Mom and Dad Sharp visit England!

We are so excited that mom and dad Sharp were able to visit us. There are so many things we have wanted to see but have been holding off until we have visitors. We had such a blast with them! The first day, dad was in Switzerland for meetings, so we took mom out into the country. Here we are in Stow-on-the-Wold. This literally means: Place on a hill where they meet with sheep. Works for me. This is the post where everyone in the country would gather for markets. It acted as a reminder for everyone to deal fairly.

Next we went to Bourton-on-the-Water. It was a quaint little town with a river running through the middle of town. Notice the Christmas tree in the middle of the river. Mom and I were so happy to see how festive the Brits are. They sure love Christmas and decorate everywhere. It was awesome!

We also went to Blenheim Palace. The 11th Duke of England still lives there in the East wing. Pretty cool. It was fun to hear stories of the royal Brits and to walk around this lovely palace.

The next day, we took mom and dad to Stonehenge and Bath. We didn't pay to go five feet closer to the rocks, but it was fun for mom and dad to see these legendary rocks!

The town of Bath got it's name from the natural baths that come up in the middle of the city. People came from miles away to be healed and cleaned in the baths here. They had some awesome architecture. We had the best Free walking tour we've ever seen! Here we are at the Roman baths. It's cool to see the steam come up from the baths. Bathing would be an all-day affair. They moved from bath to bath for different purposes. Quite the ordeal!

Here we are in front of Bath Abbey. What a gorgeous building! It was at the heart of the city and steeped in history.

Mom and I loved the squares of homes. Actually, it was a circle. This particular complex was designed with Stonehenge in mind. Stonehenge would fit exactly into this complex. The openings would be in the same places and the focal points are exactly the same. Pretty cool. Especially since we saw Stonehenge earlier that day.

Our next adventure was to Oxford. This awesome town is mainly a University consisting of 39 different colleges. Each college had it's own walled complex where they ate, slept, and were taught by one-on-one Professors. This University first began as a training ground for Clergy, but has adapted to all areas of Academics.

Here Chris and I are in the Royal chair in St. Mary the Virgin's Church. Each college had it's own Chapel, but this was a Church where all were welcome to attend.

Oxford also had an indoor market, similar to Pike's Place Market in Seattle. We found a few major differences though. Pretty sure I never saw anything like this at Pike's Place!

We had a fabulous trip and were so grateful that mom and dad were able to come out and see us. We can't wait for our next visitors!

Strandid

We ran into quite a hiccup on our journey home. We were flying to Frankfurt and one of our engines started leaking oil into the gear shafts or something. So, the pilot turned around and landed in a tiny little town in Canada that is below 0 degrees. They kept us on the plane for five hours while they tried to fix the engine. Then, they gave up and we spent the next five hours waiting for luggage, hotel vouchers, a taxi, and a hotel room. They flew in engineers to fix our plane and had us wait all the next day for it to be fixed. None of the airlines could help me all day. So, we just had to wait. Some of the passengers checked out of their rooms and waited all day in the lobby or airport. Yuck. At 6pm after all of the flights had left Winnipeg for the day, they told us our flight was cancelled and we could then call Lufthansa to get a new flight. Talk about frustrating! So, we scheduled a new flight. We will be arriving two full days later than planned. We are even more grateful for our home. We are grateful that we didn't fly a bum engine across the Atlantic. And we can't wait to leave this freezing town!

Ayedan Visit

After Thanksgiving weekend, we headed out to the ranch to visit Ayedan and the gang. What a cutie!

Wes is very sweet with Ayedan. She is living at the ranch now with Grandpa Kyle and Vicki. Wes comes out to visit as often as possible.

We got a bunch of us together to take some formal pictures. Ayedan ate up the camera. She looks better than most of the adults. On the back row is Vicki and Chris, with Tony (dad), and Wes on the middle row, and Great-Grandma Cheney (Ayedan's great-great-grandma), Ayedan, Grandpa Kyle, and Amanda (Chris' sister) on the front row.
Here is Tony with his kids and grandbaby.
Grandma Cheney with her Great-Great-Grandbaby Ayedan.

