My bubbs.

It seems like everyone nick names their boys bubbs or bubba. I love my bubba. We took him to the dr today. He is 32" tall (96%) and 27.2lbs (98%) and 80% for his head. He's a big boy for sure. He is getting really smart. While he does naughty things he shakes his finger and says "no no no no!" He learned yesterday to say "Feli" (that's what we call felix) and "Gauge". He's been picking up a lot of new words this week. He's said "i got you!" and "come on!" Such a cute boy. We love him lots at our house. Story loves him a little too much sometimes.

We did get some kind of scary news today. He's had a lump on his back and the dr is concerned. We go to get an X-ray tomorrow morning and we'll probably need an ultrasound after that. Dr said its a possible tumor, but we'll discuss it further after some quick tests. Worst case scenario is he'll have to have it removed surgically, so that it doesn't affect his spine. Kind of super scary, but i'm not going to freak out just yet. I kind of have been preparing myself for the worst over the last month since i've noticed it and have been keeping an eye on it. Whatever it is, its under the muscle. So fingers crossed for us. :S

We Be Trippin'- Last Stop Germany.

My Germany pictures are super boring. I didn't take any of me and Jerome in them, because he wasn't with me most of the time. The reason we went on this trip is so he and his boss could meet with a company out here in Germany. We just went to the other places for fun. We stayed in Lohr the first 2 nights, then stayed in Frankfurt the last night, right next to the airport to catch our flight the next day.

The picture above is in Lohr, right by our hotel. It looked so much like Snow Whites village. As it turns out, this city is what Disney used as reference for the movie. They have a museum in this city with Snow White's mirror in it. Pretty neat.

So while Jerome was at work the wives and his boss' son went and explored Germany. It was slightly awkward, but okay. The first day we went to Würzburg. We took a train and walked so freaking far. I had awful shoes and the cobblestone streets were unkind. My feet were swollen when we got back.

Just like the rest of europe, there's tons of cool old buildings. This was a church:

Just a neat mailbox:

This was another church with a shopping mall on the bottom floor. thought that was totally weird, but whatever works. People out here do not waste space for sure.

We went to the residenz, which is where the bishop of the church lived. Its a pretty intense building. You're not allowed to take pictures inside, but i snuck one, then got yelled at in German for a minute. Oops! The stories inside the building were really neat. Of course i don't remember most of them, but one i do remember is that most of the building was destroyed in the war and they just finished restoring it in 1990.

The gardens outside the residenz were so pretty:

The actual building:

This is just a cool touring train. It wasn't running, but would have been fun to take around the city. Especially because we got lost like a hundred times. The second day was much better, because me and one of the other wives took off and went shopping in Lohr. Much more fun.

I forgot to take pictures in our Lohr hotel (it wasn't anything special, kind of run down). But the hotel by the airport was pretty swanky. All the beds in Germany are hilarious. They have a line down the center and two comforters. Even in the residenz building we went to, there was like a wooden divider. Pretty weird, but i gotta say, it was kind of nice not sharing a blanket!

These windows were so bizarre. They were gigantic and swung into the room. There's another window outsides that you don't commit suicide or anything. ;) All over Europe we noticed people's window shades were on the outside of the windows. Also all the doors push open, rather than swing out. I almost shattered a couple doors pulling them instead of pushing them.

Our last night in a hotel, next day we got to fly home, 10 hours the first flight and 1.5 for the second. I was so excited to see my kids! Our 10 hour flight was pretty rough. There were two tools that stood in the aisle nearly the entire flight. One guy sat with his elbow in some guys head most of the flight. They were so bothered with people had to walk around them and when the stewardess' had to push their carts by them. Then the little baby behind us stood on his mom's lap and sneezed all over mine and jerome's neck. Yum. I was so glad to land in Denver where i got to call my mom and talk to Story. Its nice to be back home. We had a lot of fun though. But 9 days without kids was a little rough. I don't think i can do that again for a long long time. I missed them too much. I'm glad we went, it was nice to spend that much time alone with Jerome.

We Be Trippin' - 2nd stop London.

