Nothing a mommy or daddy kiss can't fix.

Monday night was a rough night at the Dunn household. Little Levi woke up at midnight crying. Upon my initial assessment and questioning I couldn't find out what was wrong and so thought he had just woken up with a nightmare and needed to fall back asleep. So I headed back for bed, but the crying continued. I went back in and heard "mommy pee pee toilet" and then "mommy, ea- mommy, ea-" and when I took him to the bathroom where of course we have the street lights shining in and he's sitting on the toilet he started pointing to his ear saying "mommy, ea-" So I decided it must be his ear that hurt. When I asked him does your ear hurt he said "mommy, kiss, ea-" Well if that didn't tell us his ear hurt I don't know what would. He slept restlessly the rest of the night in our bed. I took him to the earliest appointment and sure enough his one ear drum had perforated and the other one was filling up and looking infected too. So we'll start some antibiotics for the next 10 days. Our poor little man. Well and while there we decided might as well get the flu mist and pneumonia vaccine oh and they decided they could give me my flu shot too. Needless to say, Levi was not impressed that we both got a Snoopy bandaid, but we managed. In the less than 10 minutes it took to leave the peds office and go get our prescription the little man had fallen asleep in my arms. Such a rough spell. I will say however, I did enjoy the snuggling time it bought me :c)

But it just goes to show "a mommy or daddy kiss can heal any pain".

Amazed

Have you ever just been amazed at your child? Well there I was sitting working on something and next thing I know Levi walks in and says "helicopter" as he holds up this Duplo creation of his. I'll let you look at the pictures and decide for yourself. I thought "wow, that's pretty impressive" You just can't put anything by these little guys.

It was a little more challenging to get him to take a photo so that people could see his creation so here's my hand holding it for the photo.

I know one probably should realize how intelligent our little ones are, yet they still seem to catch us off guard.

London

We had a wonderful time in London...I mean truly wonderful. We actually just went and relaxed...yes I know, "the Dunn's take things slowly." We did in fact let Levi do a lot of walking on this trip which just goes to show how laid back we were :c)

We started Saturday morning off by visiting the London Eye ( a huge ferris wheel...for lack of a better description...it's 443 ft tall). We were so glad to have our Merlin Annual Passes as we avoided waiting in line and just hopped right on with about 3 other couples...which made for a nice empty capsule and great viewing. So here are so photos of that.

Levi liked watching the trains coming and going.

Always taking it in.

This was when we were on top...the capsule next to us.

The two guys taking a closer look at things.

Levi telling Greg about the trains and boats that he can see.

Big Ben and Palace of Westminister

So embarrassing, all these photos.

Dunn Family on the London Eye

We were on our descent and this was the capsule above us.

Levi pointing to all the wonderful things he can see from the London Eye

After the London Eye, we headed to the Sea Life Aquarium which was literally next door. Again, the Merlin Passes came in handy as we just walked right in and got to see all the fish, sharks, turtles, alligators, etc that we could want. Levi thoroughly enjoyed seeing all the sea creatures. Of course, I made some comment about how I wondered if the shark brush their teeth and so now he keeps saying "Brush teeth, shark" which is adorable. Not to mention the fact that I never realized that sharks had rows of teeth stacked on top of each other...needless to say I've become even more weary of them and now know how they can rip off a limb without a second thought.

The crocodiles (or alligators as we will call them for our Gator purposes) caught Levi's attention and he could see them swimming under the water and sitting above which was great. We even practiced our "gator chomp" while we were there...Grandpa will be so proud.

We headed towards Westminister Abbey and looked at the outside...impressive as always with the churches here.

After that we decided to head on to Madame Tussaud's which was also "free" courtesy of our Merlin Passes. It was nice to go and not feel like we needed to stand and get our picture with all the wax sculptures as we can go back and take them at any time. We grabbed a few photos that we didn't have to stand in line for :c) And yes, Levi eventually gave up...thus the wonderful "sleeping baby" photos :c)

Muhammad Ali

Nelson Mandela

Greg with Winston Churchill

Samuel L. Jackson

This last photo was in the "4D Superhero" part of the museum and there was a 4D film with glasses, etc. Well we took Levi and he thought it was interesting for about the first 4 minutes until of course (as we should have realized as parents) the villians came out and people started shooting and stuff started exploding. A little too "real" for a 2 year old. So he and I ushered ourselves out and waited for Greg.

