Saturday, June 14, 2014

The Queens Birthday parade!

Today we woke the kids up early and dragged them to the tube to head to the Queens birthday parade. The ceremony is called Trooping the Colours. We got there early enough to secure a great spot to watch everything pass by right in front of us. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from today. 


On the way to the parade we stopped to buy a program. 






After the parade we walked across the park and headed towards Big Ben. This is a shot of Buckingham Palace on our walk. 


Westminster Abbey was even more stunning in person. 


The kids really enjoyed seeing Big Ben. I had a picture were they were both smiling but seeing Finn's personality is much better! 


Clearly at this point he was tired of having his picture made. We had a wonderful day and are so thankful to be able to experience such beauty.  Miss you all tons!! 

Love always,
Catherine 














Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sunshiny days in London

Sorry it has been so long since I have filled you all in on how we are and what we are up too. We have been busy getting settled and trying to find our way in this beautiful city!


We have had plenty of time to break in our new rainboots. Thankfully lately though we have had some beautiful sunshine. It has been quite warm for London this past week too. ( not southern warm but between 70 and 75 here so nice to enjoy being outside) However most homes here don't have air conditioning, ours being one of those, so it is hard to keep cool 😉. 


The kids have gotten scooters to make it a little easier and more fun to get from place to place. 


Sweet Tucker has arrived and loves to feel the wind on the spiral staircase going out to the garden. 


We have made a trip to Hyde Park and Kennington Gardens. The Peter Pan statue was beautiful. Loads of detail and so fun to see in person. 



We have also been enjoying way to many sweets, but hey that's what summer is for right! 😉. Finn has decided his favorites are large chocolate macaroons. It's hard not to indulge with bakery's on every corner. 


We have also meet some wonderful new friends from the states. They came over to help us celebrate Reese's 11th birthday!  


Jay and Finn have been introduced to Panini. They are having a great time collecting all the stickers to fill their books. Both of them are counting down the days till the start of the world cup this week. They are also having to call it football not soccer. 


We took a trip to the Natural History Museum and the kids really enjoyed it. We will be revisiting for sure. 


The architecture here is just amazing. 


We have explorded Covent Gardens. It is a wonderful place to walk through on sunny days. 


Finn really enjoyed the street performers. 


We found some great playgrounds to enjoy too. This one is in Regents Park. 


We decided we better work off some of that ice cream on the paddle boats on the lake too. We rented it for one hour and had a blast. Saw loads of ducks, and since it's spring we saw lots of babies ducks and swans which was super sweet too. 


We found another great climbing structure in Primrose Hill park too. 


The zoo is beautiful here and the kids really enjoyed having a friend to enjoy it with. 


Reese even managed to volunteer. However she didn't realize she was volunteering to dress up like a penguin. She was a cute one though!  Will write more about our adventure soon!! Big hugs from London. Xoxo















Friday, May 9, 2014

We have landed!


So we took off this am to our new two year adventure.  

We have now landed in London and are taking the cab to our new home. Luckily it has wifi and thanks to my sweet friend Scarlett I have an app to blog on the go!;). 

God is so amazing and in the middle of fighting back tears and missing home and family and friends already, he gave us enough grace to keep our heads up and keep moving forward. While watching a sweet guy carry all of out 10 bags on a cart to the car, we passed a lady I had briefly spoken to in the JFK airport while we were in line to board. She had a sweet little boy that keep wanting to race Finn!  She said to me "Wow that's a lot of bags". I then explained that we were moving for two years. She said "Here let me give you my number, I know what it's like to be new". What a blessing to see his grace and love in the midst of such huge change.  Praising The Lord today for his presence in everything we do. 
     
         


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

No goodbyes only see you all soon!


A precious friend of mine has said since the beginning that we will not be saying good bye, only see you all soon!  We have been so blessed with such wonderful family and friends, and we have spend the last month enjoying as much quality time with them as possible before our big move.  We have been quite busy. We started off with a little British bash at my families house. 



We had a wonderful time with our family and the kids had a blast with their sweet cousins! 
        Then we took our first trip over the pond to do a little house hunting. We found a wonderful flat in a beautiful area of London. While we weren't house hunting we found a few fun things to entertain the kids too. 


Playing on the pirate ship at Kensington Gardens was Finn's favorite. 

  
Reese enjoyed the cupcakes we found in Primrose Hill. 


 After a fun, but quick trip we headed back to Tennessee to enjoy our last few weeks before the big move day arrives. Clearly Finn enjoyed the plane ride home. Being upgraded to business class was a real treat!

         Our precious friends threw us a wonderful going away party (or a see ya soon party ;). We had an amazing time. Below is a picture of the beautiful cake. It was perfect and delicious. 




We have been so blessed over these past few years with wonderful friends.  We can't wait for them to visit us over the pond. They are truly blessings and we will miss seeing their sweet smiling faces everyday. 

     We will be leaving for our new adventure very soon but before we do we took a quick trip to the beach with my sweet sister and her family to enjoy a little extra vitamin D. 



Sunday, March 2, 2014

Happy early Mardi Gras

Happy (a little early) Mardi Gras.  We recently went to New Orleans to visit my dad and his side of the family.  We had a great trip spending some time with our family there before we head over the pond.  I'm sure the next few post will be full of family pictures and plenty of family and friend time.  We are trying to fit in as much as possible.  
While we were there we had a king cake and guess who got the baby! So we all know who will bring the cake next year right.  

I love the architecture and the food in New Orleans (but who doesn't right?!).  The kids got a little feel of what life will soon be like in London.  They were troopers for sure and better get ready for a lot of walking given we won't have a car. Big changes are coming and it is becoming more and more real to me every day. 

And you know a trip to New Orleans wouldn't be complete without beignets! Yummo, and you know two days in a row is a must as well!
The next few months will be busy for us.  We will be moving the end of April and our new adventure will soon begin.  In the meantime we have plenty to keep us busy.  We have been so blessed with wonderful supportive families from all sides, wonderful loving friends (that have already promised to visit, and I'm holding you all to it), and we plan on spending as much time all as possible with them over the next two months.  We plan on soaking up as much sun as possible too.  We will keep you all up to date on all our new changes as they unfold.  I have to admit that it is daily becoming more of a reality that we are moving.  Between deciding what to bring and what to store, selling our house and cars, and realizing that our family won't be just a quick drive down the road, and our friends won't be around the corner is quickly setting in.  We love you all and will be so grateful for your prayers during this transition. We know that God has all this under control and we are thankful beyond words.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

We are moving across the pond!



So I thought it was only fitting to start my first blog post with my sweet kiddos in their rain boots. (Thanks to the lovely Cyndi Thomson who snapped these pictures for us.)  If you know Finn very well you know he wears his all the time! Most of you know we will soon be moving to London, England.  We aren't real sure about our exact time frame yet, but will keep you all posted.  Sometimes I still can't believe it myself.  After all I'm just a small town girl, I still can't wrap my brain around finding my way around London depending on a public transportation system or my kids walking everywhere.  (that part ought to be an adventure in itself) If you know anything about me, you know that even if I have been somewhere a million times I still use my GPS! 



The first step to our new move was to get our passports.  Finn was super excited to get his, because it was going to be in a cool book like daddy's, until he found out you didn't get it right away.  He was not very happy about having to wait for it to be mailed out.  Reese was dressed all cute in her new scarf and her headband, only to find out that she had to take all that off for her picture. She still looked beautiful even without her accessories.  Good news is that they are arrived,
and Finn was one happy boy!

Love always,
Catherine