favorite photos:: england, november 24

With less than one month until Nic, Mom, Roger and I leave for Sweden, I thought it was about time to do at least a photo-bomb recap of my prior trip to Sweden, England & Wales this past November.

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on the way to wales::








{insert photo of nic, whom I missed soooo much}















castle no. 1::


















{i spy kier, maddie, cherie & roger!)}

 castle no. 2::

 











okay, so I like them all.

one week

When I logged into my email this morning, three emails immediately jumped out at me.

1. LensRentals.com - Your order has shipped
2. British Airways - Your departure...
3. Maddie - Operas

I giggled with excitement.

In six days I will leave Iowa and make my way over to Europe for the second time this year.

First stop:

source

Stockholm, Sweden

My sister is anxiously awaiting my arrival (because she is just that excited to see me) and has the most important elements of each of our days planned. This is how she tells me our days will go:

• Mornings - runs through different neighborhoods followed by visits to a different bakeries each day (clearly, these two things are what I am looking forward to the most)
• Afternoons - walking through different neighborhoods taking thousands of photos
• Evenings - dinners with her friends and family, an opera or two, and drinks

In two weeks I will leave Sweden and make my way here:

London, England


I will meet up with my mom and her husband for 10 days of travelling throughout England, visiting Roger's family, running, eating, and taking thousands of photos of castles and cathedrals (can you tell what I like to do on vacations?). I will also meet up with our good friends, John and Diana, who happen to be visiting England at the same time.

Dearest Nic, as much as I love you - I can't promise I will ever come back. You might want to start packing up the house and making arrangements to move overseas.

nope, not ready

Thanksgiving is over. Which means it is now appropriate for people to put up their holiday decorations and listen to Christmas music.

I just tried changing my Pandora over to Christmas music, listened to approximately 27 seconds of three songs and decided I am not ready.

Tonight, I might bring up and plug in our still decorated from 2009 tree and see if that won't help to have the holiday spirit flood my body..

This year, I have a feeling it is going to be harder than usual to get into the holiday spirit - since I am way to busy getting excited and in the spirit for our two week European vacation!

I think I will feel in the holiday spirit the most while I am sitting on a historic pew in the Notre Dame Cathedral on Christmas Day listening to the Vespers service.

Jealous?

vacation recap - bachelorette party

Another overdue vacation recap post - Crystal's bachelorette party!

Way back on August 14th, after I ran the Gopher to Badger Half Marathon, I headed back out to the St. Croix River for Crystal's bachelorette party!  Oh man, did sitting on a boat for a few hours feel good after the half marathon.  I would have been a ton of fun if I had been in the mood to drink a bit more, but after a bad experience last year (Grandma's Half Marathon + too much fun at the Shout House = not good), I decided to pace myself and rehydrate with {mostly} water.

Crystal's friends and family are amazing and I was lucky enough to spend the night before with them as well at her shower.  Catching up with old friends is always fun.

...especially if your old friend and you go waaaay back!  Crissy was on the boat too and we reminisced lots about playing soccer and being in Solid Rock Singers together. :)

Me, Crystal & Crissy

I absolutely cannot wait for Crytal and Quinten's wedding!

maia belongs in minnesota

So Maia is a pretty popular dog here in Iowa. We cannot go on a walk without kids begging to pet her, people letting us know that she is so beautiful and wondering what breed she is (after guessing wrong). But in northern Minnesota, we had people chasing us down the street to pet Maia, and then proceed to tell us about their elk hound puppy that they just got, or stories of having elk hounds as a child.

It was a lot of fun hearing all the stories, in once case a lady found an elk hound on her front porch and watched over it for a few days until the owner showed up. He told her that was his dog and asked if she wanted to keep it. You see, he was moving to the city and was taking the dog out to the woods to shoot it when it got away. So glad the dog showed up on that lady's porch! After it died, (of natural causes) that family went out and got another elk hound.

So you see, Maia belongs in Minnesota.

Here are some photos from our north shore vacation. I am ready to go back!

Of course, on of our first stops once we got into Grand Marais was Sven and Ole's - YUM!


There was lots of reading by the fire...


Lot of beach wondering...


And Lake Superior tasting...


You can't go to Grand Marais without a trip out to Artist Point...


...which was a feat in and of itself and we had to keep maia from jumping off the levy!


Ahh the joys of trying to take a family photo...




Getting ready to hike up Eagle Mountain...





A 7.5 mile hike, wore Maia out!




We witnessed a few beautiful sunsets


And enjoyed a few delicious donuts...


















We didn't spend enough time at the North Shore...our next vacation that we decide to spend in Minnesota will have more camping and less city dwelling!