Chase and Korey

We had a wonderful week with the Kauflins here. Chase and Korey are only a couple months apart and enjoyed playing together. They are both all boy and loved balls and cars. We are already planning on many pool and park trips with the boys this summer.

In Oxford

Riding the tube.

Buckingham Palace

London Eye

Playing Outside

Windsor

Around England

Our good friends Devon and Kristine along with their son Korey are here visiting and we have been all over exploring England. We've done base, London, Bury, Cambridge, Warwick and Cotswolds. We still have a couple more days to go but here are a couple pics...

Tower Bridge

Shakespeare's Birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The boys after a busy day...

Malta

Our last stop was Malta. It's about time I finish our cruise posts because we have special guests coming in tomorrow for the next two weeks so I will have plenty of new stuff to post! We didn't know what to expect but we thought the small island was really cool. It was a little windy that day and were only out and about for a couple hours.

We first went to see the blue grotto.
Julie was about to touch the water then we realized there were tons of jellyfish!

I loved the purple along the bottom of the rocks.

So blue and clear - you could see straight to the bottom even though it was 6 meters deep.

We enjoyed going in all the caves.

We then went to Mdina - an old fishing village.

The church

After we got back on the boat we had to get some pictures leaving. It was very pretty at night.

K-S-U!

We had great intentions of getting this picture and sending it in to the K-State alumni magazine. Well we didn't think it would get in with us doing the KSU in front of other people in Egypt!

When I went there KSU was a football school. However being a big sports fan that I am I rarely missed a basketball game...

I remember going to the games with my uncle and his friends and getting there right at gametime and sitting in the second row. They would have a contest to see which section cheers the loudest and then they would hand out pizza. You could actually count on 2 pieces of pizza just because there was no one there. I won a contest to participate in a halftime shootout. I made 2 free throws and 4 layups and won $28! I became friends with the manager and we would go up to Bramlage at night and shoot around. I could walk around the sorority house and in about 5 minutes get 1o tickets to the game that night. We couldn't beat KU (wait - I guess somethings never change :)

So even though I have barely gotten to watch them the past few years, I am so proud of getting a number 2 seed! Hopefully I will get to watch a few games this weekend! Go State!!!!

Sea Days

We loved Sea Days! There wasn't a ton for Chase to do because he was too young for the childcare but that's okay because he was pretty tired from all the sightseeing. The kids pool was actually pretty warm and shielded from the wind so we spent some time there. Chase and William loved playing together.

This was the last night there - we took Chase to a show. He actually really enjoyed (we only stayed a half hour). We wish we would have taken him to a few more.

Towards the end meal times were a little more of a struggle. He wouldn't eat anything but french fries and ice cream. That's when we knew it was time to come home and get back to normal life.

Dress up night - out for Sushi with friends.

The other picture of all of us.

The other dress up night earlier in the cruise. We went out to Mexican that night.

We spent some time just walking around the ship. A couple times you felt the waves but it was not bad at all. I guess that means we are ready for another cruise :)

Chase loved the slide!

Egypt Day 2

On our second day in Egypt we stayed in Alexandria. Brad's mom graduated high school there so we thought it would be fun to go see it. We weren't sure if we were going to make it. As soon as you leave the port you are hounded by cabbies. We said we wanted to go to Schutz American School and they were all arguing over how to get there and who would take us. Once we got in the cab the driving there is crazy. They try to make a 2 lane road into 5 and go the wrong way on roundabouts. They use their horn all the time (our cabs sounded like a dead animal). We laughed when we saw a Chili's and McDonald's and were relieved when we saw the school! Brad just explained that his mom went there and asked if we could take pictures. They got the marketing director to come give us a tour. We thought it was great that she took the time to show us around.

The school has changed a lot and the area around the school has really grown but Barb, hopefully you will recognize a few things! We enjoyed getting to see where you went to school! They just changed the logo a couple years back. They had a contest with the students then brought in a graphic designer.

We headed back to the boat for lunch and nap then in the afternoon ventured out again to try to find a beach.

This doesn't do justice how crazy the driving was. It scared me a little just because Chase was on my lap and not in a car seat.

The Statue of Mohammed Ali.

Montazah Palace Gardens

We dipped Chase's feet in the sea and he wasn't too impressed. It was just a little cold. He was sure a hit with the locals though. (Not quite sure how this picture got to be black and white)

Our cab driver was making me so mad. We settled on a price to go to the gardens and back for 2 hours. Well he kept adding things to the trip (when I kept asking to go back to the boat) then raised the price. He stopped at this little kids fair thing because he wanted Chase to do the rides. It thought it was disgusting and wanted to get out of there but we went along with it. Let me just tell you how good Chase got at putting hand sanitizer on. After every stop we would make him put some on and rub his hands together. He actually likes doing it now. If I get it out of his backpack he immediately puts his hands out to get some.

We finally made it back to the port area in time for a little shopping. I felt like we had personal shoppers everywhere we went. They hounded you - one guy followed us around for like 20 minutes. I hate shopping like that and bargaining. Brad doesn't mind though so we got some good deals.