London

We had some time for a quick 4 day trip to see my friend Leah and her husband Derek again in London. This time our mission was to see as much of it as possible in 4 days. Needless to say, we were always on the move. Olivia was such a trooper as we forced some stroller naps on her again. She made it through and saw some great sights she will never remember! We had such a blast and are so thankful that the Beckmans saved us some major dough by letting us invade their apartment yet again! Warning...Long post with lots of pics.



Me and the famous "Beefeater" Guard at the Tower of London. The Beefeaters are retired military who give tours of the Tower. The Tower of London was a fortress used by many famous British monarchs throughout history including Henry the VIII. It is most known for becoming a place to house prisoners including Anne Boleyn.


The ravens that never leave the tower. They have their own pens and caretaker. They are free to roam however their wings are clipped so they stick to the grassy knoll.


The building that houses the British Crown Jewels. We saw some serious gems, gold and crowns in there. The famous "Star of Africa" diamond is there as well. Sorry no pics allowed in here.


The fam in front of Tower Bridge on the Thames River.


Couldn't resist a pic of this Underground stop.


O is super pumped to be at Hampton Court-home of Henry the VIII!!


Leah, O and I at Hampton Court in front of the many beautiful flower patches.


Justin in Trafalgar Square and the famous statue of Admiral Nelson-victor of the Battle of Trafalgar. They defeated the Spanish off the coast of southern Spain. We will try to get to where the battle was located here in Spain at a different date and take some pics. However, the Spanish have no markers showing where the battle was. Funny...


The ceremonial band at the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The whole thing was super cheesy and not that great in my opinion. The band played Austin Powers. Took away from the experience for me.


Okay one of the highlights of the trip for me. The British Museum. This place has everything! Mummies, ancient Greek and Roman antiquities and this piece of stone I am posing in front of. The Rosetta Stone (of Micheal Phelps fame). No not the language series you can buy. The ACTUAL Rosetta Stone. This stone is ancient Egyptian and was written in 3 different languages, 2 Egyptian and 1 Greek. Since the discoverers knew Greek they were able to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphics and thus understand the Egyptian system of writing.


O and I are obviously not taking seriously enough the fact that we are sitting in the same room as The Elgin Marbles. These sculptures were taken from the top of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece.

Justin and O in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, one of the biggest in the world. Notice the fun red bus in the background. Gotta love London.


Ahhh. Windsor Castle. I can't believe O fell asleep. a MUST SEE if you go to London. The queen's weekend home.


Here we are in front of the castle courtyard. The queen's apartments are behind us.


The castle turret. Look closely at the flag. It is only flown if the queen is there. SHE WAS!! But we didn't see her. I can't believe she does not come out when the crowds are there and just say hi.

Just thought the sign was funny. Would have been funnier if we actually had a cup in our hands. Not rule breakers....

...unless you just have to get a picture with Queen Elisabeth I's tomb!! No pics allowed...if people are in there and see you. But no one was so we broke the rules and I have no regrets!! Her tomb is actually at Westminster Abbey but I just wanted to make sure this pic got in:)


The long walk outside of Windsor Castle. The queen's car comes down this drive to the castle. Thanks Beckmans for another awesome trip!!

Cruise Last Day-Estonia

The last day of our cruise we went to Talinn, Estonia. It is the biggest city in Estonia and really relies on the cruise ship traffic for their economy. It was a very quaint city but not much to do there except walk around and shop.



A scenic overlook of the city.


The medieval gates leading into the city.


The church at the top of the city.


Posing in front of a store.

Posing in front of a store.


The main square of Talinn. The square is lined with restaurants and outdoor cafes.


All of us posed together at the scenic overlook.

