Trip to The U.K. and France - Part 1

Ok, so to be honest I've been procrastinating this blog post because there is SO much to say.

Let it begin:

London, England

On our first full day in London, Howie and I bought a hop-on-hop-off bus tour.  We figured that would be the best way to see the city.  It was fun!  We got to see a lot.  Here is us on the bus:

Here is Howie on a bridge over the Thames River.

Big Ben!

Us in front of Buckingham Palace.

Howie in front of Westminster Abbey.

Me in a red phone booth that smelled of urine.

One of the things I was most excited about was seeing "Wicked"!  The second night in London we went to it.  Unfortunately, I was still trying to adjust to the time difference and I kept dozing off.  But I still loved it!

We had to visit the Tower of London!  It's full of so much history.

One of the Beefeaters let us take a picture with him.  These guys are so cool.  Beefeaters are the guards at the Tower of London.  They safeguard the crown jewels and also work as tour guides.  Our tour guide's name was Barney.  Very funny ol' Chap.

The Tower Bridge.

Story time!  This is a picture of our tour guide on our "Jack the Ripper Walk".

He was a Jack the Ripper fanatic.  Seriously.  This guy studied it through and through.  Funny thing about this tour guide though is that by day he is a Beefeater, by night he is a Jack the Ripper tour guide.  He also works part time with the local police department pulling dead bodies out of the Thames River.  Very glamorous life!  So, he goes from talking about murder and decapitations at the Tower of London, to talking about the gruesome murders of Jack the Ripper at night, and then working part time pulling dead bodies out of a river!  I don't get it!  How does he ever sleep at night?!  We learned quite a bit from him.  He is thoroughly convinced that Jack the Ripper was INDEED caught and thrown into a looney bin.  And, contrary to popular belief, he was not a man with a medical background or a man of great wealth.

That's just his opinion though.  Very interesting.

Leeds Castle - Kent, England

On our last day in London we got a rental car and headed out to Kent, England.  Our only reason for going there was to see Leeds Castle.  I had heard about it but I had no idea what I was in for!  The grounds to this castle were gorgeous.  Absolutely the most beautiful landscape I've ever seen for a castle.  It took us a good 20 minutes just to walk to the castle, but we enjoyed every bit of it.

Here we are at the actual castle.  Just beautiful.

After you tour the castle they have a huge maze on the grounds that you can go and do.  Howie and I decided to give it a shot.  Plus, if you got all the way through the maze you got to go down into the "Grotto".

We tried to do the maze together and it wasn't working so, then we made it competitive and split up to see who could get to the center first.

We were still unsuccessful.

Luckily for us, there were two grounds workers in the center helping people find their way through.  They gave us some help because we clearly needed it.

My pictures I took in the Grotto didn't turn out very good.  The Grotto was weird and really quite eery.  It was made out of river rock and tile (i think).  Here are a couple of pictures that turned out semi-ok.

Canterbury, England

I loved Canterbury!  Our next stop was Canterbury so we could see Canterbury Cathedral.

This cathedral blew me away.  It's amazing on the inside!

Dover, England

We had to stop in Dover to see the white cliffs that it's famous for.  We also went and saw Dover Castle.

Another reason why I was excited about Dover is because my good friend Jen was able to meet up with us there!  Jen moved to England last September for school and we were all sad when she left.  It was good to see her again!  Thanks for taking that 5 hour round-trip train ride just for me Jen!

We were able to tour the Secret Wartime Tunnels.  Those were very cool to see.

Surprisingly, this is the only picture I got of the white cliffs.

Avebury, England

Next stop was to Avebury.  Since no one had any interest in visiting Stonehenge we decided to visit a different famous stone circle.  This one was pretty neat to see because there is a town in the center of the circle.  Plus, you can go up and touch the stones, where as Stonehenge you can only get as close as like 30 feet.

Bath, England

We made a quick stop in Bath, England to see the Roman Bath and Pump Rooms.  I've been to Bath before, but Howie hasn't so we had to go.  I knew Howie would love them and he did!

York, England

One of my favorite stops folks!  We really liked York.  Howie and I ventured out on our own and saw a lot that the city had to offer.  First thing we went to was Clifford's Tower.

There is a very sad story about this tower.  To make a long story short, in the year 1190 a bunch of Jews baricaded themselves inside the tower to escape their persecutors.  Rather than renounce their faith and die by the hands of their enemies they decided they'd rather kill each other.  So, they did.  They say the walls of Clifford's Tower now runs with their blood and if you look closely at the front of the building you'll notice it does have a pinkish tint to it!  Freaky!

There were amazing views of York from the tower.

We saw the Fairfax House.

We went on a river cruise down the Ouse River.

