The French Riviera...or the Cote d'Azur

Hi Everyone!

Well, I'm a bit overdue on making this post - we've had a lot going on!!  

Linda and Keith, Chad's parents, arrived in London this past Sunday and we're so excited to have them here!  They've spent the past few days in Scotland and are heading back to London as I speak (or I guess as I write - I'm not talking out loud to myself)!  Anyway, we're headed for a 9 day trip with them to Paris and a few places in Italy and we just can't wait!  More on that in the next post...

So we had Ben and Lindsey visiting a few weeks ago and it was such a fun time!  They came and spent a few days in London - then we headed to France for a few days and then had a few more days in London with them before the headed back to the Nasty, I mean Cinci!

So - I won't go on and on about everything, but will share a few photos from our trip.

We stayed at an amazing hotel right on the Mediterranean, called Balli de Suffrin.  It was literally right on the water and just beautiful!  Here we are on the balcony off the lobby.

View of the pool and the beach from the balcony above.  It was so great to have a "proper" beach vacation!   The weather was great and it was so nice to relax.  And it was good for Chad and I to actually get a little tan.  We are pretty pale after the British summer!

The lovely beach!

Another view of the sea from the hotel!

We took one day trip and headed to Monaco, which was a few hours from where we were staying.  This is the famous Casino of Monte Carlo. There is a nice park leading up to it with these fountains and statues. The flags are blocking the view out front but there are bunches of flashy cars parked outside the casino. Plus, the thing to do is to drive your car around the roundabout to show it off! Due to the fact our car wasn't so flashy (a BMW hatchback - nice - not flashy enough though) we sat at the cafe on the left of the photo (see the umbrellas?) and enjoyed watching all the action. It was great!

Monaco also has really really ridiculous (Zoolander anyone?) yachts.  Here is a view of a few of the massive ones!  We did some research online of the HUGE one in the distance and apparently it's the 5th largest yacht in the world!!  So crazy!

Here's a few of the castle that overlooks Monaco.  It was pretty fancy!

This is the path heading down from the castle and you can see the sea in the distance.  I read that the principality of Monaco is no bigger than London's Hyde Park.  So it's a small place but there is a lot of money there!

Here we are at dinner our last evening of our trip. What a happy bunch!

Here we are back in London.  We went to Borough Market for lunch on Saturday and Lindsey and Ben loved it just as much as I do!  We were in line at this point waiting for chorizo sandwiches - good stuff!

Here's a group shot of dinner at the Gaucho Grill.  Like I said, it was so fun to have visitors here and we had such a great time!  Ben is always a source of entertainment and he kept us laughing for a week and a half!  Lindsey took a bunch of photos and I should try to get them up here because she got some great shots!

So that is that and we're back to France tomorrow!  Time flies I tell ya!!  We passed our 1 year in London mark last week - can you believe it?  We'll be heading back before we know it - we just have to make sure we get a few more trips in before that!

Take care and talk to you soon!! xoxox

Kids!

Hi there! Hope that you had a good weekend and have been enjoying the Olympics! We've had a fun weekend in London - the weather has been nice and there hasn't been much rain! We had dinner last night at a Gordon Ramsay restuarant called Maze and it was awesome! We didn't have any sightings of the famous chef though - maybe next time!

Anyhow, I thought that I'd share some photos of some of my favorite kids! It was Reese's big 7th birthday yesterday - Happy B-day buddy!! He is playing football this fall and recently got his pads and let's just say he's very excited. We can't wait to see some photos and hear about his first game next weekend!

Anyway, so here are some photos...



This is my niece, Emily, getting her hair done before a Jonas Brothers concert she went to a few weeks ago. Pretty snazzy!

Here's Reesie in his football pads!

The first day of school - they're so big!!



Here's Mr. Owen.

Em and Owen on his birthday. Check out Em's braces!

These two pics are of little Maddy Kavounas - our friends Jen and Peter's baby girl! What a cutie!







The next ones are of Mr. Issac Kolb who was born in May. His parents are Jill and Ryan - we went to college with Jill. He's such a doll!

Here are two good friends, Maya and Chad's Mazen and Mr. Ben English, our friends Trish and Dans' little boy! Their expressions crack me up and they both look just like their dads!!

Here is another one of Mazen in his swinging chair. He's getting so big - he barely fit in that thing when I saw him in May!!

And finally, here is my cousin Tiffany and her husband Johns' little girl Audrey and their puppy Abby. Too cute!

It's so hard living so far away and not being able to see all the little ones (and you big kids too!) so we love getting photos - so keep on sending them!

Well, I'm going to head out to get ready for another week of work! We head to France this coming Saturday and just can't wait for a few days off!

xoxox, Kari and Chad

Let the Games Begin!

Just another lazy weekend with not much to report but thought that I would still say hello! We have been watching some of the Olympics and it has been interesting listening to the British broadcasters instead of Bob Costas! They also tend to focus more on the British atheletes but we still have been able to see the compete! We're watching the USA play China in basketball right now but Chad runined it and just saw the results online! Oh well! It's still fun to see basketball on our TV - it's not a common occurence!

