Make Way for the Queen's Guards

     I have been wanting to try a sushi restaurant in Cambridge, so when Sam came home from work on Friday I decided we should have a date night. Sam had other plans, which included sleeping, after his long day of throwing away boxes at work. Oh and he was a bit grumpy too, saying he didn't want to drive to Cambridge. So I took him to Nandos in Bury St. Edmunds instead of Cambridge. After dinner we thought we would go across the street to see a movie, however, nothing of interest was playing so I bought popcorn, Sam bought sour patch kids, and we left. It turned out to be a great date night! Sam decided that since we hadn't been to London in awhile that it was time to go again. So he contacted his sister, Rachel, and asked her what they haven't done there yet. She sent us a list back, telling us to have fun, but not realizing Sam was asking them to hang out with us. We decided to meet Rachel and Josh in Windsor on Saturday for a day of castle fun!

I had tea with the lovely ladies from my Bible Study one day last week

I loved the tea set and all the yummy snacks!

     We left at 8:00am on Saturday to pick Rachel and Josh up at a tube station on our way to Windsor. It took us about three laps around the station before we could find some parking and after our hour and a half drive I really had to pee. Lucky for me there was a toilet in the tube station and that is where I found my SIL, I guess great minds think alike! Sam also met Josh in the toilet. After picking them up we headed the rest of the way to Windsor. Windsor is a town famous for Windsor Castle, which is a functional royal castle, just like Buckingham Palace. We parked, for 12 pounds...yikes, and headed through the rain and cold to the castle gates. The Queen wasn't at Windsor while we were there, but Rachel still managed to get a picture with her...or at least a calendar of the Queen....close enough. Our tickets included a free audio tour, this was my first experience with an audio tour since I was young and toured Elvis Presley's house, I was a bit confused and relieved that the audio tour didn't come with head phones (that kind of grosses me out) but it basically looks like you are talking on a Zach Morris cell phone. We started the tour with St.Georges Chapel, which is beautiful (though no pictures were allowed) and both of the Queen's parents are buried there so it was super cool to see their  tombstones. I also continued my tradition and lit a candle, which I do at every chapel. After the church, and a few gift shops, we headed to a thirty minute kitchen tour. It was really neat to see the kitchen that is used for big fancy events and tea times held by the Queen. There was a fire at Windsor in the 90's (what a sad decade for the British Royals...yet they still play nothing but 90's music around here, I guess they don't want to let it go) and most of the tour was before/after the fire stories. The kitchen was pretty big and they had a mixer that could mix 60 eggs....at the same time...oh my! There was even a tribute to all the contractors and construction workers who worked on rebuilding the castle post fire.

Windsor Castle

Sam and Josh listening to their audio guides

Rainy and cold day at Windsor

The Queen lives here sometimes

Rachel listening to the audio guide

Windsor Castle

Cool thing to do with an old moat area

We didn't get to see this part of the castle

Or that part of the castle but I hear in August/September you can walk to the top of that tower...good thing we got our tickets stamped and can go back anytime in the next year for free.

The Chapel

See the castle is like its own town

      After our kitchen tour we decided to take a lunch break. There aren't any cafes or places to eat at Windsor Castle, which was strange, because it seemed to be a little town all of its own, but we got some awesome wrist bands and headed across the street from the castle. We found the cutest little pub, but I cant remember the name of it. The inside was like a house, there were wooden tables (pretty common in pubs) and a fire place with some awesome artwork on the walls. The food menu was all comfort type foods. Sam, Josh and Rachel all lack originality and ordered the leek and chicken pie, which a "pie" is a pretty standard British food, it is like a chicken pot pie...only not. Anyway, I ordered the stew and a pot of tea while the three other Americans all ordered beer...again no originality, though they did order different beers at least...gosh it was so embarrassing to be sitting with people who all ordered the same food. Haha, just kidding! Sam is usually the one who hates it when someone else orders what he wants. Anyway, the food was delicious, our waiter was friendly and he said his mom makes the best pies. You know you are eating good food if someones mom made it! After lunch we headed back to the castle to see the last part, the state rooms. The state rooms were amazing, it was so neat to hear the history behind each room and see how they were restored after the fire. Again, there were no pictures allowed in this area either, but I learned a lot. If you ever visit London then I definitely recommend a side trip to Windsor Castle if you have time!

I stood at attention next to the guard...Sam didn't.

Make way for the Queens guards

The guards were changing out

Pretty castle

This must be the part that the Queen lives in

Or maybe its all of that she lives in...because we didn't get to go inside any of it

Moat Path

Hi friends!

Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook

Mr. and Mrs. Baird

Some random people playing lacrosse

Josh taking in the view

Castle at night

Castle wall at night

       After the castle we walked around the cute town of Windsor in search of a tea house. We came across the Crooked Tea Room, which was a very quaint British tea room, though the waiters and waitresses weren't dressed as cool as the ones at Harriet's tea room in Bury St. Edmunds. This time Rachel and I were the same, ordering tea and scones. Josh had hot chocolate and scones while Sam had coffee and pancakes. After our afternoon tea we did some shopping around the town and then it was time to head home. Sam was feeling adventurous and decided to drive Rachel and Josh all the way to their flat in London instead of to the tube station. It was a bit scary driving the American car in central London and a 40 minute drive turned into 2 hours, but Sam did a good job and Rachel fed us chili. We finally made it home around 11:00pm, it was a fun and busy Saturday and my feet were tired by the end of it!

I have no words for this picture...but Josh's face is epic

Crooked Tea House

Rach and I in front of the crooked tea house

Train station at Windsor

Our tea time drinks

Sam's pancakes

Tea time

Yummy! I love scones...

     After Church on Sunday Sam and I had a nice lunch and then we both took a nap. I made some salad and rolls then headed to my friend Jill's house to finish the Lord of the Rings. The third movie is the best and I must admit something, because most of my readers are friends and family who wont judge me, when I came home I pretended to be Smeagol (the creepy guy from Lord of the Rings) I walked like him saying "you hobbits-es have crumbs-es...precious". If you haven't seen Lord of the Rings then you wont appreciate that and will probably just think I am strange, but it made Sam laugh! Sam had a flight today and I went to a delicious Italian night squadron spouse function. It was a great time! As for the rest of our week, tomorrow we have Ash Wednesday Mass and Bible Study, Thursday Sam is making me a special valentines dinner, (and thanks to the commissary for conveniently putting dipping chocolate next to strawberries we will be having chocolate covered strawberries too), and Friday we are going on leave since Sam couldn't take it last week for our Barcelona trip. We will be heading to Luxemburg and Belgium for a little holiday and I cant wait! I am so glad we will be able to take a trip after all, even though it isn't to Barcelona, but we will definitely see Barcelona before we move.

A legit telephone booth that loves Britain

Thanks for reading! I hope everyone has a Happy Valentines Day!


Love,
Amanda

Today is a Gift

      The end of January and beginning of February has proven to be a little more relaxed than 2013 started out for our little family. As we had suspected, Sam got pulled off of Bravo alert and the crews deploying to aid the French in the Mali Crisis, because it was getting too close to his scheduled deployment in March.  Sam got the call last Friday that he was off Bravo alert…yay! Unfortunately, the crews left on Saturday…boo. We had a lazy Friday night, summing up our lazy week, where we watched a couple of movies. On Saturday we did things around the house and then had friends over for dinner on Saturday night. We broke out “The Game of Things” which is a fun group game that Hercules bought us for Christmas (such a thoughtful dog), unfortunately due to recent deployments and trainings we were missing some key members to our group, but we still had a good time. On Sunday we headed to church and Sam started teaching a middle school confirmation class, as he was asked to fill in for a Captain who headed back to good ole Altus, OK for more training. So far Sam is enjoying teaching this class, though I still don’t think he would know what to do if he was put in front of a real middle school class, perhaps in a Title One School, but teaching six military kids, with three teachers, at church, has been pretty easy, according to Sam. After church we had lunch and decided to take the dogs for a walk since it was a beautiful day outside so we headed to a nature reserve park about twenty minutes away.

The dogs were excited to be out of the house and onto a new adventure

At the nature reserve...the sunlight was too much for Hercules' eyes

Walking on the board walk...we didnt have our wellies so going on the nature path was off limits

We felt like we were in Kansas with all these fields of grass

Tired dogs after our walk and muddy too

     This past week was pretty busy, things had finally returned back to normal. We hosted Bible Study at our house on Wednesday night, so I spent the first part of the week doing household chores and cleaning. I have started a Bachelor watch party at our house every Thursday night, and it is awesome! I use to have Bachelor watch parties with girlfriends back home and then when Sam and I got married last year I tried to continue these watch parties, but unfortunately there weren’t any girls around to watch it with in Enid,  so I would watch it with Sam and two of his guy friends. I am so glad there is a big group of girls at this base who enjoy watching it, because it is something that I look forward to every week and I know when Sam is deployed I will look forward to Bachelor night even more, it will be something that can mark another passing week of him being gone, plus we always have delicious food. Sam flew on Friday night and I had a girl’s night watching the first Lord of the Rings movie, since I haven’t seen any of them (I know, I live under a rock). Sam and I had our usual Saturday lunch at LaHouge before heading to Framlingham to check out the castle there. The castle was pretty, but there wasn’t much other than the wall, I guess I was expecting more rooms and things to walk into, but we still enjoyed exploring. After the castle we headed to Holbrook (pronounced Halbrook in a British accent) to see what the town was all about. It was a pretty disappointing looking town, a bit on the “white trash” end of the spectrum but we had fun driving around and even battled a swan while we were there. We spent Saturday night at the cottage watching a few movies. Sunday was our normal routine of Church and then lounging a bit after lunch. Everyone who works on base got a late start work day beginning at noon today, except for Sam who had to fly, because of the super bowl. So I met up with friends, three of my girlfriends whose husbands are all gone right now, and we watched the second Lord of the Rings movie. I am so blessed to have these girls in my life and that they are still friends with me even when I say silly things like “Are the dots on these SOLO cups Braille? Spelling SOLO?” I should have more girls’ nights because I came home and Sam had vacuumed the entire house and cleaned the kitchen, I guess boredom makes him productive around the house!Oh and we could've watched the Super Bowl here, but it didn't start until 11pm and there were no commercials, so what is the point?

