Kindergarten Age

Today is a huge day at the Garcia house - Britton turned 5 at exactly 4:28pm. I cannot believe I have a 5 year old. I cannot believe he goes to Kindergarten next year. I cannot believe he no longer needs naps, Mommy holding his hand all the time, and no longer calls me "Mommy." (I'm now "Mom.") And now you know why I spent a good half hour bawling to PJ last night about how he could NOT be 5. He could NOT go to Kindergarten. And the first time anything bad happens at school, I'm pulling him out. (No, not really, but it will be so hard to deal with all the ups and downs I know come with the school years) I'm just really having a hard time dealing with the whole "big kid" thing. I suggested this morning to BK that maybe we could just forget this whole birthday thing and stay 4, he wasn't game for that... Oh well, I tried.


So every year on his birthday, we let him choose what he wants to do for his special day. This year was a little different considering the temperature and current snow levels, so we had to change plans. We've been very lucky in that we have had good weather every year on his big day, until now. So no trip to the park on his bike, no playing golf with Dad (he got new clubs from Santa). But instead, he did go to work with PJ this morning, which he loves. We then all went to lunch at Red Robin (his FAVORITE), and came home to watch a new movie he received for his birthday - "Up." This evening, we celebrated with PJ's parents, and Britton ran around with his cousins for hours. All in all, I think he'd tell you it was a good day. :)

And for me, I hope turning 6 is easier than 5 was. Although I have a feeling it won't be.

Lunch at Red Robin:

Celebrating at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Can you tell he's scared to death of the candles? (Thanks to an sparkler fear from 4th of July years ago - not that he was hurt by one, they just scare him. The kid has a memory like an elephant) And check out Leyton's face in the background. He was mesmerized.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Britton-style)

Meet our little performer! The turkey song just cracks me up, and he sings it with such emotion! :) Happy Thanksgiving!

I hate that this thing is sideways, and I didn't realize it until it was uploaded (which took FOREVER). So I'm not going to redo it for now, but you get the idea. :)

halloween

This year, we made a number of stops on our "Halloween Tour 2009." We started with the Pumpkin Patch a few weeks ago, which both boys loved. On Friday, we went to a Halloween party at my office and the kiddos trick-or-treated from office to office, which is always fun. On Saturday, Mommy ran the Tulsa Run, we attended a church festival, trick-or-treated at my Mom's, my Dad's, and rounded out with a trip to the Garcia family party. We were beat by Sunday, to say the least. :)

And I have to brag for a minute. I made Britton's costume this year - all by myself. I know there are lots of you that are old pros at sewing, and while I LOVE it, we never sew from a pattern. My Mom and I are famous for "just winging it" and making our own designs, so this was a bit of a challenge. It was a much harder costume than I thought and my Mom did provide direction from time to time, but I'm pretty darn proud of how cute he turned out, and the fact that it was done on time! (thanks Mom for finishing the knee pads at the last minute when my machine decided to be "temperamental" - or maybe it was user error...)

Ok, this one is just hysterical. I'm not exactly sure what that look is on his face, but this is what I got when I said "show me your mean knight face..."

Trick-or-treating at Gigi's:

would you believe he's doing his best dragon roar in this one and not screaming to be put down?

the sweetest purple dragon...

watching the animals at the Pumpkin Patch:

Leyton was more interested in climbing on the pumpkins then actually letting me take a picture of him on them. Last year was much easier when he was less mobile...

Britton doing his best scarecrow:

the king

So for the first time in MONTHS (seriously like a bunch), PJ and I went on a date. Yes, for those of you "in the know," we were very spoiled and used to get date night ever Friday evening when my Mom would watch Britton for a few hours. But then came Leyton, and we lost date night. :) I'm not complaining in the least - on Friday nights, my Mom still takes BK for a few hours (and Trenton - my nephew who is just 9 months older than BK) and we get some one on one time with ley-ley which is great. Anyway, a few weeks ago Trenton couldn't come to "drop-off night" as the boys call it, and my Mom offered to come over and watch BK and Leyton. We had a gift card for dinner, so off we went! It was great - adult conversation, no screaming children, and no scraping food off all restaurant surfaces. Afterwards, we still had some time to kill, so where did we go? Target. Romantic, right? :) I needed a few things, and I LOVE Target. So as I cruised around the aisles looking at random items, PJ just kind of followed. I turned around at one point and found this following me around:


Nice, huh? Yeah, he thought he was pretty funny and wore that silently all over the store, while I frantically tried to lose the King. No such luck - he's pretty good at tracking...

europe part IV... THE UK!

