No Worries: 2011

Hello All
We are currently home...enduring the chickenpox! Well that's not true, Brooklyn is enduring the chickenpox and I am enduring the quarantine part! :) She is now the Poxy Lady of the house! Oh by the way if your children have had the Chickenpox vaccine they CAN get the chickenpox! B's case is not severe at all though. She only has about 50 pox and no other symptoms so that is nice. She is loving being out of school and feeling great just Poxy!
This weekend was supposed to be busy and full of events and that came to a screeching halt for me & the children Friday when Brooklyn said she had a bug bite! Well she didn't! Our weekend was supposed to be busy because Vice Admiral Salerno, his wife, and Aid were in town for the universities graduation. So our busy weekend turned into Mark's busy weekend but it was wonderful! Vice Admiral Salerno is the Deputy Commandant for operations in the USCG. In other words a very influential person and absolutely kind and courteous. Mark had a lovely time getting to show them around and spend time with them. I was able to break out of the house Sunday morning and meet Mrs Salerno for coffee which was such a blessing. She truly is a lovely woman with a lot of very good advice/information on overseas living and Coast Guard life in general! Here is a photo of Mark and Admiral Salerno yesterday at the graduation.

Mark had a big week overall as prior to the Admiral's visit he was in Brussels, Belgium. He was a speaker at EU Parliament and did a fabulous job! I must add as a side funny...last week Brooklyn was saying the blessing before dinner it went like this..."please be with me & Zach as we go to school, Please be with Daddy as he speaks before Parliament and takes care of the Admiral's visit and be with Mommy as...she does the laundry"! HMMMM my life compared to Mark's sounds a bit drab! :)

Now onto the last trip we took! We had a hard time deciding what we wanted to do. We knew we really wanted to visit London again before we left and I was REALLY needing a dose of USA. So to accommodate both we took a whirlwind trip!

We flew from Copenhagen,Denmark to London where we spent a few days doing things we missed on our first visit! Such as...

The London Eye

The Eye

The "cars" you ride in!

Onboard the London Eye

Check out Big Ben in the Background!

Now I know you think we are a normal military family living overseas but as you can see we are really...

Undercover

The London Eye has a fun 4D experience that we were thoroughly enjoying!

As always we use public transportation although I noticed I never post any pics of that! Here you go!

Brooklyn & Mark on the Underground in London!

Here are some random pics of London!

We of course had to go to Harrods again! Here is the proof!

Check out that ice cream between them!

Brooklyn was so excited b/c they had an entire wing of one of the floors dedicated to Harry Potter! She has just finished the last book!

Dining at Harry Potter's Table!

I have to admit this was neat! It was made out of Legos!

You know the Sawyer's...always so serious!

The next day we found ourselves having so much fun at Madame Tussaud's wax museum! Check out all the celebrities we ran into...

Miley Cyrus

Bruce Willis

John Wayne

Zachary taking down a Rugby player!

Audry Hepburn and I having Breakfast at Tiffany's!

Brooklyn just picking Albert's brain!

No here is my family with Bob Marley! If you know us you know our family motto is "No worries"!

We saw so many more people John Travolta, Johnny Depp, Marilyn Monroe, Obama, George W, and the Beatles but I won't bore you with all the photos! We went for a lovely walk through one of the London Parks and had a great afternoon!

Now as I told you before we really couldn't decide where to go on our trip so we just did it all! After a few days in London we boarded the train and went to Belgium! We spent the night in Brussels and made sure to enjoy the culture! The chocolate culture that is!!! As we were at the train station I did see this and couldn't help but take a photo! Fresh Hot Pizza out of a vending machine!

Of course we had to immerse ourself in the chocolate culture so we did so by visiting Mary's Chocolatier! The official chocolatier for the Royal family! Oh my goodness it is truly the best chocolate I have ever had!

As you probably know Belgium is known for their waffles and man can they do them right!

Check out the endless waffle possiblities!

Mark ordering our waffle!

Brooklyn waiting for our waffle!

The kids were not to happy to pose before digging in!

Mom, this is for you! Right by the waffle stand!

Yes we did see other things besides chocolate! Here is Mannequin Pis in all his 1 foot glory! I find it highly amusing how popular a little boy peeing in a fountain is! Now a days he is constantly clothed by one organization or another! His wardrobe changes constantly!

This is Charles Buls a popular politician, author and more from Belgium history!

Of course we LOVE the parks!

Now from Belgium we boarded the train to the country of Luxembourg! WE had a lovely walk through the town of Luxembourg, Luxembourg!