All in all we had a great day and then spent Sunday walking around Hyde park. We will have to return to the Diana Memorial Fountain as they were doing some maintenance on it and so we didn't get to see it in all its glory. Levi did however enjoy all the "people running," "people swimming unda bidge" (people swimming under the bridge), "ducks", etc. We even saw some horses walking around.

Life...

So a week or two in review :c) I'm working on staying caught up, but just not being successful. We ended up heading to Newmarket on one of Greg's post call days and were amazed to see all the beautiful horses walking down and across the streets. There's a comment that is made "you don't want to hit a horse in Newmarket" well the reason for that is because the horses cost more than your car and probably more than your house. They are million dollar horses used for racing. Truly majestic creatures...

So whilst there we found a playground for Levi and here's Greg showing him how to use the scoop and dump thing in the sand pit.

"Helping daddy"

On Thursday, the 16th Levi and I went down to London to visit with a friend of mine, Claire. We have been friends since childhood and although we haven't seen each other in a good 11+ years or so it was great to catch up and of course have lunch together. I am constantly reminded of how precious friendships are and how even if we don't talk constantly our true friends remain and we are able to chat as though we had never been apart. So, to Claire, thanks for making my week :c)

Claire and Levi...the best we could do since he kept trying to look at the delivery truck and run under the sign

Levi being well Levi. :c)

Here he is sporting his John Deere shirt from Aunty Tiffy and Uncle Peter and his cool camo pants from Oma and Opa. We really wanted to get the Tennessee feel down and so this did it. Don't worry we've got the nice orange hunting shirt to go with it too....I'll try and catch a picture of that one day :c)

Levi standing on the stool that Great Grandpa Hoppe made...just the right size for washing his hands.

It's package time in England... (wishing for football time in TN...or at least some wins)

So how could I resist. We went to the post office yesterday after Levi had successfully been to his first dentist appointment. All I can say is that he did better for the dentist's technician than for either Greg or I. :c) He let the guy brush his teeth,  do a fluoride treatment and I guess polish the teeth with that spin brush looking thing, I was pretty impressed. He was slightly less cooperative with the dentist trying to count his teeth, but I'd probably be the same way with some lady having a mirror in my mouth and pushing on my teeth :c)

But, I digress. So, back to the post office. We had 2 packaging slips in our box. Yay. Next step is to stand in line and wait for them to call us, hand them the packaging slip and they go find our package. Well try explaining patience and waiting in line to an excited 2 year old. I don't think we faired too badly though. So the window to give packages is just down from where you get packages...we've done this a few times so Levi knows he has to give the man the package so he can send it to whomever we're sending it to. So first off he darts to that window and tries to give the man the slips (while of course, there's someone trying to send their package). I round him up and tell him that that's the line for sending packages, not for picking them up. We have to stand in this line and wait patiently until they call us forward. Check...or so I thought. Next he's off trying to put the package slips up by the window for the right man, but of course there's 2 more people in front of us in line. So again...explaining that we have to wait patiently in line, I round him up and we wait. He definitely tried to go back with each person that got called forward. I just had to stand there and smile. How great it is to be so excited and wanting to do things by himself. We are so blessed to have Levi in our lives and watching him grow is just so exciting. His boundless energy and zeal for life is refreshing.

Well here he is after we got our packages. There was even a package for him from some dear friends of ours and so that made it even better....of course, he decided he wanted to carry the large box with mommy's stuff in it.....please note the tongue out in concentration.

In this one, he's telling me he's looking for cars. We have to cross the parking lot to get back to our car.

Children are just such an absolute joy. How blessed we are.

Can we sit still ?

Well as much as we would have liked to call it a relaxed weekend of staying at home...the bug bit and we were off to the beach on Saturday morning. It was only a short hour and 15 minute drive and we decided to utilize these passes we had bought about a month ago (so far we're getting our monies worth). It's a pass that basically allows you into 22 or so UK sights for free, free parking, 10-20% off food and merchandise (which if you're there all day you'll obviously be eating) and so we decided it would motivate us to see some things.

