London Travel

We made it to the UK!!! Our flight into London was surprisingly smooth! Blake fell asleep on the plane before we even took off. The only issue we did have was that there was a mechanical issue with the plane so we sat at the terminal/on the plane for over an hour before we actually took off.......and then Blake woke up about an hour after we were in the air. Everyone was thoroughly entertained though because we each had our own tv with a plethora of different movies/games/cd's to choose from.......it was great! The actual flight was 9 hours and because the kids were so good and we had plenty of entertainment it definitely didn't seem like that long of a flight. Blake did eventually go back to sleep and the girls slept for about 4 hours or so as well.

We took a big hotel by bus van to our hotel. It was too early to check in so we dropped off our luggage and took off for a walk. We weren't really within walking distance from the cool sights downtown so we just walked to Abbey Road, peeked at Abbey Road Studios where the Beatles recorded and then looked for a place to eat. We stopped at a pizza place. Blake had a huge meltdown because he was so tired. So we left and walked back to the hotel, checked in, and slept for 7 hours! By the time we woke up it was already 7 or 8pm. Derek took the kids to see if they could go swimming but that was a no go as the hotel was more of a resort and for upper class people (we were definitely out of our element there!) and didn't allow kids in the pool after 6pm. So, they walked to the nearest grocery store and got some ice cream......I stayed back and slept some more! :) After we had our ice cream we went back to the grocery store for a sandwich, then watched a movie on our laptop and went back to sleep around midnight. It's taking some time for us to get use to the 6 hour time change!

watching Cars

Misc.

About a week before we left a friend of ours had her birthday party at the pool. Allie and a couple of her friends took some pics with the camera.

We spent an entire day moving all of our stuff into a smaller storage unit. Of course it was a really hot day. Luckily we had our swimsuits with us and we went to the pool to cool off afterwards.

And a peek at how we slept in our hotel in Texas ;)

Sea World

Our last big adventure in Texas was a trip to Sea World. We spent most of the day at Aquatica (the water park) but we still made it to a few shows and rode some rides. We were there almost the entire day/open to close, which was a first for us. We had a lot of fun!

It's hard to tell but  Allie is by herself in the front.....Avery is sitting next to Derek (she doesn't have to stand on her tippy toes anymore to be tall enough for the ride!

petting the sting rays



watching one of our favorite shows, Azul

New Toy

Back when we were in TLF at Lackland, Target had their big toy clearance. It was really hard for me to refrain from buying anything because that's when I usually stock up on the kids' Christmas presents and gifts for their friends. I almost bought these remote control helicopters because I thought they would be a lot of fun not just for the kids but for Derek and I to play with too.......but I held off. I told Derek about them though and he wanted to go check them out.........and ended up buying two of them! Derek and Blake have had some great bonding time with them! :) Don't mind the mess in the pictures. We were in a one bedroom hotel room and it was impossible to keep all of our stuff organized.

Phone pics from the past week or so

Dinner @ El Chapparel

Just another day at the pool

Trying to get a group pic with the friends

Excited to be allowed to play on the sand playground again!

Free kid's smoothies @ Jamba Juice!!!

VOLCANO!!!!!

Last night we went to Rainforest Café for dinner. Allie and Avery had wanted to go there when we went to the Riverwalk a couple weeks ago. We didn't go then because there was almost a 2 hour wait. We made sure we went early this night and it was during the week instead of on the weekend. Avery remembered going to the one in Corpus Christi last year for Derek's birthday and told us we needed to tell our waiter it was her birthday so she could stand up and act like a gorilla. She practiced all through dinner! They did sing "Happy Birthday" to her but they didn't have her pretend to be any animal. She was a little disappointed about that but quickly forget once she got her VOLCANO ice cream treat!!!

Surprise Party

We decided to throw a surprise birthday party for Avery yesterday at Pump it Up. She had no idea! It was great.....she loved it!

Vyvika, Amunique, Penelope, Lorelei, Avery, Mia Jaye, Blake, Allie, Addison, Hudson

Blake is a ladies man

Allie with her best friends from PreK (minus Ethan)