Hey Paula! Best wishes for a fabulous birthday!

Much love,

~Holly and Ryan

I thought I would reassure everyone that barring any natural disaster or illness, I plan on continuing to post about JoAnna's and my adventures in London and Paris starting tomorrow night. Stay tuned!

I would also like to comment on the drawing in my previous post. Besides being relevant to the post's subject matter, I included it for another reason. I love family and friends. That's the most important thing in life to me - being surrounded by loved ones. The drawing captures that feeling of love and celebration, and I wanted to share that.

Happy birthday JKR and HP!

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/#article:8906

(Drawing by PrettyAnnaMoon.)

Happy Birthday Shelly! Hope it's wonderful!

Love,

~Holly and Ryan

Happy birthday to Larry Sr.! Hope it's a great one, Dad!

Love,

Larry, Holly, and Ryan

Day Two

Our trip definitely had a soundtrack. JoAnna’s husband, Mike Gehring, has an EP out called, “Six Down.” (Mike is on My Space.) It’s very good. We listened to that and James Blunt quite a bit. I highly recommend both cds!

To start the day, JoAnna treated us to beverages at the Daily Grind, the RAF’s little coffee shop. Our destination for the day was Ipswich, JoAnna’s dad’s home town. It’s about an hour and a half or so east of Alconbury (which is a couple of hours south of Harrogate). JoAnna had a map of all of her father’s old stomping grounds. Unfortunately we had the worst time navigating. Ipswich is a relatively small city, but is filled with tiny, curving streets, roundabouts, and one way streets. We spent what seemed like hours going the wrong way, not finding the right streets, and turning around. However, we still managed to visit the train station, Ipswich Football (soccer) Stadium, see the area JoAnna’s dad had his first paper route in, the area where he had his first real job, his grandparents’ old house, and his parents’ old house.

Navigational woes aside, it was quite an experience for JoAnna to see her dad’s past come alive in the places we went.

On the way back to RAF Alconbury, I managed to miss an exit and overshot the base by 12 miles. Oops. When we did finally get back, we smelled something really good. It turned out to be Mongolian barbecue. We had some for dinner and it was quite tasty. (I’d never had it before.)

(JoAnna took this photo one of the evenings we went for a walk on the Stay.)

(I've decided to post our Ipswich/London/Paris trip one day at a time, so I won't take too terribly long to get the whole thing up.)

Day One

JoAnna and Ryan and I set off for our grand adventure on July 19, 2006, at 12:43pm. We’d spent the morning finishing our packing, and doing last minute errands (such as running around town looking for cat litter, which I’d forgotten to pick up at the commissary the day before).

On advice from my friend Sarah, we planned on staying at RAF Alconbury, driving to a naval base in West Ruislip (pronounced “rye-slip,” in case anyone was wondering), then taking the London Underground (or, “tube”) into London. I’d printed out Map Quest directions to everywhere we’d be going. With the car stocked with drinks, snacks, and music, we were on our way.

Everything went pretty smoothly until we got to the village of Alconbury. Map Quest wouldn’t find RAF Alconbury, so I put the town in instead. We hadn’t seen the signs for the RAF, so it took us a little while to find it. If there ever was a theme for our travels, it was getting turned around. Unfortunately, ever since I picked JoAnna up from the airport, it’s been one direction-related snafu after another! Oh well. We did find the RAF and got checked in.

I realized that I’d forgotten a few things. Ryan’s sippy cups full of milk and juice were sitting in my fridge at home. I also forgot a couple of other minor things. Nothing big, thankfully.

We stayed in the temporary family lodging area. Our room was aging, but nice. The front room had its own bathroom, and a sofa bed, along with a coffee table and dinning table. There was a stocked kitchenette in the middle, then a bedroom and another bathroom. The hotel provided a crib for Ryan. There was a play area right outside our building, so in the evening I let Ryan run around and play for quite a while.

After we got settled, JoAnna and Ryan and I explored the base a bit. It was small, but nice, and had the usual military post amenities. We wound up getting some pizza for dinner after picking up some things at the BX and commissary. It was nice to have our own kitchen to work with.

