Nudie Dishwasher

I was washing the dishes and had to leave the kitchen for the minute... only to come back and find Ella doing the dishes in the buff.  Guess she didn't want to get her clothes wet!  Anyway, it made me laugh :) 

Fun at School

Luke's school posts pictures of what the kids have been up to on their website every now and then.  I swiped some of these off the site since I thought they were fun! 

Making Mud!

Aliya, Gabriel, Luke, and Erica.  Gabriel is Luke's best bud at school.

Cutie Numbers on Chinese NewYear...

Dragon the class made...

3 Billy Goats Gruff Play...

They made their own bridges. 

On my mind this week...

*Fifth day in a row with lots of sun!  It's a nice change!

*Leaves are starting to come out on the trees, and the daffodils are out!  I love this time of year.  If we don't make it this year, before we move I want to go over to Keukenhof for Holland's tulip festival!

*All 7 Smith kids are married now.  Congrats to Daniel and Lauren! They got married last Saturday in the Mesa temple!  The kids and I stayed here while Jake flew out to the wedding.  Here's the cute couple!  My father-in-law posted this picture he took at their reception on facebook.  So, for posterity's sake.. here's Uncle Booner and his beautiful bride on their wedding day :) 

And Hailey, I got these from your facebook album!  Thanks :)  The 7 Smith kids in no particular order...

I loved this next picture of all 3 sets of Smith twins at the reception! 

Jake & Aaron, Lucy & Lane, and Seth & Logan. 

I was afraid that if all of us were to fly back to the states for the wedding the kids would be little grouchies the whole time. We would be there just long enough to mess up their little bodies' clocks only to turn around and come home shortly after.  I guess thoughts of when we first got here and screaming tired kids in temporary lodging that first week are still too fresh in my mind!  Not to mention that plane tickets to get grumpy kids there for a few days are in the $600 range.  One of these days when Luke has a long break from school we're going to try to take a military hop over.  Anyway, we're glad Jake was able to go and represent!  He had a great time.  A few of the pictures Jake got on his phone...

*Jake got back Wed. afternoon from the wedding. We're glad to have him back!  Oh, and thanks to everyone that gave him goodies to bring back to us!  Everything from astronaut ice cream sandwiches to Japanese candies to ties, etc.  Thanks!  :)

*Thinking about Nick Alden's family. He was one of those shot at the Frankfurt Airport last week and was  in our ward.  Such a sad situation.  His family had just recently moved in.  His wife spoke Sunday and bore her testimony.  She's truly amazing.  His memorial service was on base today. 

*This ward sticks to what they say!  Going into nursery we were told it would be a 6 month calling.  I planned on being there a year or more because, well, other times I've been in nursery it's been longer.  Anyway, I'm out of there now and in Young Womens with the Mia Maids.  Should be a fun change.  Jake is back with Scouting.  Looks like we are going to have this scouting thing down by the time Luke gets in there : ) 

*Tsunami and Earthquakes in the Pacific.  Crazy and sad, sad news.

*As of this week we've been in England for 6 months!  Some people have asked me lately about what I think of living here and honestly, I really like this place!   If Jake were to come home from work and say they are moving us back next month because they don't need us here, I'd be a little sad.  Not done here yet!  Sure, our house is creaky and tiny compared to what we left in the states (the quirky things about English houses deserve a full post another time), there are more rainy days than sunny, and our extended family is far away.  The last point is definitely the most annoying.  Especially if I want to talk to family in the morning my time but they are sound asleep!  But, I love that we can jump in our car on the weekends and see some cool sites! and that I can walk five minutes to buy things at the market.  England is gorgeous, and I'm always wanting to bring my camera along.  I feel like I need to hurry and document things that were new and different when we arrived here since it's slowly becoming the norm.  For example, when we got here I just loved to sit and listen to people talk because British accents had been a novelty.  I don't think twice about how people are speaking now.  Same with driving.  The first few weeks here I was totally freaked out and only wanted Jake to drive since it was on the other side of the road and signs and roadways were different.  Now it's just the norm.  I'm almost nervous to go back and drive in the states.  A little worried about driving on the wrong side there now!  We've been able to see some fun things while here and plan to do lots more traveling around Europe!  Next planned trip is to Scotland for sight-seeing and another half marathon!  My list of places to go just keeps getting longer.  Makes it hard to decide when to add another little person to our fam!  It's pretty easy now to load up our two kidos and take off whenever we decide to!
 Awesome friends, coworkers, and our ward family here in England have helped make things fun.  In Vegas, I never really felt like it was home. Sure, we met some great people and had fun, but it felt like we were just visiting for a year.  Maybe because we knew early on it would just be a year... I don't know.  It's been different here though, and I love that it feels more like we live here and aren't just visitors! 
England is a good fit for us right now, and I'm glad we're here.

* Liking this cereal lately!  It was on super sale at the commissary so I bought it and am hooked now.

   
*Can't wait for school to be done.  That's pretty much my plan for this weekend!  School work.  Can't wait until I don't have to have school in the back of my mind anymore.

* I've been wanting to watch the Biggest Loser lately!  But then again, if we had live TV from the US, it would be that much harder to do school work.  Probably better that we don't have it :)  Not much on British TV is worth watching.

*Abby had a birthday!  Happy 23 to my little sis. 
Here's a little movie we sent to her from Luke and Ella..

Jenni reminded me that it was she and Ella's half-birthday this week too! 

Happy half-birthday to Jenni and Ella! :)

*I accidentally got rid of all the links to my blogging buddies when I changed my template!  Aaaa!  Super annoying. 

