Big Change

Went in for an ultrasound about 3 weeks ago and they had run out of film....so I have no pictures to post but we did see the cute baby and it (yes it still is an "it" for about 3 more weeks) was about 3 inches long.  We could see fingers and toes and a big head just like dad.  Almost half way there.  Can't wait.

I get this  question a lot, so I'll just get it out there.  We have no gender preference.  It would be fun to have a boy because he would have two cousin's (one on each side) his same age, but a girl would be great too.  Even Rob thinks so.

Life has definitely become a little more interesting and exciting for us the last four months.  I feel like I have a million things to do and hardly any time to do them in.

Work has become a little more challenging, but manageable.  Let's just say my first graders think it is completely normal for their teacher to leave the room periodically and be eating gold fish and crackers all day long.  In fact, for Christmas one of the boys in my class brought me the largest box of gold fish I have ever seen with a note that said, "I know these are your favorite."  I love first graders.

More of London

So I know it has been a long time coming, but here are some more of our London pictures.

Top of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

The best view I could get of St. Paul's.  Unfortunately we could not take pictures of the inside, which is extremely incredible, so you just need to go there.

Another from the top of St. Paul's.  These are two towers in the front of the building.

Still on the top.  If you click on the picture and make it bigger, you can see the London bridge in the back.   It's right at the curve in the Thames.

A burger place we went to right outside our hotel.  It was actually called Byron's, so out of respect for a pretty cool brother-in-law, we decided to check it out.  This was written on the wall...we fell in love.

Coming up to the London Tower, this is what you get to watch.  Guards using catapults to blow off fake heads.  Very historical.

The Yeoman who took us on the tour of the London Towers.  Yes, there are still real, live Yeomen.  They guard the towers and even live there with their families.  This one happened to be hilarious.  I really enjoyed the tour...something about jolly, old men and English accents just makes me feel happy.  He was really hard to picture though...he moved his hands a lot.

Where the Yeomen live with their families.

The Queen's Gallery.  We got to see crowns dating back hundreds of years and all of the crowned jewels.  It was amazing.  One of my favorite parts of the trip.  You get to ride a moving sidewalk through part of the vault (which we rode 6 or 7 times- there was just so much to look at I couldn't help myself).

  

Us in front of the White Tower.  This is were Anne Boleyn was held prisoner before her execution.  We learned that all of the prisoners were actually treated quite well before they were killed.  They got to live in the towers with their families and servants.  Royal family members still attend church services held here occasionally.

The London Towers.  They used to be the largest towers in England.

We took this everywhere.

When we walked out of the Underground, this was waiting for us across the street.  I could hardly believe my eyes.  It is enormous.  Everything in London is fit so tightly together it is really hard to get pictures.

Close up.

Houses of Parliament.

The best view of Westminster Abbey.  Basically just a really cool graveyard inside with a lot of famous people.  We saw the graves of  Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens, Handel (the composer), and many famous poets in the "Poets Corner" including Shakespeare, Tennyson, John Keats, William Blake,  and Wordsworth.

This next part is especially for Steffanie Martz (I hope you are pleased):

The Abraham Lincoln statue across from the Houses of Parliament.

Winston Churchill.  We visited the Churchill Museum and War Rooms, which happened to be one of the most interesting parts of the trip for me.  It is set up as his life story, which made it more enjoyable I think.

The top right is supposed to say, "Cheer Up!  They may forget you, but they will remember me always."

Apparently Churchill liked to relax in these stylish babies.

The war room where all the big decisions were made.  The maps on the walls are exactly as they were left at the end of the war.  There are still markings and pins all over them.

This is all I have in me for the moment.  More to come.  Hopefully in a more timely manner.

London Days 1 & 2

I know it has taken me forever to post about this, but you can rest easy knowing that I have now begun a series of London posts!

Day 1

We set out to London a week and a half before I began teaching.  A very stressful time in my life, which ended up being to my benefit because I deal with stress by sleeping, which I did for 14 hours on the plane rides.  Rob was not so lucky, he was my pillow.  When we finally arrived in London, it was about 12:00pm and we were unable to check in to our hotel until 2:00pm so we went to this sweet natural history museum in Kensington near where we were staying.   

Keep in mind, we have not showered in over 24 hours.  Don't judge.

Awesome gargoyles all around the museum.

Apparently they have one of the largest dinosaur exhibits in the world, so I attempted to collect pictures for my 1st graders, but the lighting was pretty bad.

After that we were pretty much exhausted, so we went back to the hotel and slept.

Day 2

We went to church at the Hyde Park Ward which was within walking distance of our hotel.  Surprisingly there were a lot of Americans in that ward that were not tourists.  But I did manage to become friends with a Londoner named Maryanne who almost had a heart attack when she found out Rob and I were married... apparently I look too young.

After church we explored London a bit.

We finally made it to Hyde Park which was an extremely interesting place.  I have decided to save some of the best moments at this park for a later post TBA.  Stay tuned.

