Thank You Uncle Bob and Aunt Deanie

A few weeks ago, I got a huge surprise when the Royal Mailman delivered two huge boxes from America. TWO BANKERS BOXES PEOPLE! The instructions from Uncle Bob and Aunt Deanie were not to open them until May 27th. I kept them stacked behind our bedroom door and piled things on top of them so I wouldn't be tempted. I was a very, very good girl, and I waited until my birthday. 

Dad helped me bust them open while Mom documented the grand opening with my camera.

As I was opening the card, she said, "Look surprised!" I think I just look cross-eyed.

It was truly a beautiful and perfect card for the occasion. Thank you!

Inside was cash-ola to buy some new running clothes, which I was thinking about getting. Now it's for sure! Yesss!

There was so much Costco sized stuff in these two boxes! Garlic, dried herbs and seasonings, beef jerky, plastic sandwich bags and freezer bags, hot chocolate mix, Kleenex packets, etc.

Graham crackers! I'm kissing the box I'm so excited. We took them on the retreat this weekend and introduced our British friends to s'mores. There will be an entire post to come about this. 

The sweet stuff! Hot Tamales and chocolate chips!

Dewars chews! A Bakersfield specialty. I forgot how much I loved these.

A classroom staple, Clorox wipes.

Here I am surrounded by all my birthday treats. I couldn't believe how much stuff they packed in there!!! Thank so much Uncle Bob and Aunt Deanie! I love you!

And thanks to Kelee for the earrings and my parents and sister for the outfit. :)

Crook Hall Photo Shoot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Uncle Rico :)

 

 

 

The fam and I just got home from our church family's weekend away in the Lake District. We had such a lovely time hanging out with everyone and hearing some excellent teaching. Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes!

Once again, I don't have the time or patience to deal with Blogger right this minute, so sorry for the random picture order and the lack of captions. B, I'll look into your suggestion. Thanks! 

Enjoy the pictures!

Seaside Walk

 

 

 

 

Augh! Blogger is driving me NUTS!!! It's taken over an hour for me to figure out how to get these pictures on here, and now it won't let me comment between pictures. Grrr!!! I normally use Chrome, but it rejected all of my pictures and refused to upload them at all. Then, I tried using Firefox, and it was very picky about uploading pictures and only cooperated on occasion. It added pictures one at a time instead of in groups. 

I cleared all of my caches (is that the right word?) on both browsers, and still... no luck with smooth posting. Are there any Blogger experts out there? Help! I have so many pictures I want to post, but it is beyond frustrating to spend so much time on it, especially when I could be hanging out with my mom and dad instead.

The basics of this post are as follows: 

1) We drove to Easington Colliery for a seaside walk.

2) It was windy.

3) We had fun.

The Eagle Has Landed

Sorry for the lack of posting for the last two days. I largely blame the fact that I couldn't get a video to load for this post. I let it stay in "video uploading" stage for - oh - 10 hours yesterday, and it still didn't work, so I'm just going to move on with my life.

After our daddy/daughter date night, Dad and I crashed in our hotel near Heathrow and woke up the next morning to pick up Mom, who was on her way back from Romania. We got some porridge at this little breakfast cafe in the airport.

The seats in the airport cafe reminded me of a camel hoof.

We found Mumers and made our way across the city on the Tube to Covent Gardens. Despite the fact that we had to haul around all of their luggage (which was full of birthday presents, so I won't complain) and that it was suuuuper windy, we had a great day! We had lunch on the patio at a really cute French place, walked around, shopped, and heard some really great buskers (translation: street musicians), all of whom had CDs for sale. 

This was the group that I had videos of that didn't load. They were really good! In case you were wondering, the cellist is holding up her instrument with some sort of neck thingy. That is the technical term.

We got back on the train to Durham in the evening and were home in about three hours. Now, onto the next post...

Daddy/Daughter Date Night

On Saturday, I was a big girl and picked up my dad in London all by myself. I took the train, which was delayed an hour and a half. After three hours on the train, I rode on the Tube for 45 more minutes, totally guessed which terminal he was in, and then and found him among the bajillion people at Heathrow - miracle of miracles. 

Despite the delay, we had time to drop off his bags at a nearby hotel and then get back on the Tube and head to the city. We had an important date! LES MISERABLES at the Queen's Theatre for my birthday, which is next Friday, the 27th. Don't worry, you still have time to get your shopping done!

First we found a really awesome Italian restaurant nearby.

We started with the Tricolore salad: mozzarella, tomato, and avocado. Perfection.

We both ordered the lasagna, which was the best either of us had ever eaten, and we're not "this is the best I've ever tasted" kind of people.

Here we are in front of the theatre!

The ceiling was gorgeous.

There were three levels. We were on the bottom one, all the way in the back in front of the sound booth. The theatre was a lot smaller than I thought it would be, so even though we were in the back, we felt really close.

At the intermission, I took this picture of the music in the orchestra pit. Les Mis is the longest running show on the West End, and you can probably tell by the dirty finger marks where the musicians turn the page.

Thanks for a memorable night out Daddy!

Celebration

To celebrate the fact that I was done with job interviews and would have a job soon, Nathan and I wanted to get some fish and chips. We walked into town, and of course, our favorite place was closed. So, we walked to another place that was take-out only and walked home. 

About half a mile from our house, I could tell that my blood sugar was low (58 in case you were wondering), so we stopped on a bench by the river to test and get some juice. Despite that nasty low feeling, I was really, really happy, so I said to Nathan, "Take my picture!" I think I was just relieved that a season of stress and waiting was nearing an end.

Yay for fish and chips and movies to eat it in front of like Ocean's Eleven!

Yesterday morning, to celebrate the acceptance of my job offer at the Durham School, Nathan made me a fantastic breakfast. It was amazingly delicious. Eggs, American style bacon, toast and butter and jam, pears, and orange juice. I don't remember the last time I drank OJ for pleasure (as opposed to in response to a low blood sugar), and it was happiness down my throat! Nathan's smug look on his face is saying, "It's not a big deal. I'm just a guy serving his wife and loving her the way Christ loves the church. Everybody stay calm..."

What an amazing husband I have!

Oh, and my winner for the loyal readers quiz is Miss JEG! She gave detailed answers to each question, even if I did have a tricky/ambiguous one in there. I loved all of your answers! I'll copy and paste Miss JEG's answers in a comment of my own since she e-mailed them to me. To everyone who entered, thanks for humoring me, and I'll send you a postcard from London!