We loved being on the ranch again. Here we are looking down on the ranch. Most of the hill belongs to tree companies, but the rest belongs to Grandpa.

Here is Chris with Grandpa overlooking the ranch. The shrubs are not part of the ranch, but you can still see the barns from here.

We had a great trip! It was awesome to spend time with family!

The real Celebration

Luckily, we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving the next day. We drove out to Kennewick to visit the Smith family. My parents were out there too. We had a blast with everyone! We loved taking adventures with the kids.
Hannah definitely keeps us all on our toes! What a sweet little girl!
Abby loved her Auntie Meagan and Uncle Chris. She kept us busy playing with toys and swinging her around the room.

Thanksgiving Day

We planned a perfect Thanksgiving Day. We were going to stay up all night and fly out of London at 6:30 am Thanksgiving morning. We'd have a quick layover in Frankfurt, then sleep all the way to Portland, arriving at noon. We would drive to Eastern Washington just in time for Thanksgiving dinner with my sister Tami's family. That would have been nice!

Here's what really happened: We got so tired Wednesday night that we decided to take a couple of hours nap. We woke up in a frenzie, slept the first flight, and then were completely out of it in Frankfurt. We grabbed a bite to eat and took our time, not realizing that there was an hour time change from England. We missed our flight by five minutes. We ended up having to wait for three hours to fly to Washington Dulles. While trying to sleep during the long flight, I was apparently disrupting the lady behind me. She kept shoving my seat forward. At one point, she started yelling at me, waking up half of the airplane. We had to get the head flight attendant involved so he could tell her that I was allowed to lean my seat back the whole flight. This made sleeping difficult. We finally made it to Portland eight hours later than planned. We missed Thanksgiving dinner. So bummed. When we showed up in Portland, we took a bus out to our car rental place. When we finally got out there, we were informed that our car was given away and there were no cars in all of Portland for us to rent. We ended up walking to a hotel and found a rental in the morning.

Road Show

A couple of weeks ago, I signed up for one of those experiences in life that stretches your comfort zone a bit. My amazing friend Hannah wrote the musical score for a local ward Road Show and asked me to be in it. I could hardly say no. So, I ended up as the Stepmother in a musical. My step-daughter was older than me, so she got me a nice grey wig and a proper old lady dress to help me look the part. I had a speaking part then I broke into song to my step-daughter on stage. I will admit that by the time I was finished with the speaking, I could hardly remember my name let alone my lines. But, luckily I knew the song well so made it through. That's me with the grey hair on the left.
Here's Chris practicing the dancing with the guys. He was happy to have a smaller part for the real performance. He sang with the Young Men. He is constantly surprising me with his willingness to sign up for these crazy adventures. What a great sport!
The whole group did a great job! We were happy to be part of this performance.

A day at the theatre

Chris had to work last weekend in London. I thought it was a great time to go to London and catch a couple of shows. Saturday afternoon, I hit my favorite musical Les Miserables. It is the longest running London musical and one I have seen several times. It was fun to see several new parts that have been added this year.

Saturday night, Chris and I went to our favorite restaurant in England, The Texas Embassy. It used to be the Embassy for Texas back in the day and is now a fabulous Mexican/Steak Restaurant.

Then we went to the Zorro musical. I was a little nervous about this choice because I didn't want to strike out like The Sound of Music. However, we were both pleasantly surprised by this show. We saw Spanish singing and dancing, tap dancers, and a very enjoyable plot with hilarious gipsies. The plot was completely different from the movie and we would definitely recommend it to others. Very fun!

Sunday, we walked around a little before the rain started pouring and Chris had to go into work. Here are the Marble Arches.

We love London, but we are both very grateful to live in the country!

Oxford

Last Monday was the US Holiday Columbus Day. Kinda fun to celebrate this holiday while living in England. Chris and I went to Oxford for the day to walk around and see the many colleges in this quaint college town.

