Pumpkin Carving

Today we were going to go to Sacrewell Farms for their Halloween Fun Day but the weather was really icky and rainy so after lunch at Frankie and Benny's (our closest thing to an American restaurant), we went to Tesco and bought 4 pumpkins.

Of course we had to by them in all the appropriate sizes to fit for each member in our family.

Kevin helped Addison cut out the face on her pumpkin. We really thought she would get into pulling out all the seeds and stuff, but she didn't want anything to do with it so Kevin and I went to town on all four of them. Addison was pretty determined to be able to write her name on her pumpkin. (She's been asking to do that a lot lately and she does a nice little scribble.) But once she got a hold of the crayon she decided that her pumpkin needed hair so she drew hair all over it. Kevin asked why I let her do it, but I explained that it was her pumpkin and she could do what she wanted with it.

Kevin went online and found a ghost design that he thought would be easy enough for me to draw and him to cut out. It was actually pretty cool so I had to find something neat for me as well.

I found a cat with a witch's had on it for my pumpkin this year. We really had a lot of fun this year and we actually got it done ahead of time instead of waiting until the night of Halloween.

Here's all of our pumpkins admiring all of their insides now outside on our kitchen table. From left to right is Kevin's ghost, Harrison's OHH face, my cat, and Addison's hairy jack-o-lantern.

Stamford in the Fall

Today the kids and I went up to Stamford to the Friday market. We went to find some fabric for a project I'm working on and to pick up a few other things. I love England in the fall...it is so beautiful like most places do but I love the old cottages and stone buildings with the leaves changing as well.

Addison loves to chase and feed the ducks in the green and on the river. It's one of our favorite spots to go.

A fall scene back towards Stamford's green.

On the way home we stopped by Burghley house and the trees on the drive out were so beautiful. Felt like you going through some mystical place.

On the drive home from Burghley I snapped a quick picture of near by village with it's beautiful colors.

Sneak Peak of Halloween Costumes

This year I was truly on the ball for once with the kid's Halloween costumes. I bought a pattern back in the States this summer and just finished sewing them up today. Addison is going to be a black kitty cat and Harrison is going to be a super cute golden colored puppy dog. I've been having them play around in them a bit so they aren't freaked out by putting them on the day of Halloween and not know what's going on (had that problem last year - learning from my mistakes). They love wearing them so much though that it is hard to get them to take them off. They both have little hoods that finish off the outfits with their cute little kitty cat ears and floppy puppy ears. More pics to come after Halloween!!!!

For the Love of His Shoes

I bought Harrison a pair of proper Clarks tennis shoes (trainers) and he has been in love with them ever since I put them on him for the first time about 2 months ago. He wants to wear them all the time and he will find them and bring them to me right away in the morning so he can run around the house in them even with just his jammies on.

What is so cute is that when it's time to go out for the day, I ask him to get his shoes and he gets down on all fours to find them in the pile of shoes by the door and then brings them to me, turns around and sits down so I can put them on him. What a silly boy!

Harry is a Handful

Harrison Michael is quite the cheeky chap. He runs all over the place and it's hard to catch him. Today I had his little bib overalls on and the only way Kevin could catch him was by grabbing the straps. He lifted him up and made him fly like Superman for a while. He looked more like a Harry handbag.

Silly boys of mine!

Proud of our Little Girl

Yes, miraculously overnight essentially, Addison decided to potty train herself on our holiday to Rome. For the past eight months we tried off and on to get started by getting her a little potty to reading all the potty books to drawing up potty reward charts to wearing pull ups then buying the big girl panties and wearing them, but nothing was horribly successful. She would go on the potty but only on command.

I'm not sure what did it, but I'd like to think it was Kevin telling her that she couldn't go swimming in the pool on the boat for the 4 days before we left that made something click. Once we got back from our cruise we told her she couldn't wear "nappies" (diapers) any more and she was very excited to wear big girl panties. We went to Toys 'R Us and she picked out a special toy that she would get if she went a whole week without any accidents. Well unfortunately she had her only accident on the second day so we had to wait a whole other week and today she finally got her Snow White present.

