Tales of a Shoebox Princess

 After Stonehenge, our tour bus took us to Bath, a quaint little town (not all that little). I like looking down all the streets I like the blue paint. All the rest of the town is yellow-brown. Curved building with acorns and chimney pots on top. I like all the ornamentation Can I walk down this avenue? I guess so. I love all these little alleyways Walkie-walkie down the alleyway.  Where does it lead??? To garbage!  Pret a Manger is all over the place I people-watched while eating sushi and waited for Jim to get back with his late afternoon lunch. Mochi! It was chocolatey and squishy. A very fine arch A majestic cathedral that we didn't go in. the park that we didn't go in the wall preventing us from falling down into the park. Bath had a lot of little tiny shops on little tiny streets. I popped into a few of them. One was an artist's shop and I bought a couple prints. One of Stonehenge, and one of London. We stopped at a candy store to buy candy for grandkids. We bought ...

On our first REAL day of vacation in London, we set off early for Stonehenge, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to visit England. Yes, I've heard that Avebury is probably cooler, but I didn't care. I wanted to see Stonehenge. Besides, if you like Spinal Tap, then you would have to make Stonehenge--the not 18" one--a priority.  We had to leave a bit early in the morning, and really, even earlier because we weren't used to the underground yet and we wanted to give ourselves some extra time to navigate. We had to get to Victoria Bus Station from Ladbroke Grove, and we weren't sure where any of it was. We planned to grab breakfast in Victoria Station (hoping they had food vendors). Jim keeps an eye on the weather no matter where we are, and so we were aware it would most likely rain. We had our umbrellas and jackets.  We got to Victoria Station with plenty of time to spare and I found a Pret a Manger that thankfully had many options for a ready-to-eat brekky. I...

 Why many? Because we were there 10 days and did lots of things, and also because I can only post in short bursts.  I've enjoyed traveling and have always wanted to go to England. Katie went to England for a high school band trip and I was glad she got to go, but I was also jealous. Last summer, Paul and his wife got to go, and I was happy for them, but also jealous. I told Jim after Paul's trip: "That's it. We're going to England because I can't continue to be jealous!"  We bought plane tickets over 6 months in advance, maybe even 8 or 9 months and then we waited. In early winter, we started planning where we wanted to go. We made a list of our HAVE TO SEE places and things and planned out our days. In April we bought tickets for trains and admissions. And on May 18, we headed to the airport.  FINALLY ON THE PLANE TO LONDON! We flew for 8 hours. The dinner on the flight was actually pretty good. I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking it...

My little comet Hayley-Bopp continues her careening through the universe on her own trajectory, leaving her mother earth behind--as is the nature of careening babies, and as it should be; I just can't believe it went by so fast.  In hindsight, I should have kept more of her early drawings. But then I would have even more bins in the garage filled with her artwork. I should have made more video recordings of her (and her siblings). I do think I was present since there was no Candy Crush when the babies were little, although there was computer pinball, and I spent a lot of time on that while the babies played and did whatever. But I was present and I did hear them make a lot of noise. In parenting-Hayley-specific hindsight, I'm glad I let her do whatever with her hair (it changed color frequently, and the downstairs bathroom will forever bear remnants of permanent hair dye). It's only hair. Underneath her hair, she was and always will be my wee little Cheeky. She may look got...