Waiting around

We've been waiting to move from Corporate housing to another place.  Letty hasn't started school yet because we don't have an "address" but... we have found a place and we are scheduled to move in on Friday the 27th!  (Keep your fingers crossed that they finish remodeling work in time.)  As much as I dislike being a slave to the school schedule I am looking forward to it so we can have some normalcy in our lives.  Plus the kids are driving me and each other crazy....too much vacation.  We need to get rolling with things and be rid of this limbo state we're in.  Here are some pics of life here lately.  A couple weekends ago the girls and T-man enjoyed skating at the Royal Pavilion rink.  I've never seen so many adults that didn't know how to ice skate.  It was really funny as they all crowded along the wall, I wish I would have taken a picture of it.

 They had these cute little penguins for the kids to help them skate.

 If you're not careful you'll fall right off of the bottom of this slide.  Especially if your sister is going faster and pulls you off.  Letty had done that to Gracie just after this.  After that she stuck to the sides so she could slow herself down.

 Nice big sister giving loves.

 Sprout loves the geese.  She laughs and points and especially likes it when they go bottom up looking for food below.

 I don't think England is as worried about liability.   They had this awesome zip line also at Queen's Park not too far from T-man's work.

Next stop, England!

The Royal Pavillion in Brighton.  This palace is just outside our current apartment in England.  It was built for the Prince Regent later King George IV between 1787 and 1823 it pretty much was a party place.

Before I get completely back logged. Here is an update: We flew to London on Dec. 22nd, drove down to Brighton and are currently set up in our temporary housing. We had a simple Christmas here and flew to Spain on the 26th. We returned to Brighton on the 31st and have been adjusting and exploring. We are in the process of finding our semi-permanant housing. Letty can't start school until we have that address so she will have an extended vacation although she has asked me everyday when she can start school. It's nice to finally be on the correct time, I think it took us over a week to adjust. I thought Sprout (aka baby A; I figured since she is one now, she should graduate from "baby"and T-man has been calling the kids vegetable nicknames lately) would have a hard time with it but she did the best.  Here are our photos to date.

Santa in Spain...lots of nickle and diming going on here.  This one caught us in the busy Plaza Mayor in Madrid, sort of carnival like.

Eating traditional Spanish paellas. Richly flavored rice dishes.

Royal Palace in Madrid

Hand feeding the flamingos at the zoo

"A scout is trustworthly, loyal, helpful and can be found at the Madrid zoo?"  We had to go all the way to Spain to see a Boy scout founder Baden Powell.

Awesome view from the city of Toledo, ancient capital of the Spanish kingdom of Castille.

Playing on the shores of the Mediteranea Sea, we could see Africa in the distance!
                                     

The amazing architecture and detailed work of the La Alhambra.  It is located in Granada and is a palace and fortress built by Moorish rulers in the 13th century and was their last stronghold in Spain.

La Alhambra

On Christmas we took a walk around Brighton.  This is St. Nicolas Church, the oldest building in Brighton. While most of what we see today is from 1400, the original building was built at least 300 years earlier.

Brighton by the shore

Looking for rocks on the beach.  Yes rocks, this is not a sandy beach.

The clocktower (minus the clock) up the road from our place right now

.  The girls really wanted these masks at the gift shop but they were about $22 a piece so we passed.

On the Brighton Pier

The girls loved this little little ride.  I think we let them go about three times.

Enjoying a milkshake from Moo Moo's.  After this and a belgium waffle, we still hadn't had enough sweets, so we got some fresh donunts.  You were right Jamie, they were so awesome.  I think it was one of the best donuts I've had.  I was so busy devouring it I didn't take a picture.

the end of a chapter

We are off this week to Brighton, England! We have been busily packing, sorting, and doing daily routine stuff and a little extra.  We enjoyed T-man's work party Friday and Letty got to miss school. :) After the party we headed up to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, it was bigger than I thought it would be (74ft). All in all a great day! 

We have enjoyed our time here. We will miss our little corner of NJ, our great friends, and our ward. You all are invited to come and stay with us in England, we love visitors! Our plan is to return here after we finish this assignment. Wish us luck finishing everything this week. Wishing you a Merry Christmas!

Enjoying the ferry on the way to the World Financial Center

                                            

A funny story about Letty's Rudolf antlers.  She and I were leaving the building and her nose blew off, I couldn't grab it fast enough so it drifted into the road and got ran over by a car.  I couldn't help but laugh at the odds of a car hitting that small nose but there were some tears involved.  I dislike balloons for that reason, it always ends sadly.

                                           

Rockefeller Center

a little party I organized so that the girls could have a goodbye party and a mini birthday party for Kendra.  I have awesome friends (thanks for your house Erica, the food that was brought, and all the company)

                               

Santa at our ward party.  Baby can't resist that thick white hair!

Family Pictures

My awesome friend Randi came out and took our photos and enjoyed a weekend get away with her hubby in the city. We were delighted to have them stay with us for a couple of days. You guys are amazing! Thanks for capturing us during this phase of our lives.

Pumpkin

Since Halloween was "rescheduled", yes in New Jersey apparently when you have an emergency you can reschedule Halloween for the following Friday and Sunday, weird I know. We finally got around to carving. Instead of doing all of the pumpkins we did just this one so we could put our own little pumpkin inside.

It was a dark and cold night...

and it stayed that way for three days while our power was out. Although we found out at church today some were without it for six and seven days, yikes! A crazy snow storm came to visit us on October 29th and dumped about 6 inches of heavy, heavy snow on still fully leafed trees. This broke all kinds of tree limbs, knocking out the power all over New Jersey and much of the northeast. I'm not positive what the final number was but I know at least 600,000 people were without power in our state alone. It looked like a tree war happened outside with branches everywhere and trees in the street (not to mention the power and phone lines they took down with them), it was crazy and clean up is still happening. Lets just say it was an interesting experience, the kids were not too fond of the cold house and dark nights but they fared pretty well. The baby was the most miserable :( lucky girl got to sleep with mom and dad. We were very grateful for our awesome friends and ward.

My friend Randi and her husband came to stay with us this weekend and take our family pictures, they are super nice and a pleasure to have as our guests. They are off to finish the rest of their weekend in NYC.

All in all a very interesting week as we have spent most of it replenishing food and cleaning up after the outage.

Isaac

Five! How can that be? Letty has been so excited about Isaac's birthday. I love her seven year old perspective, it makes me happy. My heart is always a bit sad this time of year remembering... I suppose it always will be. I think it would be worse if I wasn't sad because it would feel like I had forgotten. I always want Isaac to be alive in our home so our girls know he was here, even if for such a short time. Letty always says she has a brother and it gets a bit awkward when people clearly don't see him and ask where he is? Oh well, I'm glad she is not as hindered or worried about what others think.

I feel like this experience has changed me and I hope made me better. After his death was a time we all felt like the Lord was carrying us and helped me to know more deeply how much the savior cares for us. I'm grateful for that.

Although loss is such an individual thing I feel like I can relate to those individuals in a way that I don't think I could have otherwise, it's given me some purpose in my experience and I'm thankful. We love you Isaac! We'll miss you always.