Ty: 3 Months

Continuing my M.O. of monthly updates being months late…Ty's 3 month update.

He is very serious and stops smiling the second I pull my phone out.  (And is constantly scratching his face despite my efforts to keep his nails super short!)

Ty's third month started on my dad's birthday…Ty slept through the entire party.

Ty also took his first trips to Dallas, to lake LBJ and his first flight. to London in this third month.  He is becoming quite the traveler.  But, fortunately he is very good in the car and will sleep anywhere.

We also celebrated Father's day.  We had a pretty low key weekend; we hung out by the pool at BJ & Kasey's and just relaxed!

He continues to be a great sleeper, we moved him into his room right before he turned 3 months old.  He sleeps all night in there waking up once or twice…getting closer to not at all!

He loves to take a bath, instantly calms him down if he is upset.

And is really starting to like playing on his play mat.  He stares and stares at this turtle.

At just over 15 pounds, he is now big enough to ride in the jogging stroller.  He is wearing mostly 6 month sized clothes, they are still a little big but anything smaller doesn't quite fit him anymore!  He is in size 2 diapers - which are also almost too small.  He is starting to babble and have a personality.  He is a very content baby and we are starting to see more smiles daily.

We are getting things figured out as a family of four, so thankful for these two!

And just for fun…Ty at 2 months and 3 months…

and both kids at three months.  I can't believe how much they look alike.

Europe Trip: Barcelona

After a quick flight south, we arrived in Barcelona on Sunday night.

Ty was, once again, amazing on the flight.  Fortunately, we had an empty seat in between us so he just hung out laughing in between cat naps.

Once we landed, we found our way to the metro and a couple of train rides later we were on La Rambla, one of the main streets in central Barcelona.  Our hotel was right off La Rambla, so we dropped off our things and walked around for a bit before finding somewhere to grab a late dinner.

The city was so clean and there were people everywhere, I couldn't wait to see it during the day.  Where our hotel was seemed like it was in this dark back alley, when really it was a main road of stores with roll down doors that was really busy during the day.  There were no cars allowed in this whole shopping area except for the trash trucks and street cleaners.  The next morning, Brie met us at our hotel and we walked over to La Boqueria to get some breakfast. 

I can't even describe this place.  It was row after row of stalls filled with any and every different kind of food you can imagine.

It was pretty overwhelming.  All those choices and we ended up with fresh squeezed juice and pastries.  We walked over to a square near the market to eat.

We spent the rest of Monday walking.  And walking.  And walking.  We stopped for coffee, went to a restaurant on the beach, shopped, people watched, explored the city, ate and ate.

Ty was his usual trooper self and just went with the flow.  Tuesday was the Festival of San Joan in Barcelona, which is similar to Fourth of July here.  The fireworks and celebrations started Monday night and the city was basically shut down on Tuesday.  We decided to take a train up to Monserrat, which is a monk monastery up in the mountains.  After about an hour long train ride, we boarded a gondola for a 5 minute ride up the mountain.

It started sprinkling right when we got up there.  We should have checked the weather!  We sat in the lobby and fed Ty to see if the rain would let up.  There was small break in the rain, finally, so we made our way up to the church.

It was so beautiful.  And old.  I can't get over how old everything is.

We were going to go out and check out the views and then this happened…

We should have checked the weather.  Rain like I have never seen before.  We stood in this courtyard for a bit and the temperature dropped like crazy.  There were people coming out of this door we were standing near so we decided to go in there.  We sat down on the floor to wait it out a bit.  And then the power went out.  And then the water started coming in onto the floor.  So we moved to higher ground, up the stairs a bit.  In a pitch black hallway.  With a baby.

It finally slowed down enough that we could make a run for it down the hill to the little restaurant where we camped out for a while and watched more rain…thankfully Ty slept through all of it.

Eventually we were able to walk back up, as bundled up as we could get, and see the views from the top of the mountain, which were incredible.

Getting down the mountain proved to be a bit of a challenge.  Since there was still power, we couldn't take the gondola so we had to take the train down with everyone else that was visiting that day too.  We decided to get off early by the Olympic park and eat some tapas.  There was former stadium, turned mall, with a viewing area that you could see all of the Olympic park and the beautiful art museum.

