An Invitation

I am the queen of going to and want to. I have great plans...I'm going to....I want to....

Since I am such a homebody at times many of my plans never make it off the ground, or if they do they're usually much later than planned.

Last year at this time I was sweating bullets. I was scheduled to make my first hop across the pond to England. I was nervous about everything: the plane trip, customs (going both ways), international travel, flying over water, the exchange rate, our credit cards not working, our passports being stolen. If there was a bad news scenario I came up with it. I had lists upon lists.

Well one thing that did not make it off my to do list was, start a blog to document our trip. I was going to, I wanted to. Now I'm very happy I did not. That would have been way too much pressure.

Now I had a brilliant idea. I'm going to go back in time and take you with me. Starting January 19th I'm going to blog what we were doing on that date the previous year. So on the one year anniversary we will relive all the excitement. Wait till we go to Windsor Castle. I was so excited to see it that I was surprised any of the pictures turned out. I swear I should have been blurry because I was so excited I vibrated the whole time we were there.

Luckily I did do one of the things I wanted to, a couple of years back. We try to keep a travel journal. The journal has gone camping with us (many a time), to Maine, and most recently to England.

Now I freely admit my entries are sometimes lacking but between the both of us we usually get the trip covered. Initially it was really interesting to see things through the other person's eyes. D would see something I would not or I would remember something he did not. It is one of the ways we keep our memories.

So I invite you to journey back in time with me, to see London through the eyes of a small town South Dakota girl living out a dream. Thank You D for making the dream come true. When can we go again?

Moose and Squirrel - Official Announcement

OK I told my fellow car poolers for knitting today so I will also announce it here. D and I have renamed ourselves Squirrel and Moose.

Those of you that know me from childhood will give me a big duh on this one. For some reason that no one in my family can expain, my nickname is Moose. Now to my memory I've never had a big linebacker body type, I'm not that tall either. My husband would say that I have a nice "rack" but I certainly did not have those back then either.

I will admit to hiding or attempting to hide this nickname since I hit my teen years. Maybe I was afraid of going through high school hearing "rack" jokes. I've never heard moose used to describe anything petite or delicate. So as a result not that many people know of my old name. Well for a while now I've been wishing I could bring that connection with my past back. That is a bit difficult when the only person that knows of it here has been instructed very firmly to never call me that in public. I am proudly acknowledging I AM MOOSE. Sarah Palin if you try to hunt this moose it will not turnout well for you. It is not a threat I'm just saying no to moose hunting.

So the flip side to this story is Squirrel. Sadly I have no hidden nickname story for this one. D just likes squirrels. Anytime we're around them, I usually find squirrel pictures on my camera. I have squirrels from camping trips, squirrels in mid tail bob, I've even got English squirrels.

This one is from our first day in England. He calls Reagent's Park his home.

The squirrels in Hyde Park are much friendlier. This shot makes him look like he has no front legs, don't worry he had front legs, he just heard that the camera adds 10 pounds. This was our last day in England. You know what that means? I have bookend squirrel pictures from England. Told you he thinks squirrels are cute.

Sometimes he even dresses a bit like a squirrel, or a moose hunter. Either way I call him my Squirrel.