England 2010....

I am way behind in my blogging but thought I would try to get back to it. Here's a recap of our crazy summer adventure to England back in July....


Well...we made it to and from England in about 3 weeks returning just in time for Kaz to go to military school the next day. Yikes!

We did what we said we wouldn't do again...military HOPS. For those of you who have tried this yourselves, you are already shaking your head and wondering what fantastic story we have to tell. For those of you who have not had the joy in trying free flying with the military during the summer, I'm not sure if I'll do it justice in my blog.

It took 5 days to get to England, 4 to get back. We drove to 3 different states (DL, NJ, MD) to get a flight to Germany- we were literally the last to get a seat, and waited in Germany 2 days before deciding to buy last minute RyanAir tickets to England (not something we anticipated, but really, we should have).

Once we made it to England, we spent about 8 days visiting Kaz's family. We have always been very blessed by their hospitality and willingness to show us a good time. We have free places to stay and fun things to do. This time we were able to spend a few days at Auntie Jadzia's new place by the seaside with Kaz's 2 cousins, Izzy (12 yrs. old) and Sofia (8 yrs. old). They had a fantastic time playing with Jade and keeping her entertained.

All in all we saw some pretty remarkable things on our trip. We visited an old estate home, road a kiddie train with Auntie Jola, ran in the water at the seaside, went to a sealife refuge, road some rides at the fair, visited Kaz's Polish grandmother, ate at a lot of pubs and played at the playground. Jade had a fantastic time despite all of the craziness of traveling. To her, every airport, hotel, and taxi was a new adventure waiting to happen. She was great and we couldn't have asked for a more agreeable traveling companion.

When all was said and done, we got ready to go back home. We tried to leave from England for 2 days (plane broken) before buying more commercial tickets to Germany. Once in Germany we waited a day (slept on a park bench in a small mall because the base inn was full) before getting on a plane back to MD where our car was.

It was a whirlwind of a vacation. And this time we mean it when we say...no more HOPS. While our actual visiting was nice and being able to see family is great, the uncertainty of travel in the military is very stressful. Next time, we'll buy tickets with actual dates and seat assignments.

Here are some photos to commemorate our experience.

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Back in the States...

We have arrived back in the good ole USA. Still some more travelling to get to home, but we are state-side. We flew in on a C17. That means, web-seating and extremely cold floors for lack of insulation and very little heating. However, the great thing about this flight is that as soon as you are at cruising altitude you are free to move about at will.

Did I mention that when you fly military cargo planes, usually you actually fly next to the cargo? And any available space is up for grabs. So, most of the time you'll see crew members with their blow-up beds and blankets on the floor. This time there were several children on the flight so most of the space was taken by blankets and toys on the floor.

If you have kids, this is a great way to fly- well, as long as you didn't have to wait 8 hours for the actual flight, or the flight gets cancelled, or you're stuck in the terminal holding area for 3 hours only to be released back to the terminal to then go back through security to get on the original flight.

Oh, well. It's free!

When in England...

...do as the English do. Jade has decided that a cup of tea is in order for this morning. I have to say, the English love their tea. Any time there is a bit of time, it's tea time. You could be coming back from grocery shopping or watching the tele (TV). It doesn't matter, it's tea time (and don't forget the biscuits.

We've spent the weekend hanging out with Kaz's Aunt Jadzia, Uncle Fred and their 2 girls. It's been two years since we have been able to visit them so the girls are very different.

It was Izabella's 10th birthday and she had a pool party and dinner at an Italian Restaurant. Fred is Italian and works with building inspections and Jadzia's a GP (General Practitioner, Dr.).

The girls are both into horses and have been taking riding lessons for a few years now. Here are a couple of photos of them both:

Izabella had her first horse show and brought home a 1st, 2nd and a reserve in jumping. She would have had a 1st in that as well, but her horse wouldn't do the final jump. She did get him to do it after the 3rd try though.

We'll be coming back soon and I'm sure I'll be adding some more photos.

England, here we are...

...so we actually arrived in England (Mildenhall Air Force Base).

Here's the rundown of our travels here. We drove through the night 10 hours (or, I should say that Kaz did the driving) to Dover, DE to catch a direct flight to England. We only had an 8 hour delay for take-off so compared to our last trip this went very smoothly. The military planes are quite loud so we all had to wear ear protection, even Jade. She was great on the travelling. She slept all the way to DE and slept all the way to England. Even through all the waiting she was great.

So far, we've visited all the family. We spent some time last week with Kaz's grandmother. She lives in an assisted living facility run by Polish nuns. She was in good spirits and had a lot to say even though most of it was repeated several times. She does well for her age but does have some physical and mental limitations.

We also spent Sat. with Kaz's little cousins. They are not so little anymore. Izabella is 10 and Sofia is 6. Of course, Kaz was used as a human punching bag, dress-up doll, and all around do-anything-to-me guy.

More to come...