Throwing it Back

     Since my husband returned home at the end of October and work started picking up my blogging has fallen by the wayside, for which I apologize. I also can't go out of order on my blogs, it throws me off. So we are throwing it back to later October/Early November. After Sam came home he had to go back to work right away and postpone his time off a bit. Sam got home just before Halloween so of course I roped him and our friends Taryn and Steve into helping with the Haunted Harley Spectacular at the Middle School, which is an event I helped organize since the beginning of September. The event was a decent success for its first year and I was thankful to have good friends by my side.  We ended the month of October by spending Halloween with our sweet friends from Bible study; it was full of good food, American candy, cute babies and Hocus Pocus. The best part of the end of October was having Sam back home who had been gone since August!

Welcoming the hubby home!

My favorite part about Sam being gone is when he comes home!

Hercules even dressed up for the occasion wearing his bow tie. 

We celebrated the UK holiday, Guy Fawkes day which is celebrating the death of Guy Fawkes and Britain's Independence, I suppose. It is weird watching fireworks wearing coats in November, but we love experience other countries holidays.

Our little town of Chippenham threw a Guy Fawkes celebration complete with fireworks and the traditional bonfire and hot dogs. Provided by La Hogue 

I told you Halloween was full of cuteness, sweet Eleanor the lady bug

I co-hosted our October spouse social. Since Sam's flight got delayed a day his homecoming fell on the night of our social, but if anyone would understand it is these ladies. They are a wonderful group of women and here are some of them carving pumpkins.

More Halloween cuteness, inspecting the candy

Sweet Emily, she is adorable

     At the beginning of November our friends from Bible study, Taryn and Steve, and their dog Arizona, moved in with us while the new house they were moving into was being prepared. It was so great having them stay with us, we became a family quickly and I started referring to Taryn and I as sister wives, with two separate husbands, because sharing a husband is weird. We had lots of yummy family dinners together, lounged on the couch watching movies together, baking together, skyping families together and well basically everything you do at home together. Ha-ha! We loved having them stay with us!

The sillyness that occurs with the Barnes this is why I love them!

We got to celebrate Taryn's 24th birthday

Carrot cake, balloons, flowers and presents!

The birthday girl...mainly I took this picture to show my sister that I wanted one of those cowls for Christmas but I called it a cow. 

Taryn rearranged our furniture. Not really, we had to clean up a spill

Taryn cooked dinner often while she was here, I miss that

     Sam wanted to do some local things during his time off and I wanted to take a trip so I got to planning. Thanks to this thing called “play pass”, which is money I get when Sam deploys in the form of a card, the money comes from all the gambling machines on the bases. So thank you to those who gamble, you have paid for us to go to London, Prague, Germany and Paris. Well, you can book plane, train and Chunnel tickets, so the trips aren’t completely free. After saying goodbye to our housemates, who were also watching Hercules for us, we headed to Ely to catch our train to Bath. Unfortunately, I had left our train information at home…oops! Since I booked through ITT (Information tickets and travel, a travel agency on base) and had no confirmation number (and also didn’t realize until we got home where it was) we couldn’t print off our tickets. if Sam could cancel our hotel in Bath we were just going to skip it and head to London…we were within the 24 hour period and normally you can’t cancel within 24 hours without paying. Luckily, Sam booked the hotel for the wrong weekend, so we were able to cancel, not only was this a God thing, but also a sign that our trip was not going to be smooth sailing.

On the train, ready for our trip! We both look so healthy here...

     Upon arriving in London we headed to my sister-in-law and brother-in-law’s flat. They had given us the keys to their place when they left for the states. We were anxious to be London tourists so we headed out for lunch, at the yummy Chipotle located in Islington, and then we headed to the British museum. We spent the day at the British museum, which is awesome. We headed back to the Flat to freshen up before dinner. While at the flat we decided to book tickets for Wicked the following night. Sam found an authentic Belgium pub, which if you know my husband then you know he is obsessed with Belgium, and so we headed out to dinner. After dinner we decided to go and see a movie, making a full date night, once looking up the movie prices, which is like $25 a person, we decided no movie was worth that price. We headed back to the flat, snacks in hand, prepared to watch a movie on our American Netflix. Near the end of the movie, around 10:00pm the night took a turn for the worse. I got sick, which I will spare you the details, but stuff was coming out both sides, my head started pounding and I got a fever. Not fun, but not as bad as having campylobacter, in fact because it wasn’t as bad as that I knew it wasn’t food poisoning, but rather just the flu. The next 24 hours is quite a blur for me, as I am pretty sure I slept through most of it. Sam was there to take care of me, clean up after me and make sure I was okay, apparently according to him every time I moved I moaned in pain. I guess I should explain that the flat is very small, one living room with one couch, one bedroom, a kitchen and bathroom. I slept on the couch the first night then the bed the second night while Sam was reverse.  I tried to keep myself in confinement from Sam, but it didn’t really work. By Sunday Sam was as miserable as me. Luckily, I was feeling better and could take care of him a bit. We were supposed to fly out on Sunday morning, but decided it wouldn’t be a good idea. After three straight days in the flat, we were going stir crazy and we were both sore all over from lying around, we dreamed of our own couches and bed. On Monday, though we were both weak, we headed to the train station and went back to Ely.