The University is divided into smaller colleges. Each college has a church and style that is unique. All of them have allot of character. I really liked this church. The bummer is that everything is so close together that we couldn't get a very good picture of the buildings. The next three pictures are of Christ's Church, one of the largest and most beautiful colleges in Oxford.

We had a fun time walking around the city. The best part was being able to spend quality time together.

I've been tagged by Brittany and Tami

Well, it looks like my sisters have ganged up on me and both tagged me, so I guess it's time to play along.

I am....... a wife, a daugher, a sister, a computer geek, and a friend.
I want........the fairytale
I have....... more blessings than I could ever count
I wish........ I could teleport myself around the world instead of flying on an airplane all day to see my loved ones
I know........that I can choose to be happy or choose to be miserable everyday
I hate........ ingratitude
I fear..........losing my husband
I hear..........silence
I crave........sugar constantly
I search.......for ways to be unique
I always....... am excited to see my husband
I usually....... am in the mood to play games
I am not........the same person I was two years ago
I miss........... my family
I love.........being married to Chris
I never........ dwell in the past
I rarely........hold grudges
I cry............ when I'm overwhelmed by frustration
I am not always........comfortable in large crowds
I lose.......... my temper when I am maxed out on stress
I am confused........when people ask for help and then don't listen to the answer
I need............to keep moving forward and developing into a better person
I should.......... be more patient and kind to everyone
I worry........... about the future unknowns
I dream.......... of my happy place

I tag Melissa, Katie, and mom

The Hills are Alive...

Every month or so, the community center here on Base sponsors a Theater trip. They pick us all up and drive us to London, give us theater tickets, and bring us home for cheaper than we can buy tickets on our own. It's a pretty cool trip and we usually have a good group of friends go with us. Last month, the show was The Sound of Music. I thought it would be fun to go because I grew up with the movie and music. I was sure Chris would pass, but he said he wanted to go to. It wasn't until we were in the bus heading for London that I learned he had no idea what The Sound of Music was even about. Uh oh. We got to London early and had dinner with friends before the show. Then we went to the sparsely attended theater. The show itself was a huge letdown for me. The cast were mediocre at best, the set was cheesy, and some of the songs were painful to listen to. Bummer. However, the biggest bummer is that I have lost my credibility with Chris. Now he wants to look up and read about all plays that I suggest we see. He has already said no to this month's show. I guess I need to be a little more choosy with the next one!

Born to FLY

I took Chris to Xscape for a fun Birthday adventure. They have an indoor snowskiing run, huge climbing wall, and Airkix, an indoor skydiving simulator. It's not quite the same rush you feel when jumping out of an airplane, but it was a blast! It was very difficult to control yourself with strong wind blowing up at you, but we did okay. We think we are both naturals. Here are some pictures and videos of our flights.

Here are the videos.

Sunny day in England!!!

I had to prove that we actually do get some sun in England! Saturday got up to 80 degrees here. It was a perfect day. So, Chris and I decided to take a walk and take pictures of this beautiful countryside. Here is Chris outside of our neighborhood. The houses are to the left, hidden by the trees.
Here is one of the smaller roundabouts by our house.
We saw a ton of gliders all day. They are small airplanes with no engine. They lift off like a kite and then detach the string and glide around until they start losing height and land back in the airfield across from our development. Cool.
Oh yeah! Catchin some rays!

Happy almost Birthday Chris!

Chris is leaving for Yemen tomorrow, so he will be away for his birthday on September 10th. What a bummer! Lucky for him, we had a whole three day weekend to celebrate before he left. I surprised Chris by getting him Rock Band. Talk about a kid in a candy store! He was ready to throw out all other plans and play Rock Band all weekend! He was so happy!!!
We had friends over for dinner, brownies (Chris' preference over cake), and of course Rock Band. He says it was the most perfect birthday ever! So easy to please! Gotta love that!!!

Happy Happy Birthday Chris!