Thetford Forest

When it's not raining, you've got to take advantage of the outdoors here!  Thetford Forest is pretty close to our house and has some great trails and fun parks in it.  I'm excited for warmer weather so we can get out more and explore!  We went last week with Stacy, Liberty and Jakey boy.  Fun times! 

The kids were on a mission to find big sticks.  Mission accomplished.  Luke was pretty proud that he could heft the big ones around!

Luke and Liberty..

Flat Caden came along this time too. 

Ella konked out in the stroller.  We got a new one to tackle the footpaths and run around here.  It's been fun!

Yet another post that involves walking and duck feeding.

Because the kids and I love our walks around here...  more duck pics!  These are from a week ago.

Check out Ella's shoes.  They end up on the wrong foot 75% of the time.  Cutie.  I guess she'll learn one day!

We brought Flat Caden along to get some pics with him in the area and Luke accidentally threw him in the water with the bread!  It was too funny.  He was super wet so his head fell off.  Don't worry, he got his head back and is on his way back to CA now!

I can't wait for the leaves to come back!  Hurry up spring!

A Day at Banham Zoo

Luke has been out of school for half term break and Jake had last Monday off work  (Presidents Day) so we headed off in the rain to see Banham Zoo.  It's about 20 minutes away.   StarWars toys are in McDonalds happy meals now so we stopped there on the way for lunch. Food at local pubs is usually pretty blah so I don't complain here when we do burgers at McDonalds!     


Banham Zoo isn't huge, but it's got all the normal zoo animals and is really clean and open.  Ella loved feeding the sheep until one bit her fingers.  She didn't want to have anything to do with feeding any animals after that. 

I heard some familiar squawking when we walked into the zoo, and my guess at where it was coming from was right.  They had tons of sun conures.  Made me think of my cute Petey!  I hope he's still alive and happy out there! 

They had a really fun giraffe area.  You can get close to them. 

Thought this picture of Luke was funny...

Greedy monkeys... a zookeeper had some bananas for them and they were going crazy.  One monkey bit another one and his hand was bleeding everywhere.  So gross.  You can see blood on the fence from it.  Jake got some pretty nasty pictures of the monkey injury... don't think I want those in the blog book though :)

Luke checking out some weird birds...

 Waving goodbye to some of the animals... Oh, and random English tidbit... See that soda El is packing around?  Orange Fanta is everywhere here.  It doesn't taste anything like orange soda in the states but it's pretty tasty! 

They had a fun park for the kids.  I think we'll be making more visits in the future!

After being outside so long we were freezing, so we warmed up in the little zoo cafe.  Their hot chocolate was awesome.  English people really know how to do hot chocolate! 

That was pretty much our day at the zoo.

New Hair.

 I went dark with my hair last week.  It was a brave move for me since I never do more then highlights on my natural color!  So, I don't love the new look but it's something different for a while!  Thinking I'll go back lighter in the summer.  Anyway, here's the darker me...

 

I realize I'm not good at taking self portraits.  Like how my head is partially chopped off?  Me too. This picture was the best one out of the ones I snapped though.  At least it's partially in focus :)

I ♥ London. Especially London trips with the hubby.

We have some awesome friends who were willing to watch Luke and Ella overnight (thanks Logan and Stacy!!), so Jake and I went to London this weekend.  We sped off as soon as Jake got off work on Friday.  The drive there was a little stressful since traffic was bad and we needed to make our 7:30 showing of Wicked!  Driving into and out of the city is crazy on the weekends.  With no traffic it's about an hour fifteen min, but with weekend traffic it's quite a bit longer.  When people go to London from here they usually just ride the train in.  Makes things easier when you don't have to park a car and drive on the crazy London streets, but since we were staying overnight, we were able to leave the car at our hotel.  We ended up taking a cab to get to the Apollo Victoria Theatre from the hotel (The Crown Moran) and got there about 5 minutes late.  We had to watch the first ten minutes of the show from the back of the theatre until they could escort us to our seats.  Wicked was really fun though!  Jake liked it too.  I think the next musical I want to see here is Billy Elliot.   Here we are after the show.  The lighting was really weird in this pic, hence the black and white.  Crappy picture= better then no picture though, right?  Maybe not.    

It was too late after the show to really sit down and eat, so we grabbed some sandwiches at little place before jumping on the tube and got back to the hotel around midnight.  The Crown Moran has free breakfast in the morning, so after eating there we went out to see the city.   Jake and I had some company on our trip.  Our nephew sent us a flat Caden to take around England for a bit for his class at school.  We took him the next day with us sightseeing.  I think he liked riding the tube.  Haha.  Thought this picture was plain. 

(smith def. of plain acc to Jake for all of you non-smiths:  pleasantly funny in its own way.)

We wanted to go to the National Gallery since it's something we'd rather not do with kids in tow.  Pretty amazing seeing so many well-known paintings in person!  (Van Gogh, Monet, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rousseau, Seurat, etc.) 

View of Trafalgar Square from the steps of the National Gallery...

Making sure flat Caden got a picture with a double decker bus.  My kids think they are cool. 

Can you find Jake in this next pic?  He's the only guy in the city wearing red so it should be easy :)

Looking down at Big Ben from Trafalgar Square...

Flat Caden met the Household Calvary and got a token phone booth shot...

House of Parliament...

It was exactly noon when we walked by Big Ben.

River Thames and the London Eye. 

Westminster Abbey.  William and Kate tie the knot in a couple of months here.  April 29th has been declared a national holiday for it.   

Caden and I went to Hogwarts for a bit.

Jake at King's Cross station

My favorite London food:  Crepes.  At the Kensington Creperie.  It was Jake's first time there and he's a fan now too.  Delish!  Come visit and we'll take you :)

It was fun just walking around and relaxing in the city with each other.  Thanks Jake for a fun weekend!