She has done so well and we are very proud of her. She is proud of herself now and likes to shake her little bootie with her panties on. Also now with every little tinkle sensation she has we are running off to the potty. Also I have to remember that before we ever leave the house for more than 15 minutes that we have to hop on the potty. It is really nice only having to change one set of diapers again...and only have to buy one package every two weeks. She is still wearing a pull up at night and we call them our "nigh nigh panties" and we'll gradually work our way out of those as well.

Eating on His Own

Harrison is really growing up too fast. He's already able to eat things pretty good with a spoon now. He's had the fork mastered for a while now but recently we've been pouring a bowl of Rice Crispies each morning and for lunch and supper he enjoys eating a pot of yogurt.

He gets the floor and himself quite a bit more messing now days, but he is doing so well. Kevin asks if I can give him not such messing foods to eat but I don't think there is much you can give a 13 month old that they can't find some way to get all messy.

We got a full body bib from friend's of Kevin's parents and it is the greatest thing ever for this stage. I need to figure out how to make them so we have more and to give them to other people as gifts because they are AWESOME!

Harry's New Red Wagon

We had a nice surprise when we got home. Harrison's birthday present from Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jeff had finally showed up at the house. They really wanted both of their grandson's to have Radio Flyer wagons for their 1st birthdays. I didn't think we could bring one back with us this summer so mom went on a quest to find a supplier in the UK. She ended finding a website that would ship them from somewhere over here and they did end up sending a little card right around his actual birthday to let us know it was coming but they were on back order so we wouldn't expect it for several weeks. Wagons are not a normal pull behind toy in the UK so it is very, very unique to have one and now both American families in our village now have one...how fun!

We waited until Monday night to put it together because we were just too exhausted from our drive home on Sunday. The kids had a blast pulling all the parts out of the box.

Each of the kids got to help dad turn the screw driver and use the hammer.

Looks like we put it together alright!

We got to do a little ride around the house!

Thank you Grandma Sue and Grandpa Jeff for such an amazing keepsake!

Traumatic Travels Home from Holiday

The next morning we got up and walked straight off the boat to have a private shuttle pick us up. I figured that with all the public transport and headache I caused earlier in the week that talking everyone into such convenience would be worth it and it so was. Usually the ride to the airport would have been 1 1/2 hours but the driver got us there in 40 minutes!!! So we were about 2 1/2 hours early for mom and dad's flight and 5 hours early for our flight. We sent mom and dad off and we caught a shuttle to our terminal. We killed some time but getting lunch and finally checking in.

The flight home went pretty well until we got back into Heathrow and after watching the conveyor for over 20 minutes we came to the conclusion that we were missing a bag. There was an overhead announcement to direct people coming in from Rome to come to the Alitalia desk if they were missing a bag. Apparently we weren't the only ones in for some frustration. Well, they couldn't tell us what had happened or where our bags were or if we were ever going to get them back. They made us fill out a form and call a number tomorrow to check on things. We were very upset because we checked both bags in at the very same time and the one with all of our souvenirs was some where between here and Rome.

We left the airport with all of our happy thoughts of the cruise now deflated because of our baggage issue. Also we used the Hotel Hoppa bus route this time and it took over 45 minutes for us to get back to our hotel. We still haven't found the most convenient and friendly way to fly out of this country. Well back at our car we felt much better and headed home.

Now that little Addie is potty trained she had been doing well telling us when she needed to go. Well we were pretty much stuck on the M25 and she says she's got to go. We asked her to hold it and like the mother that I am I assumed that she just decided to go in her pants when we weren't able to stop for a while. So as we get off the M25 for a short cut we pass a petrol station and kept going and as we passed it she starts screaming at us to stop because she's got to go potty. We felt awful, here she was sitting back there waiting to go and she actually recognized a place we would have stopped to go. She was really uncomfortable and we could go back so we pressed on to find someplace new. She was crying and said she already went and kept crying that she was "sorry mommy." I took all the blame because I told Kevin to keep going. The poor thing had the most horrific accident and it took loads of wipes to get it cleaned up when we got to the rest stop. She kept telling me sorry when I stripped her down and I just hugged her and said she didn't do anything wrong. I felt like a horrible mom!

Everything got a bit better when we got some McD's in our tummy's and finally made it home a little later. No word on our bag until late on Monday afternoon that our bag got left in Rome and was on a midnight flight into Heathrow and we would get it by courier the next day. I was relieved and sure enough by 7PM on Tuesday we got our bag back.

