I love being alone.  Especially when it comes to doing stuff.  I can only shop alone.  Being with other people when shopping drives me crazy, I feel like I am taking too long or in the way.

I love road tripping alone or travelling alone in general.  My favourite road trip ever was in October 2004 when I drove around the 4 corners on my own.  I decided that I needed to take a huge detour in celebration of me leaving the Forest Service.  It was over 1,500 miles of driving on my own and I took a week to do it.  I was super sick with the flu so I had to stay in hotels instead of camp sites, but it was the best thing ever.  I didn't care when I got lost.  I got to choose what I wanted to do and stay, or not for that matter.  It only got a bit lonely at night at the hotel, but I suppose if you are a drinking kinda person, you could always hit the bar.  My car was a champ!  The only thing that broke was the cassett radio I had.  I immediately got the CD player I always wanted.

I went to Arches National Park, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon and the Grand Canyon.  I drove through the Painted Desert and did a little driving on Route 66, 666 and the Extra Terrestrial Highway (didn't see any UFOs).

 I met up with my Brother in Las Vegas and we drove together back to my place in Bishop, CA, grabbed my things and drove another 1000 miles because we took 101 after Corvallis, OR to Quilcene, WA and then to Gig Harbor, WA.

The whole trip was just over 3,000 miles.  Good thing that was back when gas was "cheap".


View Larger Map

That same year, I took a weekend trip to Las Vegas alone, and it was the best thing ever!

I miss being alone.  You don't get much time to yourself with kids.  I always loved that Cosby Show episode where it is the first day of school and all the kids are gone and Mr. and Mrs Huxtable do a dance and are so excited that the house is empty.  I assume I will feel the same when the Sprout starts school.

This summer I am...

This weeks question from Katie:


Are you already making plans for summer? Do you have any great trips planned or special events to attend? What will your kids be doing over the summer?


We are happily going to the States to visit my family in June for.  We are flying from Bradford to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Seattle.  This is the best way to go with a baby because you don't have to go through customs when you connect in the middle of the U.S.  I hate having to pick up my bags, go through customs and then re-check the bags.  Too much hassle.  So we are going to be on the plane for 10 hours.  Luckily the Sprout has his own seat.  Although this was expensive (70% of the adult ticket), it will be worth it.


When we are in the States, we will be going camping with my dad and then attending a family reunion/memorial service for my great aunt who died in November (I think it was November).  I haven't decided if Richard and I will be going on a mini vacation without the Sprout.  We will see.

Where would I go?

I will bite and wrote about the Project Blog question of the week.

Project Blog: Question One.

Where would you chose to live if you had to leave this country?

Well let's just get this out of the way...we all know that if I am getting out of England, I am going home to the US, but let's just say that I don't have to worry about American family or English family and I am just leaving it all behind.  It is really hard to choose a country that I haven't been too.  I have so many romantic ideas of places like Thiland and Spain, So really I am limited to places I have been...Holland, Australia, Antigua/Barbuda, Ireland, Scotland and Canada.  

I really loved Antigua and I wasn't there for a holiday either.  I was working hard on the beach digging up a skeleton.  Gotta love the laid back "Island time" and the fact that their money is worth less than ours.  So if I wanted to treat the rest of my life as an island getaway, I would go with the Caribbean.

 These were taken in 2001 way before I had a digital camera, 

so these were all scanned in.  

This is of 2 ft bay in Barbuda, where we found the skeleton I was excavating.

This is the terrain inside the island.  

Wonderful tropical desert, that is the only way to describe it.

 However, if I wanted to pick up sticks to start again, I would go with Australia.  Many English people have a thing for Australia, and I know why.  The people are so friendly and, like the States, they have all of the climates you could ask for, sun, surf, desert, jungle and they have winters in the southern end.

My brother and I in Sidney 2003 (we were having a better time than it looks). 

Bondi Beach

 These were the only pictures I had scanned on my computer of Australia. 

