Holy Time Change!

Hi! Hola! We're back from our whirlwind trip to England and Spain. The six hour time change is pretty tricky, let me just tell you! We left Spain yesterday at the equivalent of midnight our time and got home 18 hours later. This, my friends, screws with your brain quite a bit. I was basically awake for 24 hours and awoke this morning in my own bed feeling as though I had been drugged and somehow transported magically back to Salem! Very strange, indeed!

Apparently we missed some terrible weather here last week - rain and tornado warnings and storms and terrible-ness! We had really great weather while we were away, save for one day that it rained and was very chilly, but we'll talk about all that later.

This will be the first installment of vacation pictures. Many more to follow!

Our trip began in London. There must have been approximately 85 BILLION people visiting London while we were there. HOLY traffic and long lines and crowds and MAN! It was busy like you read about. It was a bit overwhelming as we were very jet-lagged and tired from traveling overnight and getting no sleep on the plane. We left at 6:30 pm our time on Friday and arrived at the equvalent of 8am their time Saturday. So, the day was before us!

After we arrived, we found the hotel and had a terrible breakfast (what they say about the bad food in England? It's all true!) with the rest of our family that was already there. We then split up and did some sight-seeing with the younger set who was part of the group.

We walked over to Buckingham Palace (how cool is that?!) and they were preparing for some sort of parade. There were approximately a gajillion tourists there just watching as the guards stomped over here and then over there and then some horses came in...Since we were so overly tired and punchy, we had the attention spans of gnats, so we left after about 30 minutes or so.

Here is the front of Buckingham Palace. Yo, Queenie! What up?
Here's the cool monument out in front of Buckingham Palace. Note the small sea of people in front of me, there.
This was a very friendly Bobby who was most helpful in answering everyone's questions. Note the sea of people...

And here was the motley crew who I was with that day!
That's my husband on the right. Cousin next to him, Brother-in-Law then Sister-in-Law on the left. Cute family, right?

This was the top of the bus where we did some sight-seeing until my husband and I literally couldn't keep our eyes open anymore!

Here is my crazy husband doing I-have-no-idea-what in our room in London! It was SOOOO hot in there. The English do not believe in air-conditioning. And the food? If it's supposed to be cold? It's luke-warm. If it's supposed to be hot? It's luke-warm. Oy. It was not good.

After some sight-seeing we went to our room and napped. Man, that felt good. After a shower and changing clothes, we met up with the rest of the family for a dinner at a pretty good Italian place. We had pizza and salad. Then, the matriarch of the family had gotten all of us theater tickets to see the musical, Billy Elliot! It was a very cute production, but, of course, it was about 90 degrees in the theater (not kidding), so after three and a half hours roasting in the theater, we were all but spent from our long, long day!

The next morning (Sunday), we got up late and skipped breakfast! Just had a latte (which was delicious!) and then walked around a quiet neighborhood near our hotel. Here are some of the beautiful flower boxes we saw...



Europeans do a great job with their flowers, in general...I remember seeing spectacular flowers all through Europe last time I was there...Particularly in France and Italy. Spain has incredible gardens everywhere, as well...

So Sunday we ended up meeting my husband's Dad and Sister and then going out for really good Chinese food! Dan's Dad and Step-mom had been to London before and had a great meal at this particular Chinese restaurant, so we wanted to try it out! It was REALLY good!

Sunday afternoon we flew to the next of our destinations, Seville. We'll talk about the zoo experience we had on the cheapo airline from London to Seville and then explore Seville in the next post..

Glad to be back! Adios for now!

Doggy-pies and poppies

When you read this I will be in Spain! HOLA!! Como esta? Esta BIEN!! I'm in Spain! Of course I'm bien!!

I tried to take good photos of the dogs the other day because they are both just looking so darn cute! Koty has his short, short, short summer hairdo and Sadie is still a bit fluffy even though we did cut her hair a while back. Her hair grows at the same rate as bamboo. About three feet per day. Seriously? It's fast-growing and loves to shed. My house is just one big old hairball.

Anyone who has a dog will attest to the fact that they do NOT dig looking into a camera. They are simply not into it. So here is what I get when I try to photograph them and have them look at the camera lens:





So, after try try trying I finally got this out in the entry way:He's looking a bit pitiful because he wanted to go for a walk, but it was not time yet.

Then I got these while in the kitchen. The dogs are stuck to me like glue because it's thundering outside and they are MOST displeased...Poor scaredy dogs!Here's Sadie ALLLLmost looking at the lens:

And ADORABLE Koty with his summer hairdo! I LOVE the way he looks!

And, of course, I will leave you with a fleur to contemplate. This is one of the Icelandic poppies out front. It's really a neat one, as it flowers different colors - sometimes yellow, sometimes pink, sometimes white. We are having a white day today!

Hope you are having a buenas dias! Catch you on the flipside! Will be home on the 11th! Adios, muchachos!