The Terrible Smell

I promise the final London post later this week but in the meantime.....

You never know what surprises you will encounter at my job. Some are pleasant, others are not. I was in for one of the unpleasant ones when I arrived at work yesterday. There was a funky smell coming from my room (it's not the first time as some of you may recall the rat/maggot incident) so I imediately notified the office. Our janitor (who is actually Ernie Banks' brother) came out to inspect things. He said he would call environmental services to have them come look. Since it was somewhat tolerable we stayed in my room and had class. Environmental services came and took a look around the ceiling and didn't find anything. They said it must be my carpet and they would come clean it on Good Friday since we don't have school. (I'm thinking to myself....yeah right, if it was the carpet I'd have smelled it before now...I've also been down this road before and we had maggots and a dead rat.) So.......I leave well enough alone, finish my day and come home to complain to Joel.

Then today, the smell is worse. In fact it is so bad my kids refuse to go into the room. We quickly hold our breath, gather up our pencil boxes and important papers and head across the portable to another classroom. In the meantime, the janitor has come back out and decided something must have died under my corner of the portable. So he calls environmental services, they come out, have a look and find nothing. Fortunately, he convinces them to look again in the ceiling with a flashlight (duh!!! It's dark up there!). Would you believe that they actually found something....a dead squirrel. Now if they had only really looked yesterday we could have avoided all of this to begin with. I hate people who don't take me seriously!

London, Day 3

Our third day in London, Tuesday, we went sight seeing on our own. We utilized the tube and saw lots of things. We started out going to the Tower of London and getting a tour from one of the Beefeaters. It was cool to learn about the history of the Tower and of the city. While there we got to see the Crown Jewels without a wait (sorry no pictures are allowed)! We left the Tower and went to St. Paul's Cathedral (we Charles and Di were married). We didn't go in because we are cheap but did look around at all the great architecture. From there we went to Covent Garden (an open air market) for lunch. We enjoyed being serenaded by street performers while we ate. We then went to Harrod's (mostly just to say we've been) and bought a magnet for our fridge. We then headed back to our hotel to freshen up before dinner. We went back to Covent Gardens to eat Italian food (which was terrible) on our way to West End. At the West End we saw the Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre and it was fantastic! I love theatre!!

Our beefeater at the Tower of London.
Joel by Tower Bridge
Me at Harrod's
The Theatre

London, Day 2

Our second day, Monday, we went on a tour outside of London to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle. This was also the day the camera acted up so we didn't get as many pictures as we wanted. We left London at 7:45 am and drove out to Stonehenge (a two hour drive). We were on a mini bus with 7 other people. One family was from Vancouver, and the other two couples were from Houston (what are the odds!) Stonehenge is actually pretty unimpressive unless you ponder all the questions like who made it and why is it there.


We then went on to the city of Bath and toured the Roman baths. It was fun and we would have loved to see more of the city because it is famous for its architecture. We then drove through the English countryside back towards London and saw lots of quaint towns.



We stopped at Windsor castle (where the queen spends her summers) for a tour. It was fun to see the state apartments, the gardens, the Abbey, etc. If fact, they were setting up for a state dinner that night so the queen was probably there when we were! Too bad you can't take picutres inside the castle. We then went back to London and out that night to a restaurant famous for their fish and chips. It was the best meal we had in London. Yummy!!

London, Day 1 of 4

So as promised, the details of our London trip. We left Dallas on Saturday morning and landed in London about 8 am Sunday morning. It was a long flight but worth it. We took an express train from Gatwick into London to catch the tube. We then discovered that the quickest route to our hotel was under construction for the weekend so we had to take several different trains to finally get there (not an easy feat with luggage!). We finally got to our hotel only to find our room wasn't ready. So we checked our bags with the bellman and decided what to do next. We chose to ride one of the tour buses around London to see the major sights and try to stay awake! We walked 5 minutes down to Speakers Square to catch the bus only to find a giant pro-Saddam rally taking place. Little scary to walk through but we quickly went around and tried not to draw attention to ourselves. We hopped on top of the bus (it was a double decker) and enjoyed our tour. We realized about half way through it that we were starving so we hopped off and found a McDonalds (we were too tired to do any heavy looking for food) and ate. We then hopped back on the bus, back to Speakers Square, through the Saddam rally and walked back to our hotel. We got our room took a short nap and went to dinner (in the hotel). We finally reached our exhaustion point about 10 and went to bed. We had to be up early the next morning for our tour of Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor castle. Now you know about day 1!


This is what one looks like after a long flight, trying to stay awake!

Us and Big Ben (Isn't Joel good at the self portraits!)

Home Sweet Home

We are back from our fabulous trip to London! We had a great time and I promise to post details and pics later. For now, we are happy to be home and sleep in our own bed! My goals for this weekend are to catch up on email (my apologies for not answering any lately) and readjust to the time change. My internal clock is all kinds of messed up!! Have a great weekend and I'll tell you more about our trip on Monday!

It's Known as "Special Events"

"What is it?", you ask. That dreaded word "Special Events". It is a tradition of 30+ years at the school I work in. Each year we vote on a different topic of study. Since I've been there we have done America (after 9-11), Mexico, Hawaii, and Italy. This year it is National Parks. We spend two solid weeks transforming the main hallway of the school into our topic (to see the progression click here and go to page 3). It is amazing when it's done so I've decided to share some of the pictures with you. We have spent this whole "final week" really learning about the various parks, camping and preservation. Hope you enjoy and remember....the pictures don't do it justice!!

Obviously Carlsbad Caverns The Everglades (and a view of the hallway)
Denali in Alaska
The Redwood Forest
East Coast Lighthouses
Yellowstone (Do you see Old Faithful?)
The Everglades


The Grand Canyon

Some great photos

Here is a link to Mindy's engagement pictures. There are a lot so have fun browsing through them. They are really great photos!