 I have tons of animal pictures spread throughout the house.

Favourite place

What's your favorite place in the whole world?

I tried to think of one place, but I couldn't think of just one.  

• My mom's house is one of my favourite places probably because I grew up there so there is a huge sense of security when I am there.  On top of that the property is so beautiful and peaceful.  

mom's house

• My Dad's house is another of my favourite places.  He also lives on a beautiful piece of property that is surrounded by national forest.  I love the seclusion and quietness.  The river is another part of the property that brings a peaceful, magical quality to it.  

A piece of the view at my dad's house

• The Sandpiper Beach Resort in Pacific Beach, Washington is another of my favourite places.  The hotel is run down, but the beach is really wonderful.  This is another place that holds many memories because my family always went here on vacation.

View from the room

As I go back and forth between my parent's houses and mine as an adult I realize how calming their houses make me and how safe I feel when I am there .  I can pretend that I don't have any worries back at home.  They provide a big warm blanket over me.

• At home, my favourite place is in bed with the Sprout and Richard.  Richard doesn't get to bed much any more primarily because he snores, but he also just seems to fall asleep in the living room.

• My favourite place that doesn't include family is to be is in my car driving around the West on my own.  California, Nevada and Arizona are my favourite places to drive and camp.  My favourite campground is the Lone Pine campground in...Lone Pine.  It is located by a small stream in the Alabama Hills on the way to Mount Whitney.

My view of the Sierra's outside my tent

In the not to distant future, Richard and I are going to have to start thinking about British family vacations for the Sprout.  We need to figure out a location that will be special for just the three of us.  Another reason why I need my UK driving license.

13 weeks and the international traveler

13 weeks old, how can that be?

The Sprout can now:

• Look and follow things
• Smile on demand
• Hold his head up for long periods of time
• Make the cutest little cooing noises
• Be “wiggy” on his back all by himself and be entertained
• Seems entertained by my reading to him and the pictures in his books
• Has moved on to size 2 diapers because he is a whopping 11 lbs (which is killing my back).

Some things that aren’t so great are:

• Wanting to be held when he is done being “wiggy”.
• It is getting almost impossible to sneakily put him down when he has fallen asleep.
• His tummy is still in an awful state of constipation and gas.

Some of his favourite things:

• Being walked and rocked
• “Wiggy” time
• The mobile his Grammy got him
• The shadows the cat watches on the wall
• This picture I have on the wall

Walk through the Cemetery by Jasmine Becket-Griffith

After we recovered from our jet lag which left the Sprout crying all night and sleeping all day, he has now settled into a somewhat “big boy” routine of being awake all day, with a short nap or two, and sleeping in 4 hour intervals at night starting from 6 pm to 5 am.

The trip to the US

The trip to the US went by too fast.  It had been a year since I had been home.  It must have been weird to meet my Sprout and have never even seen me pregnant.

The airport and ride on the plane went by easy peasy.  I was so worried, but I now have a new respect for what stewards actually do on the plane.  They don’t just give you food and drinks, they are there to help you and make sure you don’t freak out.  It is hard to remember that there can be a couple of hundred people on a plane and the stewards are there to make sure everyone gets along and enjoys the flight, they are at the forefront of customer service.  The stewards on the American bound KLM/Delta flight from Amsterdam were really great.

Things that made my plane trip better:

• A bulkhead seat with a bassinette.  I can’t imagine having a child bigger than the Sprout on my lap all by myself for 10 hrs.  I was pretty insistent on having a bassinette and then we didn’t use it much, but it was nice to have.
• A sling.  I didn’t even use the stroller except as a trolley for my bags.

Baba sling

• A bottle with formula.  Even though security was extremely tight at Amsterdam, they are really friendly about baby stuff.
• A manual breast pump.  Something happens to your breasts at 30,000 ft.  The pressure seems to make all the milk want to come out.

