We could have been in this commercial

We saw this commercial last night and it hit a bit close to home from our trip. Maybe I should have waited the 9 hours in line for my new iphone so I could have had AT&T service.

I will never forget when Annie Kate leaned over to me saying, "mom don't stare but those women don't have tops on"

Sunflowers in Spain

On our way to Rhonda in Spain I had Jeff pull the car over so I could some photos of the incredible Sun Flower fields.
This is why I own Nikon D-80. It does all the work for you. I took this photo on automatic, I had no idea what I was doing other than pushing the little button on top of the camera. I had thought I would come home to do some photo enhancing on the sunflower photos - but none needed.
I swear the sky in Spain is a different color blue than I have ever seen in my life.

Can you believe this was just on automatic?
Can you imagine how much I am regretting not getting the kids out of the car and taking a family photo in the field? Silly Me.

Takin it easy - sha right!

So, my photos seem to be slowly on their way to getting off of the secure computer. No worries for any of Jeff's patients to have their life splattered all over - it is just too much work to steal that kind of stuff.

My friend Nicole told me today to give your self one day per hour of time zone changes when returning from a trip. I was so glad she told me that as I was starting to feel lazy that we were not doing more since we have been home. We promised ourselves that we would just relax and hang around home until school starts at the end of the month.



Then Jeff totally shocks me by suggesting we go to the county fair this afternoon. What? we have never been to a county fair before but lets go when we are all exhausted and cranky. We can't sit still for very long. So this afternoon we went down the road to the county fair.

When we got there Caroline was pretty tired and screamed out in pain, "I am just so tired of walking!" Luckily they had free double strollers for us to borrow since we didn't think to bring one.

I think I only went once when I was a kid and today I felt like I was with Wilbur and Charlotte.

It was a leap back in time seeing some of the fun antiques that we saw.

I was amazed at all the different entries for the fair. Vegetables, floral arrangements, lego construction, quilts, photography, painting, honey and so much more. Annie Kate, Jeff and I made a pack that next year we are going to enter something in the fair. We are not sure what but something.We could even enter a decorated toilet!

this one won first place

We saw lots of animals and the kids were in heaven.

(who needs Europe when you have pigs around feeding their young).

I took this photo for Jill and thought about having one but can you believe I didn't. The kids soaked in the cotton candy!

We wasted some money on letting the girls fish for junk. We even paid money to throw balls in the glass jars and Jeff won a live fish.

I don't know if it was the time of day or just the fair but it was kind of like a set for a movie. It was pretty quiet. We didn't ride any rides (I would for sure throw up)
but let the kids jump on the free Fireman Dalmatian house, while I checked in to the safety booth for Maryland laws for car seats - I am so over car seats, only 5 years left of not having to buckle someone in one.you had to watch your step!

The singing deer was a little freaky!

But the pink tractor was a highlight.

AK preferred the red!

photo panic

While on our trip I was downloading all of our photos on Jeff's Government laptop. So now they are all stuck on his high security hard drive.

Grrr!!! I have this fear they will be forever encrypted and won't come off. I am kind of nuts about downloading photos the day I take them.

I have only been able to get two days off so far. I have been looking at the ones I have all day over and over. These were taken in Rota Spain where we spent most of our time. This was 9:30 at night and we would stand on the beach and watch that amazing sun set in the ocean.
The lighting was a photographers dream.
OK back to giving dirty looks to that stinkin high security lap top!

We are home and SAFE!

After an exhausting day of traveling, 26 straight hours to be exact. We made it home - safe!
We flew home on a C-5 that had no cargo and 75 seats up above. We got to load in from the bottom of the plane which was so cool. There were a total of 8 of us flying (5 being our family) It was amazing. We all had our own bed, plenty of room to run around, which the kids did plenty of and with it being so loud on the plane the other 3 people never heard a peep out of the kids. Jeff and I devoured our books: Eclipse and Breaking Dawn.

We drove to our front door at 2:00 am to Jeff singing and dancing to the 80's on the radio. I failed my duty of keeping him awake at the wheel as I fell asleep on the beltway. We were so tired I tried to convince him to get a hotel in Baltimore only 45 minutes from our house.

We slept. Then woke up at 2:00 pm and made it to church by 2:15. (That's what you get for teaching your kids it is important to go to church, AK would not let us miss)

All day yesterday we had the jet lag headache. Barely brought in our luggage out of the car. Said good night to it at 7:00 pm still completely packed sitting in the family room.

Ahh back to reality!

My feet and Popeye calves in Portugal

All good things must come to an end (darn!)

What it has been two weeks? I feel like we have been gone for a day and yet I can't even remember the life of doing laundry, fixing dinner and having any sense of responsibility.


This is my first chance at seeing a computer screen in almost a week and as I look at my fingers they are much more tan then the last time I typed. The sun here is unbelievable, Caroline seriously has blond hair now. Who would have ever imagined the past two weeks, definitely not us. We are truly Accidental Tourists here.


We did visit the rock of Gibraltar, collected sea glass in the Mediterranean Sea (the water was so clear) spent almost every day at the beach since (good thing we threw in swimsuits) except for the amazing day we had in Morocco (oh my!) go to Africa - check!, went to the end of the earth in Portugal (AMAZING!, put this on your bucket list) all in our Geo Metro sized car and we are now back in Spain trying to figure out a flight we can get back on. We are pretty sure we are not flying back into the same state and city our car is in but just need to be home my Monday morning for Jeff to get to work on time. I think our biggest adventure will be the next 48 hours.



We did just find the new Stephanie Meyers book at the PX on base for only $9.00 in a soft bound international edition - Jeff has officially checked out until he is done reading it.



I have gobs of photos I can't wait to download and share our wonderful experiences. Watch out Italy next year we are going to find you, unless of course we go to Greece - Ha!

Fourteen, Fabulous, Fun, & Fantastic years on the 4th!

oh ya and don't forget financially frusterating, forcefully far away from family, freakishly sleep deprived, finally finishing school.