Summertime in London!

I'm determined to catch up on this blog one way or another!  There have been setbacks - our hard drive crashed last week leaving me out of a computer for a couple weeks. I think (hope) we should be able to get most of our data back so cross your fingers - we have so many amazing pictures I would hate to lose. The good news is that I can update the blog on my phone and our recent pictures are on the cloud so my blogging continues. We have been enjoying some rare warm and sunny days and also enjoying having JJ back in London!




Happy Father's Day to JJ.  I love this picture - it really captures how much they adore each other.




Cool dude on a nature walk in the Heath

We met a new friend, Danielle, for a walk in Primrose Hill with her poodle, Cooper.  Tyler liked hanging out with Cooper.  Here he is helping give him some water to drink.

Summertime means trips to the local Gelato place are in order!  This was an empty bowl!!!

Our nanny Alison took this picture.  I think he looks like an old man here.

Picking flowers for Mommy on the Heath!

A friend showed us the most beautiful garden right down the road from our place.  We will definitely be back a lot this summer.  Here is Tyler with his friend Madeline lounging 

Now that I'm in my second trimester I've been feeling a bit more adventurous!  We made this trip to the far southwest to go to the London Wetland Centre.  It was a great place with miles of ponds and swamps and nature.  Tyler loved it!  They did a bunch of interactive stuff as well.  His favorite was the otter feeding

We met Nathan and Andrea and baby Trent there too!

Back in Hampstead we found a bunch of snails one day when we went for a walk after the rain.  Tyler loved going on a "snail hunt"

A little one-on-one with Mommy at our local park

We met JJ for an outside lunch one beautiful day.  Tyler ate a whole bowl of edamame

On another adventure day, we met friends in Hyde Park for some play at the Diana Memorial Playgrounds.  Here's Tyler enjoying a snack with his friend Andrew in a little tree house there.

Teeter totters at the Diana Memorial Playground!

And water fun at the playground too!

After a big day of adventure, I decided to splurge and get him an ice cream cone to split on the way home.  Not the best idea.  He didn't eat any lunch after that so he basically had ice cream for lunch.

One day, Tyler showed particular interest in my folder about global competitive strategy from my old MBA days.  "Mommy, what's this called?"  "Well Tyler, that's talking about a firm's home country advantage."  Riveting.

Memorial Weekend in Norway

We had an amazing trip to Norway at the end of May. JJ had to work in Chicago for the whole month of May but was able to come back for the weekend to make the trip with us. We also celebrated our 5 year anniversary there. It was one of the most beautiful places we have ever been and I definitely wish we could have spent more time there.

.  Our adventure started in Bergen.  This is the Bryggen (wharf) - they have all these cute store fronts and lots of outdoor seating

Cruising the Bergen wharf

We took the Floibanen railway runs up to the top of the mountain Floyen.  It's a funicular which means it is a railway run by cables up a steep cliff.  It was a quick ride up to the top and we enjoyed the ride (especially Tyler of course).

Cheese at the top of Floyen looking down on Bergen

The view really was spectacular

Tyler loved to watch the railway going in and out of the station at the top

Here it is descending the cliff

Trolls are a big thing in Norway, specially the Western part of Norway where we were.  Here is Tyler outside the "Troll Forest"  

We left Bergen after just a night and headed up to our next destination near Strynn.  This journey involved two ferries - Tyler was amazed to drive up on to the boat!!!

The ferry was fun.  We ended up having lunch on the ferry on the way there and back.  They had these pancake-cheese sandwiches that Tyler loved.  And we all enjoyed the view.

We pulled over for a road trip selfie!

This country is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!

Our rental car and expert driver.  JJ loved driving on all the switch backs and curvy cliff roads.  

Our stop let us stretch our legs and test out the water!

These cows were at the air bnb place that we stayed.  Boy were they loud.  Tyler loved "talking" to them but he was also terrified.

The view from our cottage.  It was lovely!  Since we were there in the summer it never really got dark there.  The sun set around 11ish but still remained dusk until about 4am when the sun rose.   Our cottage didn't have the best curtains so we all were up and ready to go in the morning!