From Luxembourg we took the Bus to Germany! More specifically Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany! We visited last year and couldn't wait to get back! However, after boarding the plane to fly home from Frankfurt, Germany I noticed I hadn't taken a single photo! Ramstein is a mini America plopped down in GermanY! We were able to use US dollars eat US food and speak/hear AMERICAN ENGLISH! It is the small things you miss like...flavored coffee creamer! While we were there we were able to all get our yearly dental work done and what a blessing that was! Where's your dentist? Mine's in Germany! LOL

Here is Zach with his prized possession from the trip! An Air Force Issue cap!

His face looks a bit funny b/c I was playing with the funny photo faces on my ipad! LOL

Our next trip is in 20 days...We are headed to The Canary Islands to meet up with Mark's Family for Christmas! I cannot wait for a little sunshine!

As always we love and miss you so much!

Thanks to Mark and his job we were able to make a trip in September to the Middle East! He taught a course in the country of Oman for a week and at the end of the week the children & I flew to the United Arab Emirates and met him there! We were actually in Dubai! Now here is Mark with his class! Can you find him...and we thought we stuck out in Sweden!

By now you all know that we have always allowed the children to choose for their birthday between a party with friends or a family trip. Now granted in the US it was local trips like camping and such but here in Europe we have allowed them to pick amazing locations. This year Brooklyn decided that she was willing to celebrate her birthday really early(2+ months) if we could meet Daddy in Dubai for her birthday but more specifically stay at ATLANTIS!! So we did!

I flew with Brooklyn and Zach from Copenhagen, Denmark to Dubai, UAE and what a flight! I never comment on the flights but this one was amazing. We flew on Emirates and that was by far the best airline I have ever flown on! The flight was a little over 5 hours but the kids were well entertained the entire flight!! They gave the children a backpack with tons of stuff including a stuffed rugby player which Zach of course thought was great!

Our trip started by meeting Mark at the airport late at night so the next day we were off to start our adventure in the Middle East!

This is the lobby of Atlantis! That sculpture is made of glass! It was so neat!

It's a rough life my children are living! Robes and slippers after a rough day of playing!

Now Atlantis is really neat because it has its own water park! So...anytime we wanted we could just go outside and enjoy a couple hours at a time of the park! See the pics below for the fun...

This is the Leap of Faith...

This is what swims in the Leap of Faith slide!

And below are my fearless children and their daddy all taking turns on the slide! I did it as well but only once! They all did it everyday we were there! They would get in line and the adults could not believe they were doing it!

Here is Mark!

Just to give you a reference...when you are at the top about to start, you cannot even see the slide below you! That's how steep it was!

Here is Brooklyn in the shadow at the top!

Here is Zach just coming out of the shadow!

My Leap Of Faith Trio!!

We also had an amazing time at the pool & beach! Here is the proof!

I don't know what I was expecting, but clear water was not it! However, it was! It was beautiful water and beaches! Granted the beaches were man made but...I'm not one to complain

Brooklyn didn't seem to mind either!

Just Hanging out by the beach!

Pool TIME!!

Zach striking a pose!

Waiting for Daddy!

My Men!

One of the HUGE aquariums in the Hotel!

Fun fish watching!

Watch Out kids!!

Mark loved to go do this!

Stirring up her brew in the Lost Chambers of Atlantis!

Here are the views of "The Palm" from our room!

We did make it to Dubai! We were able to see some sights but I would love to go back someday!

Here are some photos from the "malls"!

We had an amazing trip! It's crazy to think that we were actually there! We will have to go back to do the desert safari and such!

The following weekend we took a trip to Sweden's very own Stonehenge! It is located about an hour from Malmo and it was so neat! It is called Ales Stenar and is in the shape of a ship! It sits on private property perched upon a cliff! There is quite the controversy as to when it was actually erected! It varies from 1400 years ago to 5500 years ago! LOL Swedes are still working on it! We enoyed our trip no matter when it was erected!

Mark contemplating the world's issues! OK maybe not!

Remember I told you it was on what appeared to be private property! OK this was hilarious to me! You have a really amazing piece of history and yet you preserve it by allowing it to be in the middle of a cow pasture?? Really? You have a little hike to get there but when you do it is in a cow pasture!

This was our walking path! Zach made a funny by saying it looked like a Texas Sheep! B/C everything is bigger in TEXAS! WOOHOO!

I couldn't close this blog without a little Halloween fun! The American Women's Club had a fun party for the kids at an indoor play area! Check out below!