Like I said our flight to London was delayed, so it was getting dark by the time we arrived and made it through customs. We caught the tube, which thankfully is right inside the airport. We rode it to Green Park, then switched lines and went to West Hampstead. I didn't realize what a long walk it would be, but i booked the closest hotel i could. We walked quite a long time, plus it always seems longer when you're lost. We eventually found it and I SWEAR this guy was following us. We had our back packs and luggage rolling down the street and every time we would stop, he would stop. Then we finally found our destination and he waited outside for a long time before he walked away. CREEPY!!

We stayed on the top floor of this place (below). We had a little flat. A mini kitchen, bathroom, living room and a bedroom. It was pretty nice, we just had to hike a million stairs after we had walked forever already. We ate dinner at the little sushi place below us (me love). it was really delicious. People everywhere thought we were so bizarre for wanting our check right away and not wanting coffee or tea after dinner.

I slept until noon the next day, i hadn't adjusted to the time yet, but then we hopped on the tube and went to the "london bridge" stop and got really lost and I got mad at Jerome and then he got mad at me, it was a big mess and we were both being buttheads, so this picture is of him being mad at me. :)

We eventually got back on the subway and got off at west minster abbey. Jerome had to pee, so i walked around a little while he went and saw a guy taking a picture of something behind me, so i turned around and there was big ben! it was right across from the eye of london, next to west minster abbey, everything here was SO close together, as a tourist it was so nice!

We hopped on a tour bus, which was an excellent tip from Sarah. You can get off and on as much as you like and they run all day. We rode around to all the sites and walked around a few places on the first day. (2 day tour).

We ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe (first one ever, so the line was loooong). We waited outside for close to 2 hours. it was super cold and windy, but worth the wait. We were starving and the food was so yummy. While we were waiting we took a tour of the vault and the tour guide as it turns out has family in Salt Lake and he is a baptized mormon. But apparently it was too many rules for him and he left. ;) He didn't really want to talk about it much.

I thought the phone booths were so cool. We had to take pictures in them, they're too iconic not to.

On the tour the guides were so cool, they told us a ton of interesting information, most of it i cannot remember, i wish i could. But after a tour bus in paris and 2 days here i can't remember which is which. This statue is of ghangis kahn. He used to boil people alive. I thought it was interesting. :)

This I guess used to be near buckingham palace? i can't remember the exact story they told us, but the queen had it moved forever ago, because she didn't like it.

This just reminds me of when Joey and Chandler are on the double decker on Season 4 of Friends, so i had to take the picture!

These dragons were cool, they mark all the entrances to London City.

The next day we woke up and got off at a different tube station, because we were starting to figure out our way around. We got off and walked through Green Park, which has 2 different legends about why it has absolutely no flower beds. The first is that the queen was walking through the park and he picked a flower and the queen told him to give it to the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and he gave it to a chamber maid, so she ordered all the flower beds to be ripped out. :) That's my favorite story, just funny. The second legend is that Green Park is where they buried all the people that died from lepracy, so no gardner would dig into the ground to plant flowers, because they didn't want to catch the disease.

Anyway, so we sat in Green park for a while and eventually someone made us pay 4 Euro for sitting in his seat... retarded, but whatev. We walked through Green park and ran into bucking ham palace. Someone wanted their picture taken, so we traded them.

This is a picture of the oldest and only castle in London. They say that the ravens that live here, if they ever leave the castle that all of England will be doomed, so they clipped their wings. There's lots of other cool stories about this place, but i cannot remember them.

Our second day was kind of a disaster. After we walked away from buckingham palace, we took the bus over to west minster to go through the crypts and stuff, but we missed it by 15 minutes, everything closes REALLY early. We were pretty disappointed. So we hopped back on the bus and headed to the London Dungeons. 

We were really excited to go through here. It has all the horrible history of London and it has a couple rides and stuff. We got there 5 minutes too late. Again we were sooo bummed. So we walked back to the bus stop and waited for a long time for the next bus. At this point i was really starting to miss my kids. While we waited for the bus I had a mini meltdown in my head.