Cruising the Med

No stops today, just crusin' in the Mediterranean! The waters were a little rougher today and boy you could feel the boat move. It was even more so during breakfast when we were on the 11th floor that you could watch the fish decor hanging from the ceiling sway back and forth.

Well, after a woosey breakfast and a motion sickness pill, I was starting to feel a little bit better. I actually tried out the rock climbing wall and it was awesome. I was so scared at first but they told me to climb with your legs and since I knew my legs were much stronger than my arms I just kept saying that over and over again. I made it up pretty quick on my first and only time they said for a beginner. I could really see how you get a great work out that way. Some gal who went before me had a real fear of heights and her husband promised to buy her a Prada bag if she made it to the top!!! I should have made my own deal...darn!

Addie got to do some more swimming in the pool and Harry resumed his position on the side of the pool deck.

We had fun watching the Men's International Belly Flop contest that I didn't do a good enough job of talking my husband into participating. Next they had the Women's Bicep Competition and my dad made mention that I should try for it. I thought he was crazy, I couldn't use the slam to my self-image with all the other beautiful women on board that just didn't give birth to a baby a year ago. But they weren't getting much participation and I saw a girl about my size hop up so I thought what the heck. Well, then all these Brazilian and Spanish women were in line and I felt so stupid. Well, I was last out of 10 women to strut my stuff which actually was great because I could scope out the competition. The gal just in front of me was another American from New York and she had fun with it, but the other "drop dead beautiful" women just laughed and goofed it off. Well, I being a silly person pulled out the one Ace card out that I had. All I could think about was how my dad from the time I was a little kid until now would pretend to blow up his biceps through his thumb. So I tried it out and I also did the Mr. Universe poses to be horribly silly. My heart was racing but I was having a really fun time as all 10 of us lined up to have our fate decide by 5 gentlemen from the crowd.

Well my silliness paid off and I actually one "Ms Athletic Biceps" The gal from New York next to me won the "Ms Bicep" award but the funny thing was that her boyfriend was an Iowa State grad so we had to visit after everything was done. I had to scoop up Addison after receiving my medal because she was scared for me with all the people crowded around. From that point on she was telling everyone how I won a medal for dancing around. Yikes!!!

Since we had found fellow Iowa State grads we of course all had to pose for a picture. The one guy mom and dad met said he was going to submit the picture in the Iowa State Alumni magazine so if you are a fellow alum watch for my crazy swimsuit edition coming your way.

For our last dinner on the ship we decide to try the main dining room again since Harrison didn't want to sleep all day long we attempted to get him down about 20 minutes before dinner time. It was nice to get to visit with the two couples we had met earlier in the week from our tables. One older couple from near Shannon, Ireland who offered a free B&B stay with them the next time we came over and another older couple from Yuma, AZ. They were all very kind and wonderful with our little ones.

Addison got to dress up in her other little dress and pose really special with Grandma Sue and again with daddy.

Harrison slept through most of dinner so when he did finally wake up we brought him to the Windjammer for some supper. He actually picked up an entire hot dog and sat their and ate it like this. What a silly boy!

On our last night the kids hung out with Grandma and Grandpa as we got everything packed up. We were only short a Croc shoe for Harry that we think we lost at a restaurant in Rome. It was a great cruise and wonderful experience with my folks!

Calgari, Sardinia

Okay, so this is silly, but the day that our port is the closest to town we have a free shuttle available. Well, not so much available but required because it is an "active" port they don't want thousands of people just roaming about so by law we had to take a shuttle of a distance that would have taken 5 minutes to walk. Again our goal today was to hop on a bus out to the main beach, but we thought we would take a walk through town. Well the walk became a hike as there were really steep hills. We tried breaking away from the huge crowd of people and ended up on some side streets and just made our way around. It's a lot of work pushing those kiddos up a steep hill.

Mom thought she would get her rock wall climbing out of the way here rather than on the ship. Silly Sue!!!

One of the quaint things we noticed in almost all our stops but decided to take a picture of now was how close all the building were to each other and that everyone had their little clothes line just outside their windows to air out everything and anything.

We did some more trekking and I left Dad to help Kevin carry the stroller up the stairs in these places as well. At the top of this hill though we did find a few shops, some cool beverages and an tourist information booth that told us how to get to the beach. We also ran into the friends mom and dad made on the plane who were from Iowa and they ended up joining us on the bus ride over.

