Emmeline--by the Month

I'm attempting to capture Emmeline's first year of life with snippets from each month. It's unbelievable how quickly she changes and grows and that I've already done THREE of these. My little girl is just amazing!







/>

/>

/>

/>

/>

/>

Emme's First Mardi Gras!

Since Mr. Toupsie is from Alexandria, we decided Emmeline needed to celebrate this year.

Day 11: Bath

We aoke to a beautiful morning in the Cotswolds, hopped in the car and headed for Bath. Our hotel packed us each a bacon sandwich for breakfast; and since Steph did not want hers, Thad enjoyed both. The trip to Bath was about an hour, and fairly easy until we tried to find the rental car drop off. We drove through some of the tightest most hectic streets in the world, but we finally made it to our destination, slightly rattled.

We put on the back packs and hiked it into the bath city center. We were able to store our bags at an Internet cafe for our duration in Bath; then we hit the streets.

Aside: there are a lot of people in Brittan with missing teeth. Even young people seem to not care if their teeth fall out. Thanks, mom and dad for sending me to the dentist!

Ok back to Bath. This is a small town with a natural hot springs that is still active. The town was initially developed by the ancient Romans as a place to enjoy the magical waters. We visited the bath houses (mostly ruins now) and toured around the other early architecture in the area. The church in Bath is where the very first king of England was crowned. We had a lot of time to kill in this small town, so we also toured a few of its art galleries and museums. Stephanie enjoyed our tour through the fashion museum, which chronicled 500 years of dresses. We also napped/read in the park outside the Royal Cresent and the Circus until we decided to catch an earlier train back to London. We had originally booked a 10 pm train home but really hit the wall after 7 hours in Bath. Back home to London where we enjoyed a relaxing night in.

Day 10: BFE (bum #$%^%#$ England)

Thad: Where are we going?

Steph: The Cotswalds.

Thad: Who was it that said this was cool?

Steph: No one. I've just been reading travel websites.

Thad: OK Sounds fun.

This morning our fake cabby picked us up at 4:30 AM (on vacation!) to head to Paddington Station. "Fake" because he was basically a dude that lived in his van; nevertheless, he got us to the station on time with the help of his iphone navigation.

We boarded a brief train from London to Oxford. There we had breakfast at Mick's cafe (who were very helpful Brits. They even offered to drive us to our rental car!)

we picked up the car around 10 AM and immediately increased the stress level on both of us. Stephanie was the driver; and Thad was the navigator. Each job was important as we were on the wrong side of the road with a lefthanded shifter...not to mention tons of traffic and roundabouts! A few hit curbs and missed turns later... we made it into the first of many stops in the Cotswalds.

[In short, we saw a bunch of old churches, in old country towns. We toured a castle, visited Shakespeares town, and ate a lot of icecream. We will fill in this portion of the blog when we get the details stragintened out of what we actually did.]

We were easily the youngest people in these towns by 30 years. It was a very slllooooow pace out there; they even had street signs that said "Elderly Crossing."

If we saw one more old church today, we were going to puke, so we headed to the hotel around 6. This place was a lot fancier than we expected. In fact, "jeans were highly discouraged" at our dinner reservations in the hotel restaurant. Oh yea? Well how about jeans, this dirty sweatshirt, and muddy tennis shoes...cause that's all we brought. High class Toups!

Day 9: Waiting for the Sun

It was rainy this morning, so we used the time in the flat to plan out the rest of our days here. We decided a 1 night/2 day trip through the Cotswalds and Bath would be fun so we booked all the tickets and accomodations we needed.

After the rain cleared up we purchased our Oyster Cards (for the underground) and took a trip out to Wimbledon. Both of us are Tennis fans, and this excursion certainly did not disappoint. The All English Lawn Club was quite a distance out of town, but we will never again view the tournament the same way. We got to tour the entire grounds including Centre Court, the interview rooms, and the players lounge. For any fan of the game, this is a must. The suprising part of the venue was just how intimate everything was. Many of the courts were so small, they only had a few rows of seats. We were also amazed at how beautiful grass could be!

The trip to Wimbledon took most of our afternoon, so we headed home to get cleaned up for the evening entertainment: The Lion King! London is perhaps equivilant to Broadway in its quantity and quality of performances. We were both abolutely impressed with the show. Too bad we underestimated the distance the theater was to our flat. The last few blocks were close to a dead sprint to get in before the closed the doors!

Day 8: London?

London. London? Yes London. You know: fish, chips, cup 'o tea, bad food, worse weather, Mary @&$(;/$& Poppins... LONDON! Today we awoke at 5:30 in order to finish packing. Somehow we got it all back into the bags before our Paris landlord showed up to get the keys from us at 7:45. This was the day of the trip we had been dreading...getting all this luggage onto the metro during the Monday morning rush. Fortunately, we only had one train to catch in order to get to the Eurostar and cross the Channel! We arrived in London around 1 and were let in to our new apartment. Wow. This place is right in the middle of all the money in London! We are just off Bond Street where some of the most expensive stores in the world are. The apartment is great. The Paris place was very old and grandma -like decor; this place is swank and modern...a welcomed change. After some lunch in a cafe by the apartment, we headed to the streets. We traversed Bond Street to Picadilly Circus, and then back down Regent Street to get our bearings. There are all type of people here, and it is a very exciting vibe. After getting a few miles on the legs, we headed home to rest up for the eveing.

Steph grabbed the camera and we again traversed the city. We walked across the River Thames to the London Eye (the fairly new ferris wheel that over looks the city). After our half hour ride around the wheel, we trekked past the Parliment/Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. For dinner, we decided to go into the original Hard Rock Cafe. I know...sorta touristy and American, but this was the place that Eric Clapton liked so much, he wanted a permanant table. The cafe owners granted his wish and mounted one of his guitars on the wall to mark his table; the rest is history.

Day 7: Tour of Flanders Cycling Race and Travel Day

Today was our travel day from Bruges back to Paris. But before we left, we headed to the market square one last time. Today they held the 95th Tour of Flanders cycling race. It must have been a really big deal as there were tons of people from all nationalities there to watch the start. We had no idea who any of the participants were (if they are a cyclist not named Lance Armstrong, we are clueless) but there were some serious fanatics out there with us. It was a fun event to witness.

Hopped on the train back through Brussels and into Pairs. We did several loads of laundry and got packed up to leave tomorrow for London!