David and Kellie's London Adventure

David had the unfortunate assignment to travel to London for the week for work and we took the opportunity to extend the work trip a bit for a personal holiday.  We decided to arrive early and enjoy ourselves for a few days before David got sucked into the work week.  My mom was able to secure some days off from work which took care of the kids and so away we went!

We left the kids with my mom Wednesday evening and flew out from Portland at 8am Thursday morning.  We had a short layover in Chicago before taking the 8 hour "overnight" flight arriving in London at 5:30am local time.  London is 8 hours ahead of us so it's not too surprising that neither of were able to sleep on the flight since we arrived at 10:30pm our time!  After sleepily purchasing week long Tube passes we figured out how to get to the stop nearest our hotel.  Three stops and an hour later we arrived at our hotel, tired but determined not to nap and waste our valuable London time.  Instead of sleeping we took a shower, changed clothes, and found Starbucks for some coffee and a quick breakfast.

Our first stop was to Shakespeare's Globe Theater which was one of the highlights of the trip.  For those who don't know, we attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every year (11 years running!) and enjoy theater.  While it was disappointing that photography inside the theater was not allowed it was because we had the privilege to observe a rehearsal of Midsummer's Night Dream which was a more than acceptable substitute.  We watched a scene from the lower seating level and again from the upper level.  It was surprising how close to the stage the seating was, and I can't imagine standing through one of Shakespeare's long historical dramas.

After Shakespeare's Globe Theater (and the lengthy walking tour we took to find it!) we had lunch and hit up The Tower of London which was at the top of my list of Must See places.  The Tower didn't disappoint.  We arrived just in time for a Yeoman tour which I highly entertain.  Our Yeoman guide was quite the comedian and had a lot of great information.  We spent quite a bit of time touring several of the towers (there are quite a few!) and of course we saw the Crown Jewels.  Pretty amazing to see jewels that large and sparkly, but the ginormous gold punch bowl took the cake.  The royal armor collection is pretty cool as was the graffiti on the stone walls left by prisoners.  Graffiti certainly has changed in the past few hundred years, I haven't seen any modern graffiti quite so neatly inscribed.

We both fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow before 8pm.  Staying up for over 24 hours will do that to a person.  Saturday we were better rested and we set out to visit Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and the Churchill War Rooms.  Westminster Abbey was pretty awesome, the architecture of the cathedral is beautiful but it's the sense of history that is most striking.  Everywhere you step, turn, or look there's a monument or grave marker.  I still can't get over the fact that I stepped on King George II's grave.  Heady stuff.  We were able to sign up for a tour of Parliament which was really interesting.  The tour lasted about an hour at took us through Westminster Hall as well as the Commons and Lords Chambers.  The Churchill War Rooms was also really interesting.  I didn't know a lot about Churchill but the exhibit and museum was very informational.  There was a museum dedicated to Churchill the man in addition to the tour through the war rooms.  The map room had been perfectly preserved as they had simply turned the lights off and closed the door at the end of the war and the room was left undisturbed for decades.  You could see the millions of pin hole dots in the maps marking troop movements over the course of the war.

Sunday we hit up the British Museum and National Gallery.  The British Museum has an overwhelming amount of historical objects on display.  Of course we saw the Rosetta Stone right off the bat and toured the incredible Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculptures.  There were thousands of pieces of pottery, jewelry, coins, and more ancient objects than you can shake a stick at.  Remember the long lines of people at OMSI's mummy exhibit last year?  Well I saw more mummies than I can count including a few mummified cats in about 10 minutes.  Pretty incredible.

The National Gallery is home to several pieces of art that I was very excited to see.  I've taken enough History of Art classes and studied artwork in college to be pretty excited to see some of those paintings in person.  I am partial to the Monets and was stoked to find Van Eyck's Marriage of Arnolfini just before the museum closed.  It was also pretty humbling to see a few Van Gogh's that are pretty well known.  David was much more excited about the Rembrandts and Dutch painters but to each their own.

Monday morning I made my way to see Buckingham Palace and the London Museum while David was working and got a pretty comprehensive education of the town from pre-historic times to modern day.  The information on Roman London and the Great Fire of London were both pretty interesting.  There were several school tours at the museum that day and I kept getting caught up in groups of exuberant elementary school students.  I met up with David and his work colleagues in the afternoon and we toured the Victoria and Albert Museum until they kicked us out to close.  The V&A museum holds tons of historical treasures like gorgeous textiles from the Middle East and one of Mick Jagger's velvet jumpers.

I took off for home Tuesday morning after breakfast and traveled 22 hours and spent time in 3 different time zones to get from the hotel home.  In those 22 hours I took the Tube, airplane, a shuttle, and finally drove home via Sherwood to switch vehicles and pick up my kids.  I left London at 12:05pm local time and reached home a little after 10pm our time.  The jet lag is definitely harder going to London then coming home, but the long trip is definitely worth it.  We had a great time!