Otherwise, things are going well for us. We have visitors arriving in a week and a half - our friends Ben and Lindsey are coming! They are going to spend some time with us in London and we're then we're headed down to Southern France for 5 days. I know - how posh! We are looking forward to it!

Have a good Sunday afternoon! Talk to you soon!

Scandanavian Tour 2008!

Hi blog readers! We've had a exciting past few weeks with our "American Turistas" to use the words of my father! We had such a great time with pops and Trisha and did a good job of seeing a lot of Norway and Sweden and sharing a little bit of our London life!

Just to give you the gist of their trip, they arrived during the week and we left for a 9 day trip to Scandinavia and spent time in Bergen, Voss, Flam and Oslo in Norway and then finished up with a 2 day tour of Stockholm, Sweden. It took a lot of coordination and planning (thanks pops!!) and it was just a wonderful and relaxing trip! It was the first time that Trisha, Chad and I had been to either country. My dad had been to Norway quite a few years ago when he was at the Naval Academy and spent a summer on a Norwegian torpedo boat in an exchange program - so it was fun for him to see things again!

So I'll explain some of the best photos and try not to bore you with all the details!

Here we are on day 1 in Bergen, which is on the west coast of Norway and the second largest city in Norway. We took a trip up to a lookout over the city called Floyen on a Funicular and enjoyed the sights despite the rainy weather. The city is located on a harbor and there are boats everywhere you turn from cruise ships to fishing boats to sailing ships. Oh, and therefore, lots of fish and seafood to be eaten!

Here is a building at Floyen where we took a rest and had a snack and I just loved the Norwegian flags!

Here is a photo back in the city of an area called Bryggen, which is a historic area of the city that lines the fjord coming into the city.

Crazy enough - we found a KPMG office (I think!) on our walk back to our hotel that was outside the main city area! How funny is the building? It was right on the water and looked like it could use a little work! I had to get my picture in front of it of course!

So here is our first photo of a fjord cruise. There are a bunch of fjords near Bergen. Fjords are basically inlets that have steep sides (mountains) which have been formed by glaciers. They are just beautiful! There were little towns along the two fjords we visited and things to do and see along the way. It's a great way to see the country and experience nature!

Another pic from the boat on Hardanger Fjord.

There are waterfalls all over Norway - it was amazing and I've dubbed it the "land of waterfalls"! I have tons of photos of them but this is the first big one we saw called Voringfossen. We took a hike up to one later on in the trip, but this one was nice because we got dropped off on a bus and got a great view!

Just a cool photo of a decorative anchor and the sunset that I took our last evening in Bergen.

Another one of the sunset in Bergen. The great thing about this is that we took it at about 10:30pm. We weren't far enough north to be in the land of the midnight sun, but it got pretty close!

So after leaving Bergen, we headed a little bit north to visit some of the towns on the Sognefjord. We spent a night in a little town called Voss and learned that it was the hometown of Knute Rockne, famous for his role as head coach of Notre Dame. Here are the football fans posing with the bronze sculpture across from our hotel!

View of a boat similar to the one we were on cruising around the fjords!

View from the boat we were on cruising around the fjords!

Cute little town 0n the fjord on or way to the next town we stayed in, Flam.

Flowers and the surrounding hills around Flam.

The cruises we took on the fjords were through a company called Norway in a Nutshell - so here we are posing in front of a nutshell sign!

Enjoying lunch outside at Furokoa - we just loved the name!

On the train up the Flambama.

Here we are in Oslo in front of a fountain at Vigeland park, which was beautiful!

Sculptures in Vigeland park.

So my dad's maternal grandparents both immigrated to the US from Norway and we still have distant relatives there. We met up with his second cousin, Kari Lille and her husband Sven for dinner one night is Oslo! My dad had met them when he was in Norway a long time ago. They were so nice and it was fun for me to meet them!

Here are Trisha and Kari Lille!

The crew and the bags outside the hotel in Oslo waiting for the taxi.

In the old town in Stockholm.

Sunset in Stockholm. The city was neat because it's a series of islands!

Pretty flowers in Stockholm!

Chad hanging out in the lobby of Hotel Rival in Stockholm. The hotel is owned by a former member of ABBA, Benny Andersson. It was pretty cool and they had CD players in each room with CD's, including ABBA of course! I couldn't get Dancing Queen out of my head for days!!

At the Old Bank of England on Dad and Trisha's last day in London.

So that's that! We had a wonderful time with our visitors and the chance to see new places! Hope that all is well with you and yours!

xoxox, Kari and Chad

Gotta love the weekend!

Hi all!

Not much going on these days but thought that I would blog for blogs sake.  We had a nice weekend relaxing and getting a few things done.  We have our first summer visitors arriving this week - dad and Trisha arrive on Wednesday!  We are excited to see them and show them our life in London before we head out to Norway and Sweden on Friday!  It should be a great trip!

Chad headed out today to Switzerland for work until Wednesday and got to fit in a few sights in Zurich this afternoon.  I kept busy cleaning the flat and spent some time walking around the park because it was really nice outside.  I have to admit that it was a nice and boring weekend, which is always nice.  We've got a few busy months ahead so we are enjoying every quiet moment!

Ta ta for now!  Kari