Spring Updates!

It's been a busy Spring so far! We were sorry to miss Mum and Dad's big Diamond (60 year) Wedding Anniversary celebration in person but understand they had a great time. Congratulations!

I've been working hard on my goals. I'm planning on reading 26 books this year (a personal record) ...

And take an award-winning photo - this is my best snap so far...

And to travel more - we have booked a Disney Mediterranean cruise this summer!!!

And of course to give our boy the best golden years we can...doesn't every dog have their own personalized pillow?

It's been a great year so far!

Happy New Year from the UK!

We left on Boxing Day for our family vacation in the UK. As soon as we landed at Gail's we got straight down to business with some proper English bacon...

And a half of bitter shandy at the pub....

And a mince pie at mum's...

...and a snowball at another pub:)...

We (over)indulged in many more British pleasures during the trip and I didn't photograph them all thankfully but suffice it to say shares in Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and Bovril probably saw an uptick that week...

Since my two grandnieces both had chicken pox, we switched out the order of events a bit and headed up to the Lake District at the beginning of the visit to give them chance to recover:). We live on the border of the Orlando town of Windermere so I wanted to show Mike and Maddy the original place that it was named after. This is me and Mike at Lake Windermere on our 19th wedding anniversary...

We saw a tiny bit of snow in Kendal, and a boatload of mint cake:)

We had a lovely walk around Tarn Hows and took lots of selfies with pretty English cows:)

The next day we had breakfast on the infamous Lake Coniston where Sir Malcolm Campbell had set the water speed world record at 141.74 mph (228.108 km/h) in the Bluebird in 1939. After his son Donald Campbell had set four successive records on the same lake he decided in 1967 that he needed to exceed 300 mph to retain the record. Although he achieved a top speed of over 320 mph he then sadly lost control and was killed instantly.

Mike and Maddy loved the scenery and especially the sheep:)

The Lake District is the home of William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. We loved pretty Hawkshead in particular...

But it was cold...! We headed back to Gail's and enjoyed a day catching up and snuggling up watching British TV. I got my fix of British birds through the window...

Then we went over to see Sean and Tracy and Mike got to meet Skyla for the first time - she loved him!

I miss my Tracy so much....

Then we headed over to see Stephen and Kayz and meet Nancy for the first time:)

She is so adorable!

It was so strange seeing in the new year with Big Ben!

We spent our last night seeing Jan and Darren and saying goodbye to Mum and Dad...

Thank you Gail for putting us up (and putting up with us)...:)

Hope to see you all again soon and Happy New Year!

House(s) Update

We have just completed the first phase of refurbishing the little lake house that we bought earlier this year now that the tenant has vacated. It's really starting to come together and although we have a lot more work to do, it's definitely 'move-in ready':). Unfortunately though, our current house sale activity has almost completely stalled as construction work continues right behind our property. Ironically, they are building a couple of small business units (a dance studio and dentist have signed leases so far) and I'm sure they will very convenient for a buyer with a family. That said, for now the construction site is an eye-sore and we have resigned ourselves that we may not sell until the new year when it will all be done. We are all getting a bit tired of having to keep the house we live in 'show ready' all the time...right Juneau?!

For now, we are focused on keeping up the progress at the new place and have plenty of projects to keep us busy. I'll try and remember the camera next time we are over for some 'before and after' shots like on those cool 'fixer upper' TV shows we think we are starring in...;)

The journey continues...

After a nail-biting couple of weeks, the new house purchase finally fell through after we failed to agree on a price that made sense given all the work that the inspection revealed was needed. We were really disappointed (mainly because we loved the location) but realize that having renters through next August was not really ideal and it obviously wasn't meant to be. So for now we are focused on selling our current house while keeping an eye out for what's available so that we can snap something up as soon as we have a buyer. It's an exercise in patience - not our strongest suit - but will all be worth it in the end I'm sure:). In the meantime we are enjoying our current home and fixing up out back to get ready for the cooler weather. It will be lovely to sit out and enjoy visitors like this lovely lady who came by last week:)

Keep your fingers crossed for us:)

Back to O-Town...

The days are already heating up in Orlando and we are settling back into our family routine after our amazing travels. Maddy and I went over to Animal Kingdom to see the new tree roots...

They did such a beautiful job! Animal Kingdom has definitely become our weekend 'park of choice' - no matter how many times we visit, we always see something we have never seen before. This time we saw the anteater walking around for the first time (as opposed to sleeping). It is the most bizarre-looking creature ever! And enormous too!

I was so happy that Liz and Matt brought Cormac and Declan to Studios so I got to see them all while I was at work:)

We are doing our evening walks again around the lake. There's an otter in there which Mike and Maddy spotted once - we haven't seen him since but the birds and sunsets are a lovely way to finish out the day...

And getting back to work hasn't been too painful. We had a fantastic team builder in the park...

And my team really knows how to make Math fun on Pi day :)

Happy Christmas!

I couldn't wait for Christmas to arrive this year - I even put the trees up the day after Halloween! This is our third Christmas in the new house and Orlando is definitely home now :)

 

The night before, we watched 'It's a Wonderful Life' again - my favorite Christmas movie!

We did our regular family gifts in the morning as usual. Maddy's was thrilled with her waterproof phone case, pillow cases and gift cards, Mike was very excited about his tickets for Linkin Park, his speaker for the shower and Monsters University hat. I got a ton of stuff including an amazing new camera and some vintage goodies too! Maddy had no idea what these things even were...!

 

We decided on a Shark Tank theme for our family Christmas party this year. That's Dragon's Den to you Brits :). For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, Shark Tank is a TV show where entrepreneurs pitch to a group of ''sharks' to gain investments in their businesses. The products featured are generally new ideas or inventions and whether they get a deal or not, these products generally sell in the millions after appearing on the show. It's one of our favorite TV shows as a family and we thought Christmas would be a great opportunity to gift products from the show for some fun! 

It was beautiful weather as usual for our 4Rivers Christmas meal out back...

And then everyone arrived :). The Jen, Rich and Mya looked particularly fancy...

  Right down to Mya's nails!

With all the fanciness we couldn't resist a 'cruise line' photo...

Before the meal, we Skyped with England this year which was particularly hilarious, partly because they were 5 hours drunker than we were:)

 

Jen's Christmas games were a big hit!

 The food was amazing!

 

The kids loved the English Christmas crackers too although Cormac wasn't sure exactly what to do with the hat!

 

It's one of the few days of the year that you can eat exacty what you want - guilt free:). We all got a kick out of Richard's plateful of Liz's famous cake with some brussels sprouts!

Mike and Rita did a fine job in the kitchen...

...although things sometimes got a bit stressful...

The gifts were hilarious (Mike was probably the most excited about his squatty potty) and in a flash it was all over :(. Thank you to my amazing family for sharing in another great Christmas together. Until next year....We love you!