and let me know what your random favorites are!

Ireland Trip: Day 3

Well, I have to admit that our third day in Ireland was kind of a wasted day.  Partially my fault for not planning it better and partially the fault of how tired we were from all the driving/riding the day before.  We started our morning out with breakfast at the Amber Hill B&B, certainly not as great as the B&B the night before but not terrible either.  After breakfast we made our way down to Salthill to check out the promenade, which is supposed to have some of the best views in Galway.  And, it was very nice.  Too bad it was a little too cold to enjoy a nice stroll on the Prom, as they call it.  So, we ventured into downtown Galways, drove around a bit and then headed to Dublin.  Yep, that's right, we didn't even get out of the car.  Next time, right?!?  In Dublin, the story isn't too different.  We walked around their shopping streets for a few hours and that's where our Ireland trip ended.  We were T-I-R-E-D!  Maybe next time we can stop and relax a bit more, lol!

View from the Prom in Salthill.

And again.  I am sure it is even prettier when the tide is in.

Dublin!

And the last Ireland picture in Dublin.  I was obviously tired this day as I hardly even got my camera out.  That's not like me, lol!

I highly recommend a trip to Ireland for anyone.  It was fabulous!  I do recommend taking it easy though and not try to do everything in 3 days, lol!!

He figured it out!

And I am sure he will be zooming by us at the park in no time!

Ireland: Day 2

Our second day in Ireland was by far the best day of our trip even though we spent most of it in the car.  Just to get this driving bit out of the way, the below map shows our almost exact route that we took in Ireland.  And, we had to drive back to Dublin on Monday to catch our plane back to London.  Yes, lots of driving was done but considering the beauty of Ireland, it wasn't so bad at all!  GoogleMaps estimates that the route below would take almost 10 hours.  I can almost guarantee that it took longer than that, lol!

Bummer.....my GoogleMaps picture disappeared!

Okay, onto the fun part!  We started our morning at the adorable B&B of Kathleen's Country House.  What a super great host Kathleen was!  I would certainly recommend this out of town B&B for anyone visiting Killarney.  It is very nice to be outside of the city and just enjoy the quiet, especially when in Ireland.  After munching on our tasty breakfast, we made our way to the start of the Ring of Kerry.  Ah, the views from this route are simply amazing.  Every time we turned a corner we were met with more spectacular views.  We were constantly getting in and out of the car to take pictures.  And, we did take a few random roads, which increased the excitement of the trip!  This route consisted of exactly what I had expected of Ireland, long, winding, single lane roads going through the mountains.  Unfortunately, we were never stopped by a sheep crossing and had sheep surrounding our car.  Maybe next time!!  I'll let our pictures do the rest of the talking.

Our first stop-off.  Ah, beautiful!

Hello there Dingle Bay!  Can you see the mountains in the distance?  Imagine the views if it hadn't been so foggy?!?!  Next time the sun will come out for us!

Here is one location where we took a random road trying to get closer to the water.

This is as close as we could get and still see it.

We drove on lots and lots of these.  And there were even some two lane roads that appeared to be more like 1.5 lane roads, lol!

Reed trying to put on a good face after waking up from his nap.  He was such a trooper.  We are so happy that he loves to ride in the car right now, otherwise this trip would have been misery.

Imagine if you woke up to this view every morning.  Oh, the jealousy!

From the looks of most of the mountains and hills, Ireland is one big rock!

A view from the top.

Killarney National Park, one of our favorite views of the day!

After exiting the Ring of Kerry route, we made our way about 2.5 hours north to the Cliffs of Moher.  Oh, how I especially wish it had been sunny for this visit!!!

Cliffs of Moher!  See those tiny people on the top left of the picture?  Yeah, we didn't venture over there, no railing equals crazy nightmares for mommy.

I didn't even like seeing these people leaning over the edge.  I definitely don't think the risk is worth the picture people!

The Fam

You aren't kidding!!

The other side.

I think this one just might get framed.

After seeing these beautiful views, we ended our day with another semi-long drive, ate yummy crab claws at Moran's Oyster Cottage and then put our heads on the pillows at Amber Hill B&B near Galway.  Phew, that was a long day but oh so worth it!