And now for some pictures...

 Big Ben and Parliament 

 Buckingham Palace

 David in front of Westminster Abbey

 One of the zillions of doubledecker buses in London...and yes we road a couple!

 Me in front of The London Tower

 London Bridge

 One of the many Pret a Mangers in London...they have free wi-fi!

 Obligatory red telephone booth photo

 Westminster Abbey

Our fabulous Yeoman Warder tour guide

We've been married 10 years? Really? Really!

Ten years ago this morning I was spending a relaxing morning preparing for our afternoon wedding.  I remember I took a bath in my parent's large soaking tub, read a little, and soaked in the quiet before heading to the church.  I spotted the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the way and I knew it was a good sign.  Friends did my hair and makeup and my Mom helped me into my borrowed dress.  David and I chose to see each other and do all the posed photos before the wedding (something I encourage every bride to do!) which helped keep our nerves calm.  I remember goading each other not to cry and the feel of David's hands holding mine firmly.  I am not a person who relishes the spotlight but I don't think I even noticed the rest of the people at the ceremony because I was so focused on David.  My good friends Kay and Anna both sang beautifully and we released doves (or tried to, it was sweltering hot and the birds had to be practically thrown out of the basket!) right before we left the church in a cloud of bubbles.  Our brothers took us for a spin through the Dairy Queen drive thru where my brother chivalrously bought us a Blizzard that we ate while waiting for everyone else to arrive at our reception location.

10 years.

Looking back I wonder at how young we were and how much growing we each had to do.  I had just turned 20 and David was newly 21.  We were in the middle of college, we planned our wedding date to be as close to the end of summer as possible (to make as much money working summer jobs as we could!), and also give us time to go on a honeymoon and set up house before school started.  By luck we were able to share David's grandparents 55th wedding anniversary (Happy 65th to Delbert and Fern Parry!) which is special to us.

Our first two years of marriage were spent in Moscow, Idaho finishing college.  We lived in a tiny 450 square feet "apartment" (I use the term loosely) literally across the street from campus.  The Engineering Physics building and David's Computer Science classes were all within sight of our front door.  Our home became the hub for many of David's friends to spend time playing video games between classes since we were so convenient.  David graduated with his BS in Computer Science and BA in History in December 2002 and I finished my BFA in Interior Design in May 2003.

We moved to Salem , Oregon the week after I graduated with no job prospects but a sense of adventure.  David was enrolled to begin classes for his MBA at Willamette University in August but for the first few months we were unable to secure jobs of any kind and so we practiced being retired.  We've very good at being retired: we perfected our bocce technique, ate dinner early to watch Jeopardy every night, and went to bed early with nothing to do.  We had no cable, no internet, and lived a very spare existence and knew nobody in town. 

I finally landed a job the same week David started school and worked three different jobs (some overlapping) to support us while David spent two years at Willamette.  I found out I was pregnant with Grace the day after Thanksgiving 2004 and she was born July 30, 2005.  David was able to meet us at the Salem Hospital for my midwives appointments because Willamette University is only across the street which worked out well for us since we only had one car.  We bought our second vehicle right after David graduated and before he started to work at Hewlett Packard in Corvallis.  We shared our Ford Escort station wagon for four years before that point.  We couldn't make sharing a car work with David driving to Corvallis every day, a 45 minute drive one way.  In the ten years we've been married we have both worked full time regular jobs for six weeks. 

We bought our first house in spring of 2006 and moved to Dallas, Oregon which is where we still are.  My brother, Brian, lived with us for the first year we lived in our new home.  He was attending Western Oregon University at the time which is only 10 minutes from our house.  It was actually good timing because I was pregnant with Ethan during six months of his stay with us and I couldn't cook/deal with food for much of that time so Brian fed us all and helped me out with Grace during the day when he wasn't at class.

That brings us to today.  We've packed a lot in to the last 10 years and have grown a lot.  We've finished 4 college degrees, had 2 kids, bought 1 house, worked 9 jobs, owned 4 vehicles, moved 3 times, and have made countless 7+ hour car trips.  I've learned a lot from all those things but the biggest thing I've learned is that marrying David was the best decision I've ever made.  He is the kind of man I hope our son grows up to be and I thank God for him every day.  I never pictured myself as the kind of girl that gets married young and finds joy in domestic bliss, but meeting him turned my world upside down and I'm the better for it.

And because I don't think I'm capable of not posting a thousand photos, here's a photo walk down memory lane:

 First year of dating in Moscow, Idaho 1999

 Dancing together at a Scholars Residence Party 2000

Our first apartment (i.e. The Shoebox) and car (white station wagon)

 Inside our first apartment.  View from the front door, we're standing in the "kitchen".