We finally, finally, finally made it back to our hotel after an unintentionally really long day.

Wednesday, our last day, we spent the morning doing some shopping and visiting the Barcelona Cathedral with plans to visit La Sagrada Familia that afternoon.  My mom kept telling us that it was the most incredible thing she had ever seen in her life and that it was indescribable.  Truth.  It is just crazy to think that is has been under construction for over 130 years and will be completed in our lifetime.  It was so massive and so detailed.  It was amazing.

Thursday morning, we were up really early to catch the train back to the airport.  It was a whirlwind of a trip and a long 22 hour trip home, but I am so glad we did it.  I am beyond thankful that Ty was so great during the whole trip, that Barry's parents, my parents & Becky took such wonderful care of Sawyer the whole week, and that we had a wonderful tour guide in Brie to show us around the city that she fell in love with!

Europe Trip: London

I have been wanting to take Barry to London to see where my grandparents live and see the city for what seems like forever and we finally made it happen!  Since Brie was studying abroad in Barcelona, it worked out perfectly for us to spend a week in Europe and visit both places.  We planned this trip before Ty was born and since he was going to be about 3 months old when we planned to leave, we included him in all of our travel plans.

Traveling with a baby definitely has its perks…we were moved to the front of every line and were at our gate within 20 minutes of getting out of the car.  Plenty of time for selfies while we waited for our flight =)

That is Ty's "Now what?!?" face.  We left on a Wednesday afternoon and flew over night straight to London.  We flew British Airways which was the greatest!  They had this bassinet on board for Ty which worked out great because he is not a huge fan of being held.

When he wasn't sleeping, he happily hung out in my lap.  He did so great on the flight!

We arrived in London around 7:30 AM on Thursday and were greeted by Wita and Brie - I can't believe we went 5 months without seeing her!  Wita and Richard hired a taxi to take us on a quick drive through London before heading to their place a good ways out of the city.  We actually got to see a lot on our taxi tour.

We finally made it back to Benfleet, I couldn't wait for Barry to see where Wita & Richard live.  It used to be a water tower, but they renovated it and made offices and turned the top few floors into a flat with incredible views.

After some lunch and a quick nap, we headed out to a pub for some fish and chips with Richard's daughter, son-in-law and grandaughter.  

England also happened to be playing in the World Cup that night too so it was a fun atmosphere.  The pub we went to was so cute, I felt like I was eating in someone's living room.

Friday we got a late start, but once we got up and moving we headed down to Southend to eat lunch by the water.

I love Southend; its such a cool little town on the water with cute restaurants, a nice high-street and an amusement park on the pier.

That evening, some of Wita &  Richard's friends invited us over for dinner.  They renovated what used to be a barn on a beautiful piece of land with a view of the Thames River.  I don't remember exactly how old they said the barn was, but I remember Barry commenting that it was older than the US!!  Crazy.  Ty thoroughly enjoyed the evening too.

When we got back to the tower, Barry, Brie and I decided to go up to the top and check out the views.  It's incredible.  They rent out the top of it for antenna space to radio, TV, etc.

Saturday we took the train into London.  Ty loved the train.  He wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, only wanted to look out the window.

We saw the Tower Bridge, Tower of London and took the obligatory London photos.

We stopped for lunch, fish and chips of course, at Jamie Oliver's Union Jacks in Covent Garden.

We did A LOT of walking around and ended the day taking a cab to Harrod's before we called it a day.  It was a long day, but we got to see a lot of London.  Richard, unfortunately, took a pretty bad spill a few weeks before we got there so he wasn't able to join us in London, but him and Ty had some good quality time in the lift at the tower together.

Sunday, we had the chance to tour the British Diving Olympic Training Facility with a former co-worker of mine.  It was in a really pretty part of town and the facility was amazing.

After a wonderful lunch at a hotel in Southend we quickly grabbed our things, took one last photo by the tower…(we didn't forget about Ty, he was just sleeping in his car seat - pretty much what he did the entire time we were in London, he was the best little traveler!)

and just like that our time in London was over and we were off to Barcelona!