Kit and I both turned 40 in the last year, and it was our 15th wedding anniversary.  So we decided to celebrate with a week trip together.  Grammy kindly and bravely agreed to watch the kids wile Kit and I ran off to some corner of the world for a week.

Kit and I decided to make the most of this unique opportunity to go pretty much wherever we wanted.  We decided early on to go international.  California, New York, Florida, etc. all sounded great.  But they also sounded like something we could do with the kids.  After some vacilating about where exactly to go, we picked London, beating out Venice and maybe a Caribbean beach resort as the other final contenders.

It was a great trip.  Some details and tons of pictures can be found on a separate post in the new non-kids section.

Back on the home front, Grammy and the girls held up very well while we were gone.  They survived some flooding and the school carnival in Austin.  We got a text message from the girls every day.  Claire, in her messages, always wanted to make sure we were having a good time.  Molly, who apparently thought we were in “Lindon”, went so far as to say, “I hope you come back.”  (TODO: attach the messages.)  Grandaddy stayed on the weekends to help out too, especially with the crazy school carnival.

As fun as our trip was, it was really great to see the girls again.  Man, those girls are ridiculously cute and cuddly when you have not seen them in a while.  They greeted us with a big “Welcome home!” sign, plus a happy birthday sign and homemade cake for my birthday.  And there were lots of hugs.  The girls got a treat too.  They really liked the souvenirs we brought home from the British Museum: a glittery Union Jack notebook with matching pen, some “London landmarks” school supplies, some British chocolate coins, plus some leftover real coins.

It would be really fun to take the girls to England one day, but we’ll have to wait a few years to handle the long, cramped  flight, the tedious lines at customs, and the jet lag.  That would not have been fun for anyone right now.  Hopefully we’ll get them to Florida or California one of these days, though.

Many thanks to Grammy for taking great care of the kids for us while we explored the world a bit.