Heading back home after our canceled trip...not looking quite as healthy as we did in the first picture. We both felt pretty crumby here. 

      We came home to an amazingly clean house, especially our bathroom! Taryn had scrubbed the shower, cleaner than I had ever seen it. I was so impressed; she gave me some lessons on how to make it happen. After the flu, I was stuck with a cold so Taryn and Steve bought me some Nyquil and Kleenexes while I crashed on the couch. Taryn made us all dinner and it felt great to be home and have amazing friends living with you that can take care of you. Sam and I laid around the house on Tuesday, but we were mostly feeling better and I was able to go out for pizza with the girls to celebrate Taryn’s birthday early. 

The amazingly clean shower we came home to!

     On Thursday, since Sam’s time off had already turned out to be pretty crappy (pun intended) we decided to head back to London to do touristy stuff. We started by visiting Leeds Castle, which is something we have wanted to do for a while. The sun was shining and we were feeling healthy again so it was wonderful. We also visited Tower of London, which I did a little bit with my mom but since it wasn’t summer and less people we were there Sam and I got to do so much more of it. We also walked around Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Big Ben, West Minster Abbey and the Eye. Since I had already done the Abbey tour, I found a coffee shop while Sam went and toured. We walked around Leicester Square, which has some great shops like M&M world and we also visited Harrods. We also went to the Wellington Arch, which was built between 18 26 and 1830. George IV had planned to have the arch built to commemorate Britain’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars. After playing tourist in London we headed back home on Saturday.

Leed's Castle

Still some fall colors 

More of Leed's Castle

Starting our day at the Tower of London

I love the winter sunsets 

Tower Bridge

Tower of London one of the tours

And again

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Oh yes we went into Harrods

Empty tube station...this is weird, rarely happens

Oh hi Ben, your looking Big, Ha! My scarf and hair changes so begin new day.

Westminster Abbey, while Sam toured I found a coffee shop known as Starbucks

Sam didn't want to climb up there but I made him, this is Trafalgar's Square

We mainly stopped here for a toilet break

Tradition lunches, a pie and fish and chips

I was so excited that we found m&m world!

Leicester Square

Wellington Arch

View from the top

We enjoyed being tourists in London, it really is a beautiful part of the city!

        We had thought that getting sick in London spared our housemates and rest of our family from the germs. However, that wasn’t the case. Steve got sick while we were gone and Taryn followed after him, being sick on her birthday. That’s how we knew we were a real family, sharing germs! It turned out the stomach bug we had was going around amongst Americans and Brits alike….like crazy. I get the pleasure of being introduced to more germs in the school, in fact most teachers will say that they are the sickest they had ever been during their first one to three years of teaching. They say they are sick all the time during the first year, until their bodies build up immunity. Unfortunately, Sam, Taryn and Steve had a first-hand experience of the not so pleasant part of living with a teacher.  Sam and I still fully intend to make it to Prague someday, but again the blessing here is that we weren’t out a lot of money, other than the tickets to Wicked.

Poor Taryn, sick on her bday, luckily the dogs were there to take care of her!

     So if you’re keeping track through the blogs that is flu/ food poisoning 3 Amanda 0. Yes, I have now had three trips either disrupted or canceled because of stomach related illness. My trip home for my best friend’s wedding was spent in bed/hospital because of food poisoning. My planned trip to visit Sam was canceled due to me having the flu and finally our trip to Prague was canceled because of the flu. Now the joke is that I am allergic to fun! We know that is not true though, I am quite tired of sickness ruining my fun and getting in the way of experiencing all this life has to offer. I am praying that we experience more health and less sickness in 2014!

I will leave you with a nice sunrise picture. I have seen more sunrises and sunsets this year than ever before thanks to work and driving as the sunrises and sets!

Thanks for reading!

Amanda