Last stop on the tour, and as I said before, my favorite European city - London. I've been there several times before, so I've seen most of the major touristy attractions, but there was plenty I hadn't seen... We got there early Wednesday morning (see the Netherlands post for my horrific trip to London), and spent all day visiting 2 different clients. By the evening, I was beat and ready to skip dinner and go straight to bed (going on 1 hour of sleep at this point). However, I was convinced by several co-workers to at least go to dinner with them, and I was glad I did. We first went to a pub to meet up with everyone, and even that was cool. This pub supposedly rented a room to Jack the Ripper back in the day. We then went to an area of London which was mostly middle-eastern Indian, and the entire street was lined with Indian restaurants. This was very interesting - they all come out of the restaurants and stand in the street and basically heckle you with "deals" to try to get you to come in and eat at their restaurant... So one of my co-workers, who was quite the negotiator, got us a deal somewhere. The food was wonderful, and very authentic, if you like Indian food (which I do!).




On day #2 in London, after a long day working, we went for Fish and Chips, at my favorite chippy - can't go wrong there! We also took a little trip on the tube... Looking at the subway map, I noticed a tube stop with a very interesting name. Since it was out of Zone 1 and 2 (the major zones in London, generally as a tourist you stay in these zones), we had to buy an extra tube ticket just to get out there, but my co-workers were nice and made the trek with me... Check out the pics below. :)




The last day we were in London, we spent the day at a client site in Crawley (about 45 minutes outside of London). What a neat little town! On the way back to London, we decided to make a trip to St. Paul's Cathedral as that was the one big attraction I hadn't seen. We were too late to go inside, but did get some great pictures from the outside - and let me just say it was AMAZING. I am dying to go back to St. Paul's and actually see the inside! For my last night, we had dinner in Chinatown, another area in London I hadn't seen. We at at "Mr. Kong's," and again, great food! And what a cool area - complete with the paper Chinese lanterns hanging from the buildings.





And that was it - I headed back to T-town after 11 long days away from my family. I had a great time, and saw some really cool things, but there's no place like home. :)




Not a ton of pictures to share from London, but here's a few... This is from my new favorite tube stop:

And look, he even has his own soccer team...


St. Paul's Cathedral - from a far:

And up close:

And this was just such a touching monument - dedicated to all the firemen who lost their lives during WWII. I was floored by the number of names on it...

Chinatown:

europe part III... THE NETHERLANDS!

So big delay between posts... Oh well. :) So after a few days in Germany, we headed to Amsterdam! Yet another city I'd not visited previously, so I was anxious to see what it had to offer. Unfortunately, we there only on weekdays, so our time to look around was VERY limited (remember, the main purpose of this trip WAS work :) ).



We arrived on Monday evening, and learned a few things right off the bat. So there are very few taxi cab companies in Holland you can trust. They try to gouge you any way they can - even telling you they will take credit cards, then denying it when they get you to the hotel (ahem. this happened to us, which lead to a very heated discussion in the lobby of the hotel between my co-worker and the cab driver). Second, hotels are ridiculously expensive there. This was by far (almost triple) the most we paid for a hotel in Europe, and it was a HOLE. and I mean a huge hole. The entire room was done in shades of gray and black, then there were weird blue arrows on the carpet, pointing towards the bed (and a huge arrow painted on the wall above the bed, pointed downwards), all with the quote, "it all starts here." EXCUSE ME? I don't even want to know. There was also what I'm quite certain was a vomit stain on the carpet next to my bed. Good thing I had bleach wipes in my suitcase (oh yeah, I totally travel with them), and I spent a good 1/2 hour sanitizing the whole thing. Did I mention this was the most expensive hotel I've ever stayed in?!? And it came RECOMMENDED by another one of my co-workers?



Ok, enough about the skanky hotel, on to Holland. :) The area we stayed in was what is know as "Rembrandt Square" as there is a huge park with Rembrandt statues in it right near. There were some fun restaurants, bars, and shopping also in the area. The second day we were there, we spent the day on a client site, but spent the late afternoon/evening exploring the area. I was really dragging as it had been a long day, so we decided to find somewhere to get coffee. Yes, I know what's legal in Holland in coffee shops. I just didn't realize there are quite a few "coffee" shops that don't actually sell coffee. :) The first one we went into, we explained we just wanted coffee and the guy looked at us like we were crazy. After running down every slang term he could think of for weed, he finally understood we weren't interested in that. He then proceeded to throw us out. :) The second shop, we got in the door and realized they weren't even bothering to keep up the guise of selling coffee - no coffee machine to be seen and we left. Third time's a charm. We finally found a coffee shop that would actually sell COFFEE! Who knew it would be so difficult?