This was by far our most favorite beach...Poetto! Fine sands and shallow beautiful water. It was a bit windy so if you sat long enough you could get a nice full body exfoliation, but it was very relaxing.

Addie and I had some fun in the water and found some pretty cool shells along the way that we are going to make into our Sardinia Christmas ornament since we couldn't find one to buy.

Harrison enjoyed the beach in his own special way. His poor blanket had picked up a little bit of three different countries by this point and we attempted to wash it in the shower last night but it was pretty disgusting...he didn't seem to mind much.

We got ourselves some sandwiches, drinks and fruit at the local cafe. The gal behind the counter could tell by the deer gazed look in our eyes that we couldn't read the menu so she asked if we wanted the English versions. How nice!

Looks like another monkey visited our room tonight!

Palma de Mallorca

Our day in Palma was a short port day so we didn't have much time to explore. There was supposed to be an amazing beach just outside of the town and since the map RC gave us said it was 10 minutes to town I thought we could just walk it. Well, about 2 hours later when we finally made it to the beach, I realized that they failed to mention that it was a 10 minute bus ride. We ended up walking almost 4 miles, but again if we wouldn't have walked we wouldn't have come across some very interesting things. We wouldn't have seen this cute little burrow guarding the National Defense Museum.

I thought this was kind of an ironic picture. A big military gun with a donkey up next to it enclosed in a fence with a beautiful rainbow shining above it. I had to wonder if this was a funny joke God was telling.

The rainbow continued to shine over this beautiful bay and the rocky cliffs and secluded beaches below. Well this little beach wasn't so empty. Actually there were three people swimming there and in nothing but what God gave them, well I think the gal had a few extras that God didn't totally give her naturally. A few construction guys had stopped on the side of the road for a look as well. Ohhh....my!

There is a very large and long marina that stretches from the port all the way into town. Lots of amazing boats that Dad and Kevin kept day dreaming about along the way. Also by this time we had been walking for over a 45 minutes and I stopped to ask a lady for directions to the beach and she pointed out the cathedral that seemed so far away yet and that the beach was next to that (at least another 30 minutes walk). I was feeling pretty guilty for not knowing really how long it was going to take us to get there and wasting all our time.

When we got up near the cathedral it was really pretty and the beach was just another 15 minutes down so once we got there we were pretty relieved. I did happen to find out that a city bus did stop close to the beach and it appeared to run all the way out to the pier where our ship was. Funny thing was that we never saw a bus go by us the entire walk out....so we were going to try to catch that on the way back.

The beach was great with lots of sand and lots of sun. We saw a couple other people from our cruise and we asked them about how they got into town and all said they took the RC shuttle...one guy thought he just paid 3 Euro to get on but then after we talked a bit he realized that it was yesterday in Barcelona that he paid 3 Euro and didn't know how much he paid for this trip in...he just swiped his card. Wow...wouldn't that be nice to just swipe your card and not care how much you spent...

Again we all had a blast and it was nice to have more of a real beach to play on. We did find our way up to the local bus stop and for 1.25 Euro each we got a nice little ride through town all the way back to the boat. Two other couples found the bus as well we helped each other out. The reason we didn't see the bus stop before was because it was tucked off to the side hidden by a building. I know that the cruise line is all about making money but there isn't anything wrong with informing guests of their options for public transport. I need to do a little write up on TripAdvisor or Port Reviews.com so that others know about the bus because there wasn't anything written up on that for me to know.

Since our ship left at 4 we needed to be back by 3ish so we did another late lunch and some swimming in the pool when we got back. The guys went off and did the rock climbing wall. Once I got Harrison to fall asleep, mom, Addie and I went to watch them. I missed Kevin, but watched my dad master this thing. He was so fun to watch. He and Kevin both insisted that Mom and I race both of them the following day. We'll see...

That night we had a little elephant visit our room.

Here is our room. We got one that bunk beds fold down out of the ceiling. Addison slept on one side and I slept on the other while Kevin and Harry got the king size bed down below. Addison did really well in the bunk bed and only fell down between Kev and Harry one night...she was okay...just a little shaken up. We must have given our stateroom attendant fits with all the junk we had all over our room.