And last, but certainly not least, we went on a Ghost Walk!  This was our tour guide:

He was such a good story teller!  We really enjoyed him as our guide.  He's the one that told us the story about Clifford's Tower.  He even had a good evil laugh.  Muahahahahaha!

10 More Days! (not counting today!)

See you soon Big Ben and Eiffel Tower...

I feel like this trip is sneaking up on me.  Yes, this trip we've been planning for months now is actually sneaking up on me!  You think you have all the time in the world to prepare until it's a mere couple of weeks away.  I still need to find a travel size hairblower and a voltage converter.  I'm so worried about not having my day-to-day conveniences available to me.  Last time I vistited the U.K. I blew up my hairblower the FIRST time I tried to use it.  (In my defense, I had received some mis-information.)  Anyway, I then had to play dumb when we went to tell the concierge that "for some reason, our outlet isn't working".  I'm sure they figured out why when they went to empty the garbages and found a fried hairblower in one of them.  Hehehe.  Good times.

Now that all this volcano business has blown over (hopefully for good) I really am not stressing about anything.  Howie says he's nervous because it's his first REAL trip out of the country.  It's actually our first trip that we'll be flying together, too.  Every vacation we've taken so far we've driven!  Howie went to Nicaragua with the military, but that doesn't count.  He didn't even need a passport for that!  Plus, it's not like it was fun.  So, he's a little nervous.  But I told him he has nothing to worry about.  We're going to have a blast and we're going to get to see SO much!  I'm pretty excited about renting a car.  We will get to see a lot of the country side that I didn't get to see the last time I went.  I wish I could go through all the things we plan to do and see but that would take forever.  Plus, I'd rather discuss it with pictures of us actually doing it!

Hopefully we'll get some awesome pics!

Love these guys...

My hubby is such a sweetheart!

City of Bones - By Cassandra Clare

I just finished this book on Sunday.  It took me a little while only becuase I just couldn't seem to find the time.  Plus, the chapters are really long which meant that any time I sat down to read it I had to devote a lot of time to it.  That's why I hate it when authors put super long chapters in.  If they are short and to the point I can sit down and read without worrying how much time it's taking up.  Weird, I know.

This book was a great start to the series.  I've heard that the first is the worst of the three.  The next two are supposed to be much better!  But I was happy with the first book.

Let me give you a little bit of the scoop.  Clary Fray, the main character, is a girl that comes to find out that she is a part of a world that she never knew existed.  When her Mother goes missing, she tries to put the puzzle pieces together as to why she has been taken.  She is led on a wild goose chase through a world of Demons, Vampires, Werewolves, and Shadowhunters.  She meets a Shadowhunter named Jace Wayland and he eventually helps her on her new quest to find her Mother.  But, her Mother isn't who she's always thought she was and this new world is more than meets the eye!

Fun read.  I hope you guys will pick up this series!

Jazz Game - Jazz vs Suns

On Wednesday April 14th I got to go to my Jazz Game that I won tickets for!  My work gave the winning March Madness participant free tickets.  My good friend Alyssa went with me since I couldn't get Howie to.  If the game started earlier he would've.  But it didn't start until 8:30pm!  That's late and he had to work at midnight.  So, we made it a girls night!

Here is us and the angry guys that sat behind us.  They were big sports fans.

Like Alyssa's earrings and necklace?  Yeah, I made that.

Alyssa caught one of the Taco Bell parachutes that fell from the ceiling!

There was a t-shirt packaged in that little box.

During Half-Time they honored Larry H. Miller and his time with the Jazz.  They retired his softball jersey amongst the others that they have in the Energy Solutions Arena.  They are also changing the name of the court to the "Larry H. Miller Court".  It was a pretty neat little ceremony.  They also gave us a commemorative Larry H. Miller Jazz pin when we walked in.

Unfortunately, they lost, but we had fun.  We were only 10 rows back from the court.  Amazing seats for their final season game!  Thanks work! (and my mad March Madness skills)

Bead Boulevard Creations Blog

I decided to start up a Bead Boulevard Creations Blog so I can stop annoying you guys on here!  You can find it at http://www.beadboulevardcreations.blogspot.com/ .

Follow it if you so desire!

Do I Have A Story? Absolutely!

Have you ever gone to a Fast and Testimony Meeting feeling like you had something to share and then NEVER got up out of your seat?