Amsterdam has some beautiful canals and old buildings. They all lean at weird angles and I spent a lot of time wondering how exactly most of them were still standing. Because it was late evening, we didn't get to see the house that Anne Frank lived in, but I did buy a very cool little painting from a street artist that had the house painted in it. Somehow, yet again, we ended up in the red light district. This time it was completely by accident, and pretty funny actually. It was starting to get dark, and we walked down a long street (and a very normal looking street, I might add) looking for souvenir shops. As we turned around to come back, I noticed some of the porch lights had been turned on, and they were RED. Uh oh. Sure enough, more and more red lights turned on about that time and curtains began to open... Whoops. So we pretty much ran back down the street, keeping eyes straight ahead. :)



If you know me very well, you know I HATE to fly. Really. Hate. It. I'm ok once we are in the air, but take-offs just scare me. We had a flight the next morning to London, and as we were discussing this at dinner with a bunch of co-workers, one of them asked which London airport we were flying into. In the interest of time (we had to visit 2 clients the next day in London), we had found a flight into the newest London airport - London City. It's right off Canary Wharf, so very close to where we needed to be. Our co-workers informed us that all that fly into London City are PROP PLANES. Really? So by this point, I'm pretty much freaking out. Our flight left very early the next morning, so I think I slept maybe an hour, and spent the rest of the night worrying I was going to die on a prop the next morning. Well as it turns out, it was a jet, but a tiny, AIR.FRANCE (remember the airline that just crashed off the coast of Brazil a few months ago - yeah that was Air.France) plane. So tiny, the wings were on top of the plane. As my co-worker put it, the seats also appeared to be made for "little Frenchmen" as even I hardly fit in them. I could go on and on about the horrible details (the tape holding the oxygen mask in over my head - seriously; the stinky guy next to me, or the fact that we pretty much dove out of the sky in under 2 minutes to land on the shortest runway I've ever seen at London-City), but I'd like to not re-live the horror. So just take my advice - if you ever fly to London; stay away from London City if you are at all nervous about flying. :)



So what did I like about Holland? The area we stayed in was very pretty. The canals were full of old boats, and the buildings were amazing to look at. The people were all very friendly, public transportation was excellent, and the shopping was great. I just wish I'd had more time to spend there and explore... And I would LOVE to visit in the Spring and see the tulips - someday...

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't have near as much time to do my research in Amsterdam. I'm not exactly sure which building this is, but it was off a very large, main square in Amsterdam, filled with statues, and lined with beautiful old buildings and churches. I didn't see the guy in the pic in the green shorts and flip flops until I got home... Trust me, it wasn't THAT warm. :)

Just a look down one of the neat streets - all full of fun shops and restaurants. What a beautiful city!

One of the canals... Apparently it happens quite frequently that the locals convince some poor unsuspecting drunk tourist that it's a good idea to take a swim in these nasty canals. We were lucky enough to NOT witness that.

Check out how crooked these buildings look:

And saving the worst for last - this is a "coffee" shop in Amsterdam. We did NOT go in this one, but I'm guessing from the appearance they probably aren't serving much in the way of coffee. :)

europe part II... GERMANY!

So after 2 nights in Stockholm, we headed to Hamburg, Germany. I was very excited to go to Germany as I'd never been there, but it was somewhat of a letdown. I learned later that a big part of that was that I was in Hamburg - not Frankfurt or Munich, which are the cities you want to see if you want to see Germany how you picture it in your mind. :) Hamburg did have some very interesting history, but the problem was, we were there on a Sunday, and it's not like the U.S. - EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays, with the exception of a few restaurants, and Starbucks of course. :)

We arrived in Hamburg very late Saturday night. We hadn't eaten dinner, so we asked the hotel to point us in the direction of a restaurant that might be open at 11:00 on a Saturday night (it's Germany right? Everyone should still be up drinking). They pointed us towards a street several blocks away and we headed that direction. As we are walking, Danny (my co-worker) says something about thinking we just passed a bar (of the same-sex variety). I didn't notice, and we kept walking. Then another, then another. And we realize, we are in the "rainbow" district -rainbow flags EVERYWHERE. On a Saturday night. Super. We did finally find an open restaurant, and the whole experience was good for a laugh later. :)

And the biggest waste of time in Hamburg? The fact that we stayed up until 3:00am (b/c Hamburg is 7 hours ahead) to watch my beloved OSU Cowboys get their hineys kicked by Houston. We expended way more energy that we should have to find someone in the states to loan us their slingbox and allow us to watch the game, only to have them lose. I was NOT pleased.

