Christmas Vacation

With my lack of blogging, you'd think my life was just too boring to have anything worthy of documenting. That's only partly true. Sometimes we are boring over here. Never leave the house, like not even a foot outside for fresh air. Stay in our pajamas until noon. Cuddle in blankets and, probably watch one too many shows. But you know what? That's just the way life goes around here sometimes. And I'm ok with that.

But, sometimes we do exciting things. Like go on a family "stay-cation" in our own city, just so we can go swimming in the middle of a freezing winter. Or, visit the zoo, because it's free, and things like that need to be taken advantage of. And one time, we even hopped on a plane for seven hours and went to England for Christmas. So, I'd like to think we're not totally boring people. Just on occasion(s).

Sometime back in the summer when we learned that my in-laws would be going on a mission to England, we decided right then and there that's where Christmas would be spent. Then came time to actually buy the tickets and we almost bagged the whole thing. But, that would put us in the "boring people" category. And just because we have a crazy-active toddler on our hands, doesn't mean we can't subject an entire plane to a seven hour tantrum. So, we bit the bullet and bought our tickets, and away we flew. Tantrum the entire flight and all. It was a lovely mess.

I love visiting other countries. I love seeing how other people in the world live. And I love getting to be part of their culture, for days or weeks at a time. It was such a wonderful trip, aside from the plane flight. But you know what? We all survived, and so did everyone on that plane who, along with us, got no sleep that night. You win some, you lose some.

I'm sure there are things we missed doing in London, but, with a little one in tow, I feel like we crammed in as much as we could in the short week we were there. We left feeling pretty satisfied with what we were able to see.

Cousins! Buckingham Palace. House of Parliament. Hyde Park. Tower Bridge. Westminster Abbey. Science Museum. Leicester Square. Saw Les Mis. Wandered through Harrods. White cliffs of Dover. Canterbury. We even got to spend an entire day by ourselves in London, thanks to my in-laws! And of course, we toured the darling town of Gravesend where my in-laws are currently living. It was such a lovely trip. And a nice break from reality. That is, until we had to take an eight hour flight back home. We're pretty certain we can do anything now after surviving such flights!