Sunday, April 29, 2018

London Trip 2018 (Also Senior Prom and Freshman Awards Night)

Michael and I went on another trip to London for the Natural and Organic Products Europe trade show.  It was a successful show, but it was a lot of work to prepare for the trade show and the trip itself.  

Thursday, April 19
Our flight was from Phoenix straight to London Heathrow.  It was supposed to leave at 7:45pm, but we left pretty late.  The flight was 10 hours and it was miserable, actually.  We were so cramped!  

Friday, April 20
We arrived on Friday around 3pm.  It took us almost two hours to get across London on the tube and train.  The Heathrow Express was so expensive and it wouldn’t have saved us much time.  We took the Picadilly line from London Heathrow, changed to the Jubilee line at Green Park, and then to the DLR at Canning Town.  We had a really nice dinner at the hotel and then went to bed early.  

Saturday, April 21
We slept in on Saturday and went downstairs for breakfast.  We went to the Excel convention center at 1pm to set up.  

Excel was right along the Thames.  


It didn’t take very long, so once we got back to the hotel we decided we would go to see Phantom of the Opera that night.  We took the DLR and the tube again and got off at Picadilly Circus and walked to Her Majesty’s Royal Theatre.  It took us about an hour to get there and we arrived at 7pm and easily got good tickets for the show.  It was a wonderful play!  The singing was amazing!!

I didn't realize until a month or so ago that Nathaniel's prom would be on the same weekend we were on our trip.  He had a nice time with Lacey.  Don't they look great?






Sunday, April 22
The trade show started at 9am, so we got to the stand (booth) at 8am.  The men were there to set up the big banner at the back.  It was way too big.  They made it 4 meters long, even though that was the entire length of the wall, including the closet.  It was fine, though, because we just put it in front of the closet and we had a nice little path behind the banner to hide all of the stuff.  It was a really long day and we had a lot of traffic.  


The show ended at 6pm.  It’s funny how the announcer lady demanded that everyone leave.  At one point she even said, “All attendees, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, must leave immediately.”  Yikes!  After the show, we went back to the hotel and then Adrian, Jeremy, and Nicole came to our hotel for dinner.  I had the chicken schnitzel (which was wonderful and so were the fries) and sticky toffee sundae, and Michael had the meat plate again.  

Monday, April 23
The day was a little shorter on Monday.  It was from 9:30am-5pm.  We got there around 9:15am, and Nicole was already there setting up.  Somehow, even though I was so tired, that day went by quite a bit faster.  We had so much traffic and everyone loved the Water Drops.  

At the end of the day, we got cleaned up and went back to the hotel for a few minutes before dinner.  Jeremy picked us up and took us to the Chinese restaurant that was just east of our hotel.  I can’t remember the name, but it was really good.  I had the honey roast pork and Michael had the sweet pepper beef.  After that, we said our goodbyes to Adrian, Nicole, and Jeremy and walked back to our hotel.  

Another event we missed was Emily's awards night.  Here she is with her award for being in the top 5% of the Freshman class!


Tuesday, April 24
This was our sightseeing day.  I had a really hard time getting going in the morning.  I had set the alarm for 8am and I still slept past that a bit.  I think we left around 11am or so.  
We took the DLR and tube to High Street Kensington.  We stopped at the Whole Foods and had a look around at our competition.  We also bought some amazing brown sugar chocolate chip cookies.  After that, we walked to Kensington Palace and took a tour. 




We caught some of the lecture about life during the time of King James and Queen Caroline.  





The Princess Diana exhibit was closed, which was a bummer.  Everyone was excited about the new little prince being born.  It was on the front page of all the papers.  Kensington Palace is where Prince William and Katherine live, but the museum is on the opposite end of the palace from where they live.

I really loved seeing the Sunken Garden!  It was just outside the palace.  





We walked through the rest of the garden and caught the tube at Queensway and went to the British Museum.  Michael really wanted to see it, and he loved it!  


After the museum, we caught the tube at Holborn and headed back to Royal Victoria station.  There, we went to the Emirates Air Line, the cable cars across the Thames.  I was really excited to ride the cable cars, but the wind was loud and rocked the car and it really scared me.  I couldn’t really enjoy it and I was so relieved when it was over.  

Here are our views from the cable car






After that, we went to dinner on the Sunborn Yacht.  It was beautiful!  The food was amazing, but Michael’s portion was pretty small.  I had the teriyaki salmon with saffron mash and Michael had the potato gnocchi.  


Wednesday, April 25
Today we slept in until about 8am.  We got ready quickly, though, and we had breakfast and got all packed up by 10:30am.  We decided to take a taxi to avoid dragging our suitcases across London.  It took an hour and a half!  Everything went smoothly at the airport.  We stocked up on souvenirs for everyone.  The flight was better that the first one.  This time we got lucky and the seat next to me was empty.  We got through baggage claim and customs quickly and made it home before the kids left for their church activities.

I feel so blessed that we were able to go to London again!  It was a long trip and we worked a lot, but we still really enjoyed it.  It's hard to leave the kids for that long, though, and we're glad to be home.

Sunday, April 8, 2018

Nathaniel's Birthday

Nathaniel had to work on his birthday.  He works as a cashier at Walmart.  On Saturday night, he went to dinner with his friend Lacey, and then they came over for cake and ice cream, puzzles, and watching Lion King.  






Happy Birthday, Nathaniel!  We are so proud of you!

Easter

We had a very nice Easter Sunday.  Carol is already staying with us, and we also had Erin and Betsy and Geoff and the kids over.  

The kids had fun coloring the eggs

And the little ones had fun on their egg hunt


Sarah didn't want to pose for a picture, but I finally got one!

Happy Easter!

Sunday, April 1, 2018

First Quarter Miscellaneous

March was a huge month for us!  We had Nathaniel's BYU acceptance, mission call to Bolivia, and his Eagle Project.  We also sold the second of our two Alabama rentals we had left behind.  

Here are some things I didn't post about yet during these first three months of 2018. 

January 5
The boys helped me with updating the photo albums 

January 18
Andrew had his National Junior Honor Society induction 


January 20 
Emily went to Winter Formal with her friends





January 24
Andrew's Band concert

January 26 
Mother/Son Bingo night at Daniel's school

January 27
He can clean his room spotless!

January 30
Daniel's Battle of the Books competition

February 3
My visit to Alabama.  I got to have lunch with Cindy and Madeline and meet Madeline's sweet baby Everly.


February 4
Andrew on his way to do his Priesthood duties and collect fast offerings

February 10
A good hair day for me, lol!

February 10
I have started taking the boys to a salon for their haircuts.  Andrew wanted a specific haircut that I haven't been able to do, and I want Nathaniel to start learning what to tell a stylist to get the haircut he wants.  With Daniel, I can never seem to get his bangs just right.  I still cut Michael and Jonathan's hair myself.

Michael and I at the International State of the State dinner.  We were invited by our legal firm through work.

That's Governor Ducey on the left

February 23 
Andrew's basketball season
He had a great time!


February 23
Game Night for the adults at church.  

We ended the night playing human Hungry Hungry Hippos.  So fun!

February 28
Matchers!

March 8
Jonathan's project--it's a toucan's habitat 

March 10
Expo West
Michael hurt his knee, so I went by myself

March 15 
Spring Break fun at Peter Piper Pizza

March 23
More Spring Break fun
Mom/Kid fun day at Cheesecake Factory (I had some coupons to use up!) and bowling