So the highlights - our hotel was awesome. Probably in the top 2 of nicest hotels I've ever stayed in. And of the 5 different hotels I stayed in on this trip, it was the second cheapest. Things in Hamburg were much cheaper than Stockholm! On the safety scale, it still felt safe, although not as much so as Stockholm. Hamburg is made up of numerous canals, and several lakes, so it was very pretty. There are some very neat churches to see, and we saw all of those (hey, churches are open on Sunday). :) One of which, St. Nikolai, has been turned into a memorial to all those that died in WWII, and the church itself essentially "died" then too as it was bombed to pieces. The only structures remaining were the large steeple and the crypt. The steeple is very black due to the bombing, and you can actually still go up the steeple and get a very cool view of Hamburg. There are numerous photos, and text to go with each, too bad it's all in German. I mean really - they have to know it's a tourist attraction? There was ONE plaque in English, and to summarize, it basically said that the Americans bombed all the ports and factories. The British bombed all the residential areas, and that was a huge violation of numerous treaties. But, oh, we (the Germans) probably deserved it since we did kill millions of people and bomb London for like 52 nights straight. It just almost seemed nonchalant to me, and therefore was very disturbing. (I'm sure it's all just lost in translation) It just really bothered me...

Ok, on a happier note. I did try authentic German fare - wiener-schnitzel (very good)! And here's the big shocker, I went down to the Reeperbaun (RB). This is Hamburg's red light district. But before everyone completely freaks out, let me explain a little... The RB is a very strange mixture of really nice restaurants, some fast food, lots of shopping, and oh, here's the XXX shop over here. Really disturbing - but a huge tourist attraction. We ate at a great chinese restaurant down there actually though! I was warned not to wear pink, and not attempt to walk down the actual street (which is barricaded off so you can't see - thankfully). Apparently pink is reserved for the prostitutes (good to know - maybe they should put that in the tourist guide), and women are not allowed down the actual "bad" street.


So here's my take on Hamburg. I'd go back - to see the things I didn't see this time. But I'd really like to visit Munich and Frankfurt. I found that the German people weren't as friendly as the Swedes, and not nearly as many spoke English. In Sweden, we didn't meet one person that didn't speak English. Seriously, not one. In Germany, we had to do a series of weird hand gestures and charades in some cases to get our point across. :) And I'm fine with that because I realize I'm in a foreign country, and I do NOT expect them to speak my language... Simply an observation... :)

This is St. Nikolai... (note the black color - a result of the soot, fire, ash, etc)

A view of one of the canals:

The square in front of the city hall.

The view from the top of St. Michael's Church. Another amazing church with tons of history in Hamburg.

The back side of Hamburg City Hall (which was gorgeous by the way):

europe part I... the short version - SWEDEN!

I know this is *technically* a blog for my kids, but occasionally I throw stuff in here that I want to remember for myself. This is one of those. :) 11 days away from my husband and kids, and I'm happy to say I survived, and actually enjoyed myself - most of the time. It was incredibly scary to leave like that. Seriously, during take-off on the flight that left Minneapolis (to Amsterdam), I had a knot in my stomach like I'd never felt. To be that far away from everyone, everything, just plain scary. The travel time itself was just absolutely exhausting. On the way there, it was about 16 hours. I was so tired by the time we made it to Amsterdam (and still had a 2.5 hour flight left to Stockholm), I sat in the Amsterdam airport lounge and blankly watched CNN-Tokyo for 2 hours.

So I'll try to hit the highlights. Stockholm first - and by far my FAVORITE. I've always said London is my favorite city, and it still is, but as a country, Sweden wins. Holy cow, what a great place! So much to see, great weather (and yes, I'm aware it gets very cold there, but I love the cold and snow/ice), and it was just CLEAN. I didn't feel crowded constantly like you do in the other major European cities, and it was incredibly safe. The downside to Sweden? EXPENSIVE. Seriously - far worse than the UK, which I had always thought was break-the-bank expensive.

