Last month in London

Earlier in July I went to "The Taming of the Shrew" at Shakespeare's globe theater. Not my favorite show ever but it was a cool experience anyway. The same week we went to Hever castle to watch a joust :) teehee. After the joust we went to a ward party at a park where everyone just eats as much strawberries and cream as they can and then goes out on the pond in paddle boats and canoes. That was pretty awesome, and lots of non members came. What a fun party!

Elle and I went to Hampton Court Palace, the home of King Henry the VIII and his six sorry wives. I'm becoming almost an expert. He was sure an interesting guy. That weekend I had all but Cole while Nathan and Amy went to Salzburg. Overall it went pretty well! We did a bunch of races, a water fight, and a nature scavenger hunt. I like the "wear them out" technique.

I was lucky and got in on the Robinson family vacation to St. Ives in Cornwall. We stayed in this cute house with beach views all week. Walked down to the beach pretty much everyday. The water was freezing cold and the outdoor temp was never higher than low 70s but Nathan rented wetsuits for several days so we got to really swim and body surf. One day we drove to Penzance for a stand up paddle board Lesson. That was pretty fun! We also found an awesome ice cream place to walk to so we went there a couple times. On the last day we did a bike ride all together. It was a nice trail, and I had Cole in a trailer behind me. On the way home from Cornwall we stopped somewhere that it looked like there might be a bathroom. There wasn't, but there was a cute little ice cream shack and a field of cows that they get the milk from to make the ice cream. It was totally charming. They had some interesting flavors...strawberry and balsamic vinegar, rice pudding and jam, ginger and butternut squash. I just got lemon curd, I don't gamble on ice cream. Nathan really liked the ginger and butternut squash one though. It was a fun week!

My big thing this week was going on the Warner brothers studio tour. You see tons of Harry Potter props, sets, costumes etc. it was pretty awesome. I about died looking at the case with all the horcruxes in it. Too cool! I missed my tube stop on the way back thereby also missing my train and getting home after midnight. That was a little distressing, but it gave me time to finish reading Gone with the Wind. That book is aggravating but utterly brilliant. I also took Ava on a milkshake date this week. I did FHE a while back and talked about the Book of Mormon and challenged everyone to read the Book of Mormon everyday. If they did it everyday I would take them for a milkshake. Ava is the only one that did it so it was a date! I think she had fun. I almost forgot but I did Andrew's testimony challenge and bore my testimony about it in church today. I'll see you all super soon!

Late June email

I can't remember where I left off last month and I'm too lazy to find the email to check. So there you are future posterity, your mom/grandma is lazy. So I will start with the street party in celebration of the Queen's Birthday. It was a ward party and they really went all out with classic British games, and timeline of the Queens life, and a cute photo booth.

My first "day off" here I took the train to London to see the Tower of London. Miraculously I made it safely there and back. I got rather lost in the beginning but some sweet older lady stopped me and directed me correctly. People are so thoughtful here. Every time we go out someone stops us and offers to help haul the stroller up the stairs or something of that nature. Just helpful, kind people. The Tower of London was pretty cool. My favorite part was the Crown Jewels. It was just so fascinating the history behind them and watching the film of Queen Elizabeth's coronation. There was a lot of interesting similarities to religious ceremonies. Overall a really intriguing experience. It made me want to learn more about British history. Pretty gruesome stuff with all the executions and things. Cole has warmed up to me now so that is pretty fun. He reaches for me sometimes or just comes over to give me hugs. He's a sweet little thing.

I've had more time for reading than I've had in ages so since I have been here I have read The Scarlet Pimpernel, My Name is Asher Lev, and North and South. I went into London and did a House of Parliament tour. It was interesting to learn how their government runs and to see all the historic art and architecture. Then I took a long walk past the London Eye to get to a place for dinner that was near the Mermaid Theatre, where I met Amy and India to watch the BYU Ballroom Dance team perform. Kind of ironic I had to come to England to do that but it was a pretty fun show. Priscilla Hobbs was in it, so that was cool too. We ended up having to RUN to catch the next train home or we would've had to wait an hour. Thankfully we made it and we got home around midnight. I've had the opportunity to do some last minute filling in for callings since the ward is small so everyone has several callings. One week Amy was teaching Relief Society but also supposed to play piano for primary and Nathan had to make a guest appearance at Primary so I got to play the piano. That was pretty fun. A couple of Sundays ago I ended up with an hour's notice to teach Young Women's. That was good to remind myself how to teach on the fly haha.