Avent manual breast pump

• A hooter hider.  I had never had to hide my chest when breast feeding and in such small spaces, using a blanket was really hard, so the hooter hider was really excellent even though the Sprout really didn’t like it.

Bought from Joanna Design on Etsy.com

• And just having a baby.  You get pushed to the front of the line for everything and if you don’t MEN complain, it is so sweet.

The Sprout was an excellent flyer.  He kept to his regular schedule of awake and sleep times with only a few fussy times in between, but he hardly ever cried.

When we got to customs, I had to fill out a visitor form for Sprout because of his British passport, but other than that the transition was smooth.

Being at home was so nice.  I didn’t care that it rained for the majority of the time or that I didn’t spend much time driving, I enjoyed visiting with my family and was glad that they all got to see Sprout for the first time.  It was the perfect way to spend the New Year.

The trip and 29/30 weeks

rscornwall

Click the link above to see my photo album


Mom is on the plane back to the States :(

We had a very busy 14 days.

She flew into Manchester Airport on Sept 2nd where I met her to make sure she got to Shipley.  That journey is pretty crazy after a 14+ hr journey.

We spent the next couple of days around my area of Yorkshire visiting Shipley, Saltaire, Bradford and Skipton.

On Sept 6th we made our way by train to Penzance, Cornwall which took about 9 hours.

The black line is the journey

We checked into the Hotel Penzance around 9 pm and had a yummy dinner at the fancy restaurant there.

The weather for the first 2 days was pretty iffy, sunny and misty, but we managed to wander around Penzance, going in and out of really cool galleries and shoppes.  My favourite gallery by far was the Penlee Gallery where they were showing the works of artists from the early days of the Newlyn Art Colony.

We made it to St. Ives on the last day of our stay, which turned out to be a warm and sunny day, but still not quite warm enough for a swim.  We visited more galleries and the Barbra Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Museum.  We ate Cornish ice cream, but were told to stay away from the pasties unless we wanted to be ravaged by seagulls.  We ate pasties in Penzance.

We came back to Shipley on Sept 10th in an un-airconditioned train on a very warm and sunny day.

The Saltaire festival began on the 12th and we wandered down to have a look, had Sunday lunch with Richard's parents on the 13th and visited Kirkstall Abbey on the 14th.

It was a really nice visit and I had a lot of fun, but last week when 29 weeks hit, I was instantly tired and sore and have yet to recover.  My tummy is so big and heavy, I finally had to get maternity clothes and I think I am going to live in the dress in the picture below for the next 10 weeks.

The American Christmas and New Year's Trip

Sandpiper New Years

Click to see pictures

We were very fortunate to be able to get to see ALL of our families this Christmas, in the UK and in the US.

Richard's sister was nice enough to shuttle us down to Beaconsfield so we could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas at the Osborne's house where we opened presents and had a big feast which was followed by a Murder Mystery Game.

Boxing Day we headed to Heathrow to begin our non-stop journey to SeaTac. The flight was uneventful, although Richard was annoyed at the guys getting drunk at the back of the plane.

The trip was only 9 1/2 hours long and we were surprised to see all the snow on the ground that was left from the blizzard at the beginning of the week. Danny and Molly picked us up from the airport and we began the next 10 days of Christmas.

The festivities played out as:

Dec 26th: Mom's House.

Dec 27th: Dad and the Girls at Mom's

Dec 28th: Grandma and Grandpa's House and the Allen Family Christmas

Dec 29-30th: Dad's house with the Girls

Dec 31st-Jan 4th: Sandpiper Resort.

Jan 4th and 5th: Time with D. (who was so nice to drive up from Eugene to see us).

Jan 6th: Back to the UK. We were delayed in SeaTac because of a Blizzard in Paris, but we were only delayed for 3 hours, which gave us less of a lay over in Paris...so that was ok.

As you can see we were really busy, but we had a really good time and I miss everyone.


Please see our pictures up at the top of the post...just click on it.