On the bridge in the middle of Hyde Park.

This is  the Princess Diana Monument.  All over there are signs that say "please do not walk or play in the monument."

There were probably over 100 people in the monument.

London has the best gardens and flowers in every park.  Like this.

And this.

Cute.

And awesome buildings lining every road like this.

and great statues every where you go.

Not a lot of pictures the first two days, but I promise it gets more exciting after this.

Grandpa

Things I love about Grandpa Robertson:

• Amazing rose garden, raspberry bushes, and peach trees.
• His homemade English Toffee and every other candy he made.
• Cooking skills...even though some dinner combinations got interesting in his later years, he knows how to cook.
• His passion for puzzles.
• Ceramics and Santa Clauses.
• Knitting and quilting abilities (I have a huge quilt and two scarves to prove it)
• Game playing skills.  I swear it did not matter what game you were playing with him, he ALWAYS won.
• Easy going attitude.
• Humility and desire to serve others and the Lord.
• His sense of humor

  

We will miss him.

London

Hey everyone,
Just reporting from the UK where it is a balmy 75 degrees outside. You should all feel lucky you don't have to suffer through it like we do. All the buildings are really old and look like they are falling apart. Nothing cool and new like in the US. Hopefully the insides of some of these buildings have cool new technology or something. Anyway, bye.

Independence Day!

So I neglected to post pictures from a summer highlight! The 4th of July. This happens to be my dad's favorite holiday. If you knew him, you would know he is the most patriotic man alive. Growing up, I frequently woke up to the Star Spangled Banner being sung from across the house while my dad showered. If this doesn't say patriotism, I don't know what does.

My favorite part of the 4th is eating corn and watching fireworks, which we did in the car driving home that night.

Corn is difficult to conquer on the cob. In my family, we call this the attack method.

Stuck in my teeth.

Still stuck in my teeth. (But more covert about it!)

By the way, who takes pictures of people eating corn...rude! I have yet to find the culprit.

Cute family huh?

I love July!

Summer of Torture...almost over

So, we made it an entire summer. Rob finishes his internship a week from Thursday! I seriously can not keep from smiling when I think about it. It has not been fun living apart all summer. We were pretty lucky though because we did end up seeing each other about once a month.

I am finished with school!! Yes, my classes are finished. No, I have not graduated. I have to complete my internship first, so next April (with Rob) will be our big day. I also took the Praxis on Saturday and hopefully passed. Now I have a little bit of time to really focus on getting ready to teach in a few weeks. My classroom is beginning to come together. I finally sorted through all of the stuff/junk that was left in the classroom by the previous teacher and have begun to set things up the way I want them. There have been a few set backs:

• I finally received desks for my students. Now I have to figure out how to arrange 25 octagons in my room. Not an easy task (they couldn't round up 25 square ones? Seriously?). I swear these desks are ancient. They probably have petroglyphs on the inside and all kinds of disease lurking on them. Some of them students have actually drilled holes through the entire piece of laminated wood (ok, so no petroglyphs). I have no idea how many years of grinding a pencil into wood that would actually take.
• I still have no desk. There is a computer on the side counter. I could easily turn that space into some sort of desk. Problem: do I dare sitting down to face away from 25 six year olds? I DON'T THINK SO. If I do not get a desk I am considering getting huge mirrors to hang by the computer so I can see my students should I ever need to use the computer during class.

But a few good things have come out of this as well:

• I found out that my district office has laminating machines we can use. It only costs 1-2 cents per inch depending on which machine you use. I laminated over 20 feet of materials and paid less than five dollars. I could not believe it!
• I renewed my love for IKEA. I found these awesome stools for my reading center and readers theater! While I was there I wished I had kids because I think it would be incredibly fun to decorate a little kids room. (I guess I would also need a bigger house...or house in general).
• Shopping. Justified because I have to wear skirts or dresses everyday (I hate dress pants) so I'm going to need a few more! Thank goodness for birthday money!

Sorry for the long and boring post, but such is my life these days. Compared to last summer, which was filled with fun, camping trips, and soaking up the Arizona sun for weeks at a time...ahhh....the good old days. What happened to them? Maybe I'm finally becoming an adult. Unlikely, but possible.

Beauty and the Beast

I got you sooooo good. I love you.

Highland Games

Rob came home for the weekend just in time for Highland Games and Scottish Festival. It was awesome!

There was a surplus of very large men in kilts and shortbread...yummmm!

We watched some of the games...my personal favorites were the caber toss and the weight over the bar, and saw the massed band. Here are some clips:

We visit the Clan Campbell tent too and got to wear around Clan Campbell name tags the whole day! Rob tried to take a picture of the Campbell flag, but had a little trouble.

You can sort of see the yellow behind those lights!

Interestingly, the army had a booth at the scottish festival...I bet you didn't know the army made kilts!