Last week I got to traveling trips, so, bonus! I went to London and saw Matilda on stage and wandered around a plaza/shopping area called Covent Garden. That was pretty fun, probably my favorite trip to London yet. Then we went with Amy's cousin and family on the weekend to Stonehenge and Bath.

This week I went with a girl that has been here nannying to the Cliffs of Dover, Dover Castle and the Canterbury Cathedral. It was pretty fun! Canterbury Cathedral was pretty amazing, I thought it was worth the trip. We went to Evensong there so we got to hear the singing echo around those high ceilings. Awesome. Saturday we all went to Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. That was probably my favorite place so far, I thought it was pretty cool. I stayed with the kids Saturday night while Nathan an Amy went on a date and they were actually really good. I bribed them with chocolate. :) So that's my life! Pretty amazing, I'm super spoiled. Love you all!

Charity

Well the first half of this month was covered in my missionary emails so I will go from there. Returning from my mission on the 21st was surreal. It was strange how normal it was. It felt like I never left and that was odd since I felt like I had an entire life' sporty of experience in that time. I had some fun family time at the family reunion and enjoyed following everyone around and snuggling babies. The rest of my time was spent frantically trying to get everything in order to go to England. I ended up not packing for it until the night before. I made some poor packing choices--I'm freezing here and will have to buy some sweat pants to keep warm. So that's all of May but I guess I will go into the first week of June so there' something actually worth reading haha.

Attending a celebration for the Queen's birthday this Saturday. Stay tuned on that. Today in testimony meeting one of the sisters lept out of her seat to bear her testimony. I was wondering what was so urgent she needed to talk about. She proceeded to bear her testimony as follows, "With the Queen's birthday coming up this Saturday I have been thinking of how blessed we are to have a Royal Family (Spirit fingers here). I hope we are all pondering on that and thinking about it this week. That's all I'm going to say. Amen." Ha! Oh boy. So I hope this Queen's birthday programme (look, I'm already spelling wrong) lives up to the expectations we've been given.

We went to the Science Museum in London as well as Tower Bridge. Tower Bridge was cool, a portion of it has a glass floor so you can stand on it and feel like you are going to die haha. Today we walked around a gorgeous garden and castle ruins. Living the dream! I get some pretty fun snuggles from the Portia. Fun!

Nathan

Well, to be quite completely honest I don't have a large number of Nathan memories because the span of time between me being old enough to remember things and him going to college/on a mission is not a long one.  However, on reflection I had to chuckle remembering a summer after Dad's collective birthday gift was the wakeboard.  I remember Nathan taking it out to the trampoline and practicing flipping with it on.  He was darn serious about learning to do that!  Ha, I also remember while he was on his mission he sent a tickle-me-Elmo for Christmas.  It came in a giant box full of those packing peanuts and we played bubble bath in it...granted, Nathan wasn't actually there...but obviously it made an impact on me who the gift was from!  I also remember when he and Amy had first had Elle, they were both so protective.  Especially Nathan though.  If you so much as cleared your throat there was always a good chance he was going to make you wear a mask!  At the time it was a little frustrating because I felt like I was walking on eggshells, but looking back those protective instincts are pretty sweet.  It's also always so fun to spend time with Nathan and Amy because they tell the funniest stories!  And they're just cool.  They've lived with us a couple of times, and I remember one summer we played Monopoly with them all the time.  We'd sit outside on the patio with lemonade or something and chat while we played.  It always came down to Nathan and Mom...they're pretty strategic players.  I still love that game, and believe me it's not because I just love playing games that last for hours.  I just have really good memories of playing with them.  I'm grateful to have such great brothers (and sisters) to look up to!  Love you, and happy birthday!

Memories of Mike (how alliterative)

Well I guess my Christmas post kind of covered some favorite memories of Mike, but don’t worry because I have more! :)  Mostly I remember being younger and playing with Mike a lot.  He was sort of the Jester for Andrew and I.  Sometimes we would just sit and listen to him tell us about Japan and Guam.  I really couldn’t get enough of hearing about cultural differences and foreign foods.  He also demonstrated Chinese water torture, which I have never forgotten. :)  I was also inspired by Mike to read Phantom of the Opera—great book.  When April and Mike were living in Provo and we would visit we’d always play games, my favorite being Harry Potter Uno.  It was also with them that I first watched the 6-hour Pride and Prejudice, which of course was life changing.  It’s just always fun having Mike around!  Love ya!