Around bedtime I gave Ryan a bath. He seriously objects to having baths not in his home tub. He hollered the whole time. He calmed down once I got him dried, lotioned, and into his jammies. He fussed a little bit and I had to cuddle him a little extra, but after a short while he fell asleep. The rest of the nights we were there, he went to bed without any fuss at all. It was great that I had a separate room to put him to bed in, so JoAnna and I could stay up and not keep Ryan awake.

One downside to our room was that it wasn’t air conditioned. The weather was really hot and muggy, and the air wasn’t moving through the windows much. We didn’t realize we had electrics fans we could plug in until the next day. Those helped!

Here is a photo album from Flamingo Land and Harlow Carr.  Enjoy! (I forgot to mention that the Monday before we went to London and Paris, we had lunch at Betty's, a mandatory stop during a visit to Harrogate!)

Flamingo Land and Garden Harlow Carr

I realize I am very behind on posting about JoAnna's visit.

The night she got here, we sat outside drinking coffee and eating flapjacks (here flapjacks are a bar cookie made from oats and honey). That was nice and relaxing.

The very next day, we went to Flamingo Land. http://www.flamingoland.co.uk/ Flamingo Land is part zoo, part amusement park. It was also the location of our monthly babysitting co-op meeting.

(I don't know why all of the sudden this blog building utility insists on double spacing when all I really want is to start a new paragraph.)

One of the things I really liked about the park is that you can bring in your own food, which JoAnna and I did. Even though it's not far from Harrogate, it took a long time to get there due to bad traffic. Once we were there though, we had a good time. The weather was warm and sunny, perfect for a day out.

JoAnna and Ryan and I hung out with Susan and her baby daughter Hannah. We walked around looking at the animals. We walked over to the meerkat enclosure, and Hannah dropped her pacifier in! One of the meerkats took it and ran around with it as a prized possession. It was funny to watch, but we were concered. We wanted to be sure the meerkat wouldn't somehow hurt itself with the pacifier. We don't think that it did. It sure became the center of everyone's attention!

There were a various play areas for all ages of kiddos. We let Ryan play in two of them and that was by far his favorite part of the day!

Towards the end of the afternoon, JoAnna very kindly watched Ryan and Hannah so Susan and I could go on one of the rides. The one we rode was like nothing I'd seen in the States. It was a rollercoaster, but it was like a motorcycle. Susan and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves!

After our visit to Flamingo Land, Susan and JoAnna and I went out to dinner at a place in Harrogate called the Cattleman's Association. It was an American style steakhouse, and was actually very good. (I am usually very wary of going to American style places when not in America.) Susan very kindly treated us.

The next day, JoAnna and Ryan and I went to the RHS Garden Harlow Carr. I'd been there in the winter, and was looking forward to going in the summer. It was a very warm, sunny day. I think JoAnna brought the California weather with her!

We all enjoyed wandering around the gardens. We let Ryan out to wander and play, which I think is always his favorite part of any outing.

The rest of JoAnna's first week consisted of tea and crumpets for breakfast, walks around the Victoria shopping area and the Stray, errand running at MHS, and staying up late at night catching up on blogs and just chatting. (We also had a rather unfortunate trip to York trying to find an AmEx office.)

JoAnna's got a MySpace site and blog. If you would like to get her take on her visit here, go to: http://www.myspace.com/joannasark and click on her blog in the upper right hand corner of the screen. She's got photos up, which is more than I can say so far!  (I do plan on posting new photo albums soon.)

Hello, we're back! Before I post all about our travels, I would like to wish Teresa and Kris a very happy (and belated) anniversary. I would also like to congratulate them on the new addition to their family, Joshua! Happy belated birthday to Sabrina, sounds like it was a great one! Congratulations and best wishes to Mark Covert on the anniversary of his running streak! Happy belated (by one day) birthday to my friend Mariano. Hope it was wonderful! Finally I would like to congratulate Scott and Bridget on their new daughter, Hailey Ann!

Whew!

It took us eight hours and the Metro, Eurostar, Underground, and a Honda to get us back to Harrogate today. JoAnna and Ryan and I had a wonderful time in Ipswich, London, and Paris! It's always nice to get back home though. I will try to post as soon as I can. We have a ton of pictures and lots of cool stories to tell.