We spent the first evening just walking around, checking out the Old Town area, which is a ton of restaurants, shops, bars, etc. Our hotel was actually right off this area. We walked around the King and Queen's palace, and walked down by the water. The second day, we were on a client site all day, but spent the late afternoon /evening walking again, seeing lots of history, more shops, and my highlight - the ICE BAR! Oh yes, it was totally made of ice. The bar itself, the cups, the walls, the benches, tables, EVERYTHING. The funny part of this was that you have to pay before you even go in. They tell you that your cost covers the price of one drink, and you can stay 45 minutes. I was miffed they were telling me how long I could stay, and that my drink had to have vodka in it (not that I'm a big drinker anyway, but can't I pick my own liquor??). Ha! Well, they give you this huge poncho with gloves, and send you in. After about 5 minutes, I was so cold I was numb, and sucked down my vodka drink faster than I thought possible and was ready to hightail it out of there. :) Oh well, cool experience! The next morning (Saturday), we went to the Vasa museum, which is a huge museum built around a Swedish battle ship that sank 50 yards out in the harbor in the 1600's (obviously not the most sea-worthy of ships). Anyway, they pulled it up in the 1960's, and it was very well preserved due to the cold water temperature. The museum was very dark, so my pics of this suck, but very cool.

The alleys were incredibly narrow - and Stockholm was VERY hilly. So much so that my legs were sore after walking about 6 hours one day...

The Ice Bar

This was a very cool square with a very interesting bit of Stockholm history. Apparently at one point several hundred years ago, the rulers tricked a few hundred people (who were creating somewhat of an uprising) into coming into this square at the same time, and killed them all... The first night we ate dinner in this square... Mildly creepy?

The King/Queen's palace, but as I understand it, they actually don't stay here much. They have a "summer" home they like much better. :) It's a rough life I guess.

Stockholm City Hall...

By far my favorite pic - the view from my hotel room, looking out at Old Town. I considered crawling out on the little roof you see at the bottom of the picture, but decided that getting arrested in Stockholm probably wasn't my best bet...

first day of school

Today was the first day of school for BOTH my babies. And like most moms would say, I think it was much harder on me than it was on them. Britton practically bounded into class, and might not have even given me a hug and kiss if his teacher didn't remind him. They were baking gingerbread cookies today (and going on a gingerbread hunt) - and he could hardly contain himself. They had a gingerbread door, made of cardboard, set up that the kids had to go through and Britton was in heaven. I, on the other hand, was so sad to realize this is my first born's last year at the Kirk. This time next year, I'll be in the dark. No more "inside information" from the director (AKA my mom), no more special treatment. Oh my. I was a Jenks grad - wouldn't even consider sending my kids anywhere else for K-12, but still, it's just scary.


Leyton on the other hand, DID cry when I handed him over to his teacher. It was the break-your-heart-why-are-you-leaving-me kind of cry. However, I'm wise to his tricks. :) He's pulled this before, and if you hang around long enough (2 minutes, tops), he's happy and playing with all the other kiddos. I think it's more for my benefit than anything else. The teachers told me he had a wonderful day - ate all his lunch (since when does Leyton skip meals anyway), ran around like a little monkey on the playground, and even napped on his nap mat. That last one is huge - my Mom messaged me a little after noon to tell me that Leyton was not unhappy, but was not the least bit interested in having anything to do with the nap mat. :) But the teachers worked their toddler magic and I got another message 10 minutes later that he was sleeping - ON HIS NAP MAT! :)


Ready for school! Oh yes, I totally dressed them in matching outfits. I don't care what anyone thinks - I won't be able to get away with this much longer (PJ already tells me it's so not cool).


Britton, begging me to stop taking pictures and take him up the stairs to his class. Looks a little impatient, no? :)

Leyton, considering his escape options:

Blowing Gigi a goodbye kiss (although he saw her again in less than 20 minutes)

road trip - part dos

As promised, here's pictures from our second road trip of the week. At the request of Britton, we made a trip to Stillwater today, on the hunt for Pistol Pete. PJ and I were fairly certain Pistol Pete was "in class" today, but we played along anyway. We had lunch at Eskimo Joe's (Britton's FAVORITE), complete with cheese fries. I'm fairly certain Britton and Leyton killed the entire plate, with PJ and I only getting a few when they weren't looking. :) Since it was pretty warm today, we opted out of wandering around campus and sweating to death, and instead went to Chris' University Spirit and picked out a new OSU shirt, which was just as good for BK. :)

Leyton was much too busy with the cheese fries to pose for a picture. But you can at least see he's smiling... At the fries.


Not the best picture of any of us, but I'm normally on the other side of the camera so the good ones are few and far between. :) Notice Leyton's face - as he's trying to get back to the cheese fries. What can I say, my children are driven entirely by food (like their mother).

Cheesy BK:

The growling contest. How is it that it always ends this way? Leyton thinks it's hysterical...