Charity

Christmas Memories

Well, I've really been bad about posting on here...and on my personal blog.  Oh well!  I have a problem where I have an inability to choose just one memory...so I believe there shall be at least three.

Probably the youngest memory I can come up with is the year I was given a Barbie JEEP.  It actually drove, and I was super thrilled.  Probably one of my favorite toys.

I'm not actually sure how old I was for this, but the first year Mike set a trap for us was really fun.  Rachael was there, so it may have been Christmas break for her because I'm pretty sure she would have been in college.  So three of us were working on it.  I just remember being so excited to see what Mike would do, and then strategizing with Rachael on how best to get through it.

Possibly my favorite/most memorable is the year that we built forts to have a snowball fight.  I think it was Dad, Rachael...and someone else (sorry I don't remember) against me, April, Mike, and Andrew.  Our fort dominated.  Mike pulled out a cooler and we used it to make blocks so our fort was way legit.  It was SO fun.

Mike thought we were so weird! Why does your family sit on the kitchen floor to talk?

Just thought I'd post the few pictures we had of one of Charity's favorite Christmases:)

I guess this means that was 8 years ago!

It was a sweet fort!

Look at cute little, Susan!

And of course, every year playing laser tag in the store was fun.  Definitely miss that.  Christmas is great!  Love you all!

My Vote

Look how cute our blog background is!  I hadn't seen it yet.  Anyhow, I vote NOT sell.  I have told mom this, but I guess just to add to what other people are thinking here is my reasoning.  Actually it's not reasoning, just selfish.  My kids will never experience that house if we sell it, and that makes me sad.  However, I obviously can't afford to contribute financially to upkeep...so as a non-contributor my vote probably doesn't count for much. :)  Anyway, I'd just be bummed out to just have to tell my kids about it and show them pictures.  So there's my two bits.  If I come up with better arguments I will be sure and update, ha.  Love you all!

Of Grilled Peanut Butter, Paddle Boats, and Canals

Well, most likely everyone knows that High School was not my most favorite place to be in the world. I still managed to get out with a couple great memories though! So I have three...mostly because having three made the title more fun.

Two of my stories relate to organizing dates for Kaiti's birthday (in case anyone forgot, Kaiti has been my buddy since second grade). For her sixteenth birthday I planned her a rockin' first date. The night before I went with a friend and taped up these huge signs on her house that Amy helped me paint. They said, "Happy Birthday, Kaiti" and "Sweet Sixteen, Dating Machine!" plus there was a cute cartoon of a boy and girl holding a birthday cake that Amy painted. So she woke up to that on her house. It was pretty epic. For the date we did a photo scavenger hunt. I had mom take pictures of places and we had to figure out where it was, then go there and do an activity. We went to the park and played laser tag; to Foster Reservoir for lunch,swimming, and playing on the banana tube; home for ping pong; and to that spot by the big willow tree and the canal on the golf course for dessert (those delightful raspberry truffle brownies!) While at the canal we ended up swimming in it! As this was unplanned, it was the most fun part! :) It had a sort of small waterfall that we kept going down. It was seriously awesome.

The next birthday date I planned for her we took the paddle boat to Foster, paddled across the lake and built a fire on the other side. We then cooked tin-foil dinners over the fire and swam around a bit. I am an incredible date planner, what can I say? We did forget to bring the box for the matches though, so I ended up trying to strike the match on my pant zipper...awkward. I think the boys finally managed to strike one on the wood.

Third fun memory was I think during my Junior year. Kaiti and I got creative with lunchtime. We started bringing weird stuff to eat for lunch and eating on the floor with picnic blankets. It was super fun! The one I remember most was when I brought one of Mom's grilled cheese sandwich makers and we put peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in it. We got some weird looks, but it was super fun. Also, they are surprisingly good grilled. Fun stuff! Those are my favorites I can think of. :)

Just love

Thought the title should be changed up a bit. :) This is a kind of fun prompt-- Everyone remembers different things! So here I go, in order of birthdays.