Cruise Part III-More St. Petersburg, Russia

After we went to the Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace, we then continued on our all-day tour of St. Petersburg, Russia. We stopped at the famous onion-domed "Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood." Sounds morbid because it is. The church was built on the spot where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated. We did not have time to go inside nor did we have any rubles (Russian currency) so we just took some pictures outside of it. After we went to lunch at a Russian restaurant. It was very interesting. We ate with some Scandinavian people from our cruise who were nice. They served Russian food which consisted of a cream soup, some chicken and rice with a gravy and a piece of cake for dessert. And lunch could not be complete without a shot glass of vodka! There was also a traditional Russian band playing around the tables while we ate. They were awesome!

After lunch, we headed over to the Peter And Paul Fortress-the original part of the city. Olivia promptly fell asleep in the stroller here. Props to her for lasting all day with no fuss! There we toured the Peter and Paul Cathedral where all the tsars have been buried since Peter the Great including the Romanov family (the one with the famous daughter, Anastasia).

Finally, we ended the day with some souvenir shopping-had to get the Matryoska Dolls (the dolls within a doll). And then we stopped and took pics of the cruiser "Aurora." This cruiser fired the shots that were the signal to start the Russian Revolution in 1917. After a full day seeing the sights of St. Pete's, we headed back to the cruise ship. The next day...Talinn, Estonia.


Church on the Spilled Blood.


Justin standing next to one of the many canals in the city. The city is known as the "Venice of the North" for this reason.


Us in front of the church. Unfortunately no time to see the inside...


Our Russian band at lunch. The girl was gorgeous and not pictured here was a singer who sang beautifully.


Arriving at the Peter and Paul Cathedral within the fortress. As you can see O was not as excited as we were.


Mary Ann and John in front of the P&P Cathedral.


Inside the Cathedral.


The Romanov Room. Tsar Nicholas and his entire family were killed in the revolution. Anastasia's tomb is the one on the far right. There have been theories for years that she escaped death and was secretly living elsewhere in hiding. A few women have even come forward and claimed they were her but they have now proven she did die at the time.


Peter the Great's tomb is on the far right with the bust of him above it. Katherine the Great is next to him.

Jusitn and O on the outside ramparts of the Peter and Paul Fortress.


The name of the store where I did some souvenir shopping. Somebody translate for me...


The cruiser "Aurora." The boat that started a revolution leading to the failed Communist system. Way to set your country back about 70 years Aurora.

Cruise Part II-Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia

So I stated in the previous post that we had taken a 4 day cruise in the Baltic Sea. Our first stop after Stockholm and the day at sea was St. Petersburg, Russia named for the founder of the city, Tsar Peter the Great. We were all so excited to see Russia! We booked a 9 hour tour of the city that stopped at the major sights. Our first stop and the "Big Ticket" place to see in St. Petersburg is The Hermitage. This was a palace built for Peter the Great's daughter but she died and Catherine the Great was the first to live here and housed her personal art collection here. To say she loved art is an understatement. This woman was able to acquire some of the greatest pieces ever created. Rembrandts, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael as well as the "newer" artists like Renoir, Monet, Matisse, Van Gogh, Rodin...and the list goes on and on. The Hermitage was the old Winter Palace for the tsars and now also houses the exhibits of the art collection as well. We went to St. Pete's on a Monday and the Hermitage is usually closed on that day but the museum has a special relationship with the cruise companies so we were able to tour it anyways with only other people from the cruise ships! It was awesome-the place was empty. The only other people there were the cleaners and some students from the art school working on their paintings. We did a two hour tour of the museum and toured Catherine's apartments as well as some of the famous paintings since we only had a limited time there. They say that if you took one minute to look at every piece of art in the collection, it would take you 11 years to finish the museum!

This is a view across the Neva River, that runs through the heart of the city, of The Hermitage. It is the ginormous green palace all the way to the right. The rest of the buildings along the river are other palaces built by the rich during the time of the Tsars. The Hermitage was only the winter palace for the tsars. The last tsars to live in the palace were the Romanovs before the Russian Revolution and Communism took over.



The grand staircase leading to the palace apartments. Our Russian tour guide is the lady holding the sign on the stairs.