My friend Taryn and I checked out a real British tea room in Bury St. Edmunds. It is called Harriet's Tea House, the waitresses are even dressed up like you would see on Downton Abbey and the scones are delicious, we had a great time. Another perk of not having a job right here :)

From the Left: Taryn in her awesome hello kitty footy pjs, Jill holding an apple, me, Meleah the amazing photographer, and Lindsey, who I believe is holding chips. At one point we were all holding something random. Anyway, these girls are absolutely amazing. They are all strong, beautiful, fun and Godly women.And they are also Lord of the Rings fans, converting me one movie at a time. We had take out Zen Noodle and wore comfy clothes, it was a perfect girls night! (Photo curtesy of Taryn's facebook)

Framlingham

Castle Walls

More of the wall

Part of the moat...I cant wait to see a castle that has a real moat

The castle wall connected to the building they added where the souvenir shop is located

Castle Rock

Sam with the Castle

And Again

I was charging the castle...muhahahahaha

Me with the castle

Castle

Still a Castle

This water use to go up to the castle and you could see the castle reflection in the water. If your like my photography friend, Meleah, you can get stuck in some crazy mud for epic pictures.

Hi Sam!

View from the castle

This was some prison of the castle...dont remember exactly

Castle

More Castle

Walking on the castle wall

Front of the castle

Castle

     Sam and I were supposed to be heading on our anniversary trip to Barcelona tomorrow, but since he didn’t get his leave put in before the whole bravo fiasco he had to try and get it approved last week and too many people were already going to be on leave. So we have learned a few valuable lessons, one-always put in for leave early, it is better to have it revoked than to not get it approved and two- buy trip insurance (or don’t because in this case if we hadn’t bought trip insurance then we could’ve gone). We hope to get leave for him next week so we can take a small trip before he deploys, since we will be going to the states the week he gets back from deployment and won’t be able to take a trip then.

Our GPS lady pronounced it Halbrook

The local village store

Holbrook Village Hall

Church in Holbrook

Pretty Swan

Nice Swan coming to say hi

Evil Swan Stare Down

Tricking us to roll our window down

And swan attack

Showing teeth

Sam taunting said swan

The swan showing Sam whose boss

Scary swan, watch the video that follows

 

At least Holbrook had some delicious pear cider!

Sam got a beer at the castle and I bought a cool looking bottle of cider oh and a magnet

     There has been a recent tragedy from Aviano, Air Force Base in Italy. An F-16 pilot died after ejecting from his plane over the Adriatic Sea. He was participating in a normal training mission when this accident occurred. His wife is a few weeks away from giving birth to their first child. Though, Sam flies a plane that is a bit safer than a fighter jet, this story still hit close to home and I have found myself relating to the woman and having a heavy heart as the family lives this tragedy. I am told there is a fighter pilot from Lakenheath (which is the base I buy my groceries from) who died in a plane crash a few years ago. The best way I can describe the military family/community is like a body. Like the church is the Body of Christ, the military service men/women and their families are one strong body fighting for America. When you lose a part of the body the rest of the body hurts. When one part of the body suffers, the rest of the body suffers. Even though I never met Captain Gruenther, and I will probably never meet his wife or daughter, my heart broke for them and I have found myself thinking and praying for these complete strangers multiple times a day.  When someone from the AF dies in duty you may notice lots of status' on facebook or someone saying "A Toast" that is a way of honoring the fallen solider. I am not the best with words but one of my friends posted this blog and I thought the woman did an amazing job describing her feelings and she said it better than I ever could, so I invite you to read her beautifully written blog: A Toast. I ask that you remember this family in your prayers tonight and hug your spouse, children, sister, brother, friend or whomever a little tighter. I know I have hugged Sam a little tighter and longer since I first read of this story. This was a reminder to me that we are not promised tomorrow, we are only given today and the horrible reality is that any “normal” day can change your life forever. This is another reminder that we must not focus on the things of this world, but rather turn our eyes to Jesus and live each day as if it were our last. I challenge you, my reader, to view each day this week as if it were your last one on earth, I have taken this challenge myself and it is amazing how much of our time and energy is spent on things that really don’t matter.

I havent taken a "selfie" picture in a long time, but I took this one when I realized my skin is becoming pale white from the lack of sun around these parts...I am already three shades lighter from my "normal" winter make up....

I have to throw in a picture of my baby!

Sam's airplanes are old and they visit the "hospital", as I call it, a lot. Thank you maintenance for keeping my pilot and my friends safe by healing the sick airplanes :)

That’s all I got for now! Thanks for reading!

Love,

Amanda