It's kind of hard for me to peg a first memory of Amy, other than that the first time she came home with Nathan I was really excited and I made a little bouquet of somewhat smelly flowers to give to her. It is equally difficult to come up with a favorite memory because there are so many! I've actually lived with Amy almost more than anyone! At least I remember living with Amy more because I was older the times she stayed here. She's been an awesome friend to me though. I believe we both learned to single ski the same summer, and we have had fun watching So You Think You Can Dance together. I also really liked the time she made up a song for me to sing to boys who couldn't take a hint, "I...do not like you...no no no no no no" haha. I think you probably had to be there. Of course we all know that Amy has an awesome sense of humor so we've definitely laughed a lot together. She's pretty fantastic!

Coming up with a first memory of Julie is even more difficult, because I was very young when she and Raymond got married. I do remember thinking she was pretty well perfect. I totally idolized her. I remember telling her (I think...maybe it was someone else) that she was FOR SURE going to the Celestial Kingdom. I also liked when I would visit them and people would ask if I was her daughter because I thought she was so pretty and liked the thought that other people might think I looked like her. Probably my favorite memory is also when they were living in Provo. Julie was making an apple pie and let me help her. I don't think I got to help cook all that much at that point and I felt important. Plus then she made a little leaf with the crust to put on top and it was pretty and fancy. I liked that a lot.

It's sort of hard to choose favorites with April too, but I remember when she and Mike were in Provo still and they would play games with Andrew and I a lot. Harry Potter Uno was a favorite. That's also where I was introduced to Pride & Prejudice. I watched it with them, and then later read the book (I know, wrong order). I also had a lot of fun with April and Mike in Hawaii, and Nauvoo. I've definitely had a lot of good conversations with April. It was also fun when we got our ears pierced together :) it made it more fun to me not to feel like a pariah. April definitely made that whole thing more fun, and has given me some fun earrings since! :)

Three very fantastic ladies born this month! Love you all!

Balance

This semester for my religion class I am taking Family Foundations. It is basically a course centered around the Family Proclamation. It's really been a good class and there have been a lot of great projects and articles that I have read, but this week seemed like it could be especially helpful so I thought I'd share. Every two weeks we start a new project which usually involved trying to build a good habit. The first unit it was finding a way to improve personal scripture study, the second was improving physical health. This unit we are supposed to choose from topics in the LDS family services section on lds.org and improve in one of the areas we study. I read this article in the "Stress" section and thought it was very helpful. It's about finding balance in our lives and not trying to do more than we are capable of. It's really so great. Read it! :) Love you all.

Read this awesome article! :)

My Blog

Just incase (is that one word?) anyone missed my email about my blog, here's the address. Mostly I just felt the need to post something on this blog because nobody has in a while! So that's actually all I have. :) Love you all!
Charity

More Memory Lane

Another excerpt from a letter to Nathan:

How is your mission going? The scribbles are from Charity. I'll translate: "Bash in a bap konk." That's what she said it said.

What?!! Ha ha!

More Birthday

Here are the rest. The first ones are of breakfast and my date. These are of the surprise lunch.

16th Birthday

Finally found these. What a fun birthday I had!

Homecoming Pictures

I thought I'd post pictures of my first formal date experience. I will probably mess up and post a bunch of times or not post at all, so sorry about that. Anyhow...hope you enjoy!

Memory Lane

I've been typing up letters that I wrote to my many siblings who served missions (in lieu of a personal history as a couple of my journals had to be chucked). Thank you for saving all those letters by the way and giving them back to me. But I came across some funny stuff that I wanted to share with you all. I may share more but for now I'll just share a postscript that I wrote to Nathan . . .

This is what Charity wants to tell you.
Me: "Do you think the baby's cute?"
Her: "Yep. He's cute."
Me: " Do you love the baby?"
Her: "Umhuh" (uh huh)
Me: "What does the baby eat?"
Her: "Milk" (pronounced as "malk") . "Just a sec. Just a sec okay?"
Me: "Okay"
Her: "I'm going to see what's wrong with that baby." (Andrew had been crying)

It made me chuckle. For those of us that knew Charity when she was little - can you not hear her saying all of this? She was just the cutest talker! Ha - "I'm going to see what's wrong with that baby"! It's kills me! lol *sigh*

For Charity in particular

Had to get a pic of the bum ruffle. :-)