 Setting up our first home the weekend before our wedding

 We got married in a beautiful church in Gresham, OR

Our first dance

 Our first anniversary Canoe Trip Disaster.  Do NOT attempt to canoe Lake Couer d'Alene! 2002

David's graduation from the University of Idaho 2002

 

My graduation from the University of Idaho 2003

 I actually am not quite sure what year this is but I think 2003?  At the Rodeo!

Building a sand castle at the beach in 2004

 David's MBA graduation in 2005 (I'm pregnant with Grace)

At Dominic & Melinda's wedding with two week old Grace

Our 5th wedding anniversary August 11, 2006

The Super Parry Family just before Ethan was born

Rocking out on Rock Band (what you didn't know I have mad drumming skillz?!) Christmas 2007

Family portrait (by our wedding photographer) in 2008

Our family in 2009 (photo by Alysun Peters)

The four of us (well, three of us plus Thor) Mothers Day 2011

Happy 10th Anniversary Sweet Pea!  Looking forward to the next 10!

Happy Father's Day Sweetie!

 That's right, we took some silly mustache on a stick photos for our favorite Mustache Man in honor of Fathers Day.  Why not?  My sweetie is an awesome dad and one of the things that my children love about him is how silly he can be.  They are lucky to have a dad who is willing to act like a complete goofball to make them laugh, although they may feel less lucky as they morph into teenagers!  Thanks for being such a fabulous father to our children, they are so lucky to have you!

 When I asked Ethan what he loves about his Daddy he said he loves that he gives him hugs and plays with him.  He also loves Daddy smooches.

 Grace told me that she thinks Daddy is handsome (I agree).  She loves that he works hard to make dollars for her and loves to snuggle with Daddy in bed in the morning.  She likes to play outside while he barbecues or mows the grass.

 Yes, I jumped in a shot too.  Mustaches on a stick are just too tempting for me to resist.  Happy Fathers Day Sweetie!

Watch out, David's a Blue Belt!

I've been so busy editing and blogging client photos that I haven't taken the time to share the most important February event for our family and that was David earning his blue belt in jiu jitsu!  He's been doing jiu jitsu for awhile now, I posted about David's very first gi in August of 2009.  I also posted some photos from a random practice a year ago.  In the year and a half that he's been doing jiu jitsu he's earned four white stripes and he finally attended 120 classes (just barely!) and tested for his blue belt on February 5th.  He was going down to Corvallis four or five nights a week since Christmas Break in order to have all 120 classes when Rylan Lizare was in town from Hawaii to conduct a seminar and belt test.  Three guys from the Corvallis group tested for their blue belt including David's good friend James.  My Mom very graciously watched our kids so I could bear witness to David's achievement and also bring my camera.  So here's some photos from the blue belt test:

David's reward for all this hard work? A new gi.  He ordered a black one which came in the mail on Friday so after we spent some time cleaning out the garage on Saturday I set up my gray seamless paper and we had ourselves a mini photo session.  I bribed the kids with fruit snacks to hold my reflector and we opened the garage door and did it all natural light.  Grace is getting pretty good at holding a reflector...she may find herself earning some dollars helping Mommy at photo sessions soon!  So here's the newly minted blue belt in his new black gi looking as tough as possible.

Jiu Jitsu!

I tagged along with David to his Jiu Jitsu class in Corvallis one night in February and brought my camera along with me by his request. Since the class was in a school gym at night the lighting wasn't super so my photos turned out better in b/w in my opinion. It was fun to watch and see what David has been doing every Wednesday and Thursday night since September. Apparently the guys in his class have been asking to see the photos I took ever since February so today I finally got around to editing them. I thought I'd share some of them here so you can all see what fun can be had in a smelly gym with sweaty guys grappling each other. Or something like that.

Remember when David started last fall? Well he just earned his second stripe and his goal is to be a blue belt by the end of the year.

Here he is watching the action.

Is that a smile? Yeah I think he's having fun.

The guys in the white gis were easier to photograph.

David on top. His hair is getting a bit mussed.

Rolling with each other in practice. I had to keep an eyeball out for body parts flying my way...these guys can move pretty quick!

Mustache March

My husband is very proud of the mustache he grew for Mustache March with his brother. I'm not impressed. I have to say I prefer the clean shaven look and can live with the usual beard growth but the mustache by itself is not my favorite. Especially on the man I like to kiss. Since my darling husband knows my facial hair preferences he was wise enough to shave the mustache off before we attended my friend's wedding last Friday. Thank God! He did ask me to take a photo of the mustache before he shaved it off so here he is in all his mustache glory. Enjoy.

Lest you think the macho pose before is my husband's typical look I thought I'd share this outtake from our room at the bed & breakfast. Notice how he's trying to look manly and tough but he's having a hard time keeping his face straight. That's because I'm practically doubled over laughing as I took these photos. He just looks so silly trying to put on the Tough Guy persona because it's totally not his personality. Isn't he cute?

Unlike my husband my brother in law can actually grow a serious 'stache. It's quite the look. I borrowed this photo from his Facebook profile, hope you don't mind Sam!