Back to Saturday morning...there was a Sea Life Sanctuary at the beach that we were able to get into. Levi enjoyed watching the Penguins and Seals being fed. He definitely liked the Otters...I don't know what it was about them, but he just wanted to watch them and when we came back later he was looking for them again and as adorably as ever was saying "Mommy, Otters. Mommy, Otters" and when they weren't there "Mommy, Otters, night night" I guess I said the otters may be sleeping when we couldn't see them in their enclosure and so he decided they were.

Here are the penguins being fed

Levi watching intently as the penguins went diving and swimming in the water. I think there's one right at the glass by his face in this photo.

They had a little Discovery Center where people could touch the different sea life and so here we are trying to touch the starfish. Levi didn't actually touch it, but he got his hand in the water. One has to start somewhere :c)

The seals....they have 3 rescued seal pups that they are rehabilitating at this point and 3 older ones that will have to remain in captivity. Surprisingly, one of the seals is 22 years old...wouldn't have made it that long in the wild. I think the man said that their average life expectancy in the wild is about 15 years. I'm assuming that's due to some of the seal hunting that goes on.

I'm glad I got his face in this picture. It's not easy taking a photo while walking alongside a moving horse. So here's Levi on his first pony ride. He was super excited and then as with any 2 year old decided that he had had enough and wanted to get off. He did however, manage to ride the horse back to where all the other ones were so he did stick with it.

Levi and the pony, Sam. On another note, Levi did say "bye Sam" when he got off and that was just too cute to handle.

After lunch we decided we needed to fill up a little more and so went into an ice cream store next door. Now keep in mind it was maybe a nice 70 degrees outside, a little breeze in the air, by no means was it scorching hot. All 3 of us got an ice cream and we headed out. Literally, by the time we got to the curb about 20 steps or less our ice creams had begun to melt and I mean rapidly become liquid. We had never seen anything like it. We headed towards a bench trying to get Levi to sit down so we could eat the ice cream before it melted completely. Well by the time we got to the bench his ice cream had been reduced by about half, Greg had managed to cram most of his into his mouth and I was trying to do the same. Ice cream was leaking everywhere, down my hand onto the floor and of course the slight breeze was flinging it towards Greg's jeans since he was sitting downwind. It was truly a humorous sight that if we had had a video camera or someone else who could have taken a picture it would have been priceless. Instead, here's me close to the end of it all trying to show you just how fast it melted and the destruction it caused.

Here Greg managed to get some of the ice cream on the floor into the photo. It doesn't look as horrible, but it was basically a massive splattering of ice cream at our feet.

Levi couldn't resist a train ride :c)

Back at the Sea Life Sanctuary, they had a pirate ship playground (we did somewhat ignore the for children 5 and up sign) as Levi went running towards it and managed just fine. Here's our little climber showing us his skills.

I'm amazed at how he is becoming confident on tackling tasks such as this rope bridge. 

All in all we had a wonderful day and on our way home we stopped by a Lavendar farm. It was neat to see all the stuff and they even had Lavendar cake...which of course we had to try. I will say it smelled heavily of Lavendar, but was actually quite good.

So EXCITED. (and now you're up to date)

Yes, we were so excited that my parents decided to come up for Labor Day weekend to celebrate my dad's birthday...and of course visit us :c) 

Levi was all too excited to see his Oma and Opa as you can tell

One of Levi's recent poses..."you can't see me"

...snicker, snicker

Changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Yes, they're everywhere, but since we were in London :c) 

Levi kept saying "hello, hello"

Pastries...so delicious

Levi excited and being silly for Oma and Opa

Having fun on the Underground

Oma and Opa got to see the Abbey Gardens at Bury.

We also drove around and saw Lavenham (does there lived a crooked man in a crooked house, ring a bell?) Many of the houses in Lavenham are literally crooked and leaning over...it's really interesting. On to Norwich where we saw the Cathedral and of course partook in some more pastries at a cafe'.

We had such a wonderful time and at the end their stay I managed to make it to Windsor Castle the first time around and drive to Heathrow Airport....so everyone I can make it to the airport and back alive so if anyone wants to come visit we'll see you there :c)