That's what happened to me today. I came into the chapel, opened up the program and noticed that today was the sharing of testimonies and immediately my heart began to pound. The pressure was on. I had several things that were on my mind as things I could potentially share but there was one story that stuck out to me the most and the more I thought of it the better I felt about sharing it. However, I have a tendency of running things through my head so many times that I can't decide how to deliver it. Before I knew it, Sacrament Meeting was over and the Bishop was wrapping things up and telling us to open up our Hymn books. I was so mad at myself. I don't share my testimony often, but today I felt like I had something to share. I had a message to deliver and I supressed it. I got mad at myself to the point where I left the church feeling defeated. I had let my fear of public speaking and making a fool out of myself get in the way of sharing something that could've inspired someone else. I felt like I let someone down in a big way. I got home to my husband and the first thing I said when I walked in the door was "I had something to share today and I couldn't bring myself to get up out of my seat!" So he said "Well, you can share it with me?" So, I began to pour my heart out to him and immediately started to cry. That's my problem right there. I can't get through two sentences without becoming a complete cry baby. Then I get nervous and can't remember how I had planned on delivering the message and it ends up coming out all wrong. Then I regret getting up to begin with. This is how I felt the last time I spoke in Sacrament. Anyway, obviously, I have some phobias to deal with. Well, lucky for the few who read this blog, you will get to hear my message. Unfortunately, the person in my ward who was SUPPOSED to hear it, will not.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to drive my Grandma Van Cott from West Jordan to Layton. We were going to a Baby Shower for my cousin's wife. It's about a 40 minute drive so we were able to talk about some things. That's one thing I miss about living at home is the conversations I had with my Grandma. My Grandma brought up the topic of her bibliography. She said that she had started one some time ago because her brother and sister were writing one, as well. So, she sat down and started to type things up here and there and was feeling pretty good about what she had written. She asked my brother to come down and to read what she had so far. After reading everything she had put down my brother said "Grandma, you're doing it all wrong. It's supposed to be in chronological order." Discouraged that she was doing it wrong, she deleted everything she had written! She hasn't tried to take on the task since. So, I said "Grandma, don't let that discourage you! It's YOUR story, tell it how YOU want! We can deal with putting it in order later if it's that important." I told her that the most important thing was getting her story down while she can still rememeber it. Who are we to tell her how it's supposed to be?

Well, then my Grandma said something that has stuck with me. She said "Well, my life has been pretty boring. I never did lead a very glamorous life."

I immediately felt so bad for my Grandma. How can she not find that...sad? The last thing I want to say when I'm 80+ years old is that my life has been boring and not worth talking about. My Grandma has worked for the FBI, gotten married and divorced, and pretty much raised three children on her own. And she doesn't see a story in any of that? I want to hear about her trials and how she worked through them. I want to hear about her mistakes and how she learned from them. I want to hear about the moments that brought her happiness and how she was determined to make her childrens lives happy, too. I want to hear about triumphs, hurdles, and holiday traditions. I want to hear about her first time to the Temple, if she remembers her baptism, and her wedding day. I want to hear about how these experiences made her feel. I want to hear of the blessings God has given her and how thankful she if for them. Looking back and saying it's been a boring ride tells me that she has so many blessings that have gone unnoticed. Wake up and look at everything God has given you. Don't let your blessings go unrecognized. We need to be thankful for this ride. Afterall, we're on it for a reason.

Our life on this Earth may not be "glamorous" but, it's our life. Live it how YOU want to. Live it without too many regrets and do the things that make you happy. Give yourself a story to tell.

Hello. Good morning!

Dear Tara,

I hope you weren't too inconvenienced when I blew up on you this morning. I've been needing some attention for quite some time now and I know you were a huge advocate for getting me replaced. But, life happens and priority lists are made. Some of those lists simply don't include the purchasing of a brand new tire. Although you fought to have me replaced for months, alas it was never done. Until you decided to take matters into your own hands. It was at that point, coincidently, that I decided my life on this Earth must come to an end. I got you about a mile from your house when I made my final decision to quit. To quit this life forever!

I'm glad you were still able to safely make it to the local Discount Tire and get a replacement for me. Even if you had to drive the car on it's wheel, you still made it!

Much love,
Howie's Tire

Alice In Wonderland

Tonight my best friend and I went and saw Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. We had heard from a number of people that it was "Weird" to say the least. So, we were expecting a pretty weird movie. Plus, can you expect anything less than weird when Tim Burton is involved? Much to our surprise, it was really good! We both really enjoyed it. It's probably my favorite Tim Burton movie...ever. I can't say I would think it was appropriate for all ages of children though. Even though it's a Walt Disney film. I would say ages 9 and up would be ok.

Who was my favorite character in the movie, you ask? Well, the Cheshire Cat, of course!After the movie we headed over to Texas Roadhouse for some good grub. We were supposed to go and get pedicures tonight, but the snow kind of put a damper on those plans. But, I'm glad things worked out the way it did. I told Howie I'd go see it again if he wants to see it and he said yes so, looks like I'll be seeing it in the theater twice!