At our last attempt to salvage the day, we rode the bus back over to West Minster abbey to catch a boat tour. We got on the boat seconds before they took off and it happened to be the very last tour of the day. We were so happy, then the tour lasted all of 10 minutes... :/ whatever. :) the guides told us stuff about the bridges at least. They had a bridge that was called the women's bridge, because during the war it was built by 80% women laborers. They used a certain type of stone that cleans itself every time it rains. :) They say its the cleanest bridge in London, which totally cracks me up. Of course women would use that kind of stone. 

That night we had dinner at MeLove again, it was just as good.

 The next morning we met up with Jerome's boss at the airport (you know, the whole reason for this trip was so Jerome could work). We flew with them to Frankfurt Germany. Unfortunately it was a really full flight and we were late to check in, so we didn't get to sit by each other. It was only an hour and a half though and some nice man let me have his window seat so that i wouldn't have to sit in-between two strange men. Nice guy. Jerome had the middle seat for all 6 of our flights. 2 of them he switched with me, because he's super sweet. :) (spoiled much?)

We be trippin'- 1st Stop Paris.

On Thursday we flew to Paris stopping briefly in D.C. Longest. flight. ever. (or so i thought, the flight on the way home from Germany was 3 hours longer). The second flight was 7 hours. Luckily they had new episodes of Dexter on the plane, so we watched that on the way over. We got to Paris at 6:45am (their time). We were dropped off at our hotel by our insane driver and we fell on top of the couch right when we walked in the door and I slept for like an hour. I was so tired. Jerome stayed awake, because he was afraid we'd sleep for too long. When i went up to ask what time check-in was she probably thought we looked horrible, because she let us check in 3 hours early. We went up to our room and slept for 4 hours!

We stayed at the Magic Circus Hotel right outside Disney Land. It was a really nice hotel, very interesting decor. :) I sorta wished Kory was here with me when I saw these clown rides. Jerome refused to stand behind one while i took a picture and I knew Kory would be game for it. :)

These bunk beds were in our room. :) Pretty cute.

After our long nap we went to Disney Land for the day. I was surprised that they didn't have that many rides. We went on a few, ate some crepes and ice cream and just spent the day. We ate at "Walt's" for dinner. it was weird food.

The next day I was in charge of wake up time, but i turned my alarm off and we ended up sleeping 16 hours! We were so zonked. we woke up at like 2pm paris time. We got up quick once i told jerome what time it was (he was pretty mad). We hopped on a shuttle to the train station and rode to paris. 

We came up from the train station and saw this immediately. it took my breath away, it was so cool!

We found a tour bus and saw all the sites around Paris. It was so cool! We learned a lot of neat things about the city. We wished we had more time so that we could see the louvre, but we took pictures outside of it since we couldn't go in and see the Mona Lisa.

Jerome outside the Louvre

Notre Dame

 We missed the day tour of Notre Dame, but did some shopping just outside of it. (which to be honest is my favorite part. I love tourist traps!

 We attempted to take our picture without the assistance of others several times.

These dudes were carrying huge guns and walking around the Eiffel tower. it was super scary.

That little green statue is the original "thinking man". i wish we could have seen it up close, but it was in a private garden.

Jerome was upset that i stood on top of the chairs of the double decker bus, he was afraid i'd go flying off, but it was worth it for this picture. ;) it was raining so much that we had the upper deck to ourselves. it was so nice! We didn't mind getting wet in paris.

Jerome wouldn't stand on the seats, but he's tall enough he didn't really need to.

the "under carriage view" of "Champs Élysees-Étoile". So pretty. i love architecture much more than mountains and stuff. Thats one reason me and jerome are good for each other, we appreciate the same things.

We were a little sad to leave paris, we were just getting comfortable there, but we had to fly out to London. They had a piano in our terminal. Some people were playing it while we were eating lunch. I wish people had kept playing it while we were waiting for our flight, it was delayed a couple hours because of bad weather in london.  Paris was so much fun! Especially because i wasn't hysterical from missing my kids yet.