My in-laws sitting on one of the benches in the ball room. This room was destroyed during WWII by a bomb blast. They restored it to how it looked before. The pillars are painted with gold as is much of the decor of the room.



The Russian throne of the Tsars.



Me enjoying the whirlwind tour of the art exhibits.



My mother-in-law Mary Ann in front of the Neva River and the grand palaces along it.



An art student working on her copy of the painting on the wall. There were many students doing this with the paintings. The better the art student, the more famous the painting they get to copy. Their copies were almost spot on with the original!



One of the beautiful hallways of The Hermitage.

Season of Travel

Again, sorry for the lax posts. We have my parents here in town now for a couple of weeks and I have slowed down yet again with posting pictures from last month! I'll begin where I left off with the last post. Justin's sister and nieces left on June 19. And so did we. We flew out the same day and while they left for Illinois, we left to catch a cruise out of Stockholm, Sweden. It was a 4 day cruise that started and ended in Stockholm with stops to St. Petersburg, Russia and Talinn, Estonia. Justin's parents went with us and we joined some other couples from the base. It was a lot of fun and went so fast! Olivia did great as we pushed her through some serious all day touring in both Russia and Estonia. She has become quite the seasoned traveler at such a young age! I will start the posts with Stockholm. We got there on a Friday night and did not leave for the cruise until Saturday afternoon so we had a good morning to check out the sights of Stockholm. It is a beautiful city! We knew nothing about it and were thoroughly impressed. It is one of those "water" cities. Channels everywhere with little bridges leading out to small islands. Everyone has a boat and as we found out leaving Stockholm from our cruise ship, many people live on their own little islands! It's clean, the people are friendly, and the sights are nice.



Captured this moment on the plane to Stockholm. Daddy and O enjoying the view out the window.

O and the Royal Palace guard smiling and waving to each other. Unlike the palace guards in London, these guards can steal a glance at people, smile and even give small waves.


Here we are entering the old pedestrian center of Stockholm. As you can tell, O is very excited.


O and I posing over one of the bridges leading to the old city.


"Stockholm is #1!"


The Stockholm Opera House.


O and I posing in front of the statue of St. George slaying the dragon.


This was our day at sea. Not a great picture of O but proof that Justin actually went on the cruise with us! He's in the background.

The Boyd Family's Visit in June

Ok so I have been reprimanded in not so subtle ways that I have been a super slacker on posting. My only defense is we have had visitors (as you will see below) and have done some mega-traveling in the last month and a half. I am now just getting to when Justin's family came to visit us for 3 weeks in June. It was so fun to see them since I have been so homesick. Justin's mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law and twin nieces stayed in a townhouse right outside the back gate to the base with views and a short walk to the ocean. They were also able to really get in some fantastic sight-seeing of Spain since they had 3 weeks plus we were all able to spend some Q-T together as well. O loved having everyone here since that meant she was the center of attention and there was no shortage of people who wanted to play with her. A wonderful time and we miss them already!


Taken if front of our base house. The flowers on the ledge behind us are in front of O's room.


One of our great meals here. Appetizers anyone? How about cheese, Iberico ham, Churizo, and some great Spanish vino. Plus a view of the ocean!


O loved that she could show off during bath time. Who doesn't love a shampoo mohawk?


I love this pic. Mary Ann and Justin walking O back from walk on the beach.


Anna and Allison enjoying a Spanish specialty, Churros y Chocolate.


Me and the twins at the Cadiz public market. That place sells some random stuff. Cow brains anyone???


The ladies decided to take the Osborne Bodega Tour. Osborne and this region is known for Sherry.


Here they are at the end of their tour tasting some sherry.


Help! We can't get over the barb-wire! It feels like that sometimes...


O and Mary Ann playing her room. "Look at all my toys! Now play with me or else!"


Anna and O enjoying a moment together at the townhouse.


Just a pic of O while everyone was here. She has gotten s big!