This is the outside of our cottage.  It was on the property of the hosts - a lovely couple who were very hospitable.  The cottage had a grass roof and was built in the 1700s!

We had the hardest time finding food in Norway.  The villages were sparse - as in a few houses and that's it.  By the time we made it to the cottage it was only about 7pm but all the stores we had passed on the way were closed and we didn't pass a single restaurant.  When we got to the cottage, we asked our hosts where the nearest restaurant or shop was and they said it was at least a half hour away.  At this point Tyler was getting pretty hungry and tired and our hosts, Reidar and Anne Marie, offered us their leftovers from dinner.  Left with no other choice, we took them up on their offer.  Here is a picture of our feast - roast pork and potatoes, corn and tomatoes.  They saved the day and it was tasty!

The next day we headed to Geiranger.  This is on the Unesco World Heritage List and it looked so beautiful in pictures that I decided we had to go there.  We took a fjord boat cruise to see all the sights

The Seven Sisters waterfall

The Suitor waterfall - it is said that this is in the shape of a bottle because the suitor had to turn to the bottle after trying to woo the Seven Sisters

We're on a boat!

Tyler didn't appreciate the sights as much as we did.  And the boat novelty wore off after the first half hour.  He was feeling particularly "cheeky" that day so we had to turn to Thomas the Train episodes on my phone to make sure that he didn't ruin the experience for the other sightseers.  I like this picture because he's in the middle of a beautiful place and he's oblivious - just cracking up at a TV show he's watched a million times.  Oh Tyler!

Geiranger has a long history of farming and the boat tour showed us old farm houses like these right on the cliff.  They said that when the children worked in the fields they had to tie ropes on them to prevent them from falling off the cliff.  

Cheeky Monkey!

View on the fjord

If you look closely you can see the hairpin turns up this cliff that forms the road - we drove up this road!

"Hey I'm starting to like these little trolls now!"

"High five?"

"Another selfie mom? Really?"

The beautiful view looking down on Geiranger.  There was a drive that had viewpoints all along the route.  This was one of my favorite view points.

I just love these two guys!

Whoa... careful there!

My boys love to hike!

Taking a moment to enjoy the view!

This was the view from another view point

We didn't make it to all the view points because we knew that we needed to head back to the little Geiranger town because that was the only place in 50 miles that served food.  I also wanted to get back to town before this little chocolate shop closed.  They actually make the chocolate from scratch using local ingredients right there on a little boathouse on the fjord.  I had read about it and wanted to try it out.  I literally ran up to the store right before they said they were closing on their website.  Turns out I didn't have to run - they were open for hours after that!

It's a bad idea for a pregnant lady to go into a chocolate shop right before she thinks its closing.  I bought way too much chocolate!   Our favorite was a brown cheese chocolate made from goats cheese - it tasted like caramel 

It was tough to get Tyler off this old tractor that was outside for decoration

JJ's local beer during our dinner right on the fjord.   It was lovely!

On the way out of town we stopped at my favorite viewpoint again to take some more pictures.  I wanted one of JJ and I but no one was near by to take it so we took individuals of each other

Fjord girl!

Oh yea - JJ remembered we have a timer photo setting and we rigged up a place for the camera and took this pretty decent photo!

Celebrating 5 glorious years of wedded bliss :)

Coming over the mountain it really changed climates.  It was like winter on this side and all of the lakes were still frozen over

Roadside break to blow some dandelion puff things!

We went through so many tunnels it was unreal.  When we were in Spain Tyler loved seeing tunnels and Aunt Tari showed him how you could count to see how long they were.  He loved it.  But in Norway we passed so many that he even got bored with counting.  One tunnel was 5km long!  Crazy!  This tunnel was especially crazy (and scary) to me because it was just one lane.  There were places to pull off every 100 feet or so in case you did encounter a car but it seemed incredibly dangerous to me still.... It felt like you were in the Batcave sometimes!