Frozen Turkey Reminder, and a Trip

Did you have a good weekend? Mine went extremely fast, although I did manage to organize my garage quite a bit. I can hardly believe that we are only ten days away from Thanksgiving. 

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I wanted to give you a suggestion on what to do with your frozen turkey. Many supermarkets reward their customers with a free frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. If you are going to eat yours....you can skip to the bottom of this post. 

However, if you will not be using your free turkey then please consider donating it to your local food bank. This time of year, our local schools have a food drive and some of the items they ask for are the frozen turkeys that many people will not be using. A turkey can feed a lot of hungry people. It would be a shame to let the supermarket keep it. After all, their prices are high enough and you have earned it. 

#FeedTheWorld

Since this is the travel season, Sandy from You May Be Wandering is having a travel linking party. She has invited everyone to share anything travel related. 

I'm sharing my trip to London.

Come on over and share your travel stories, ideas, or dreams.

 

Back From London

How is everyone in blogland? I am happy to be back and I can't wait to get caught up with all of you. While I was taking a blog break, we went to London. You Instagram followers already know this. It was five days of nonstop sightseeing and eating. We could have used five more days to see everything on our list.
Here are some of the things we did.
The House of Parliament & Big Ben

Tower of London.

The Crown Jewels.

Inside the Tower gates I became obsessed with these private dwellings.

This lantern is amazing, and I may need to paint one this color.

The Tower Bridge.

Apparently, seeing the bridge open is quite rare....and now we've all seen it.

Buckingham Palace....the Queen was not in residence, hence the Union flag on top of the palace (that you cannot see in this photo).

 The British Museum.

Warhol

St. Paul's Cathedral.

Westminster Abbey.

My family went on the London Needle....while I had tea. 

It hangs over the water and takes about 45 minutes to make a full circle....not my cup of tea.

By far the highlight of the trip was going to Wimbledon. Fifteen years ago, I was supposed to attend...but I was having a baby instead :).

I was shocked by the size of the park....it's huge! Everywhere you looked there were purple and white flowers. We were there on the Women's Quarter Finals day.

People wait in line for hours just to get admitted into the park. If you don't have reserved tickets for specific matches, you can watch the matches on a large screen.

Or, you can pop in and out of non-reserved matches where you can watch up and coming players....that a certain fifteen year old thinks are hot.

We had tickets for court 1...that's not the one you see on television with the retractable roof. We were supposed to see Serena Williams but she was knocked out before the quarter's. So, we watched Lisicki vs. Kanepi. In case you didn't follow it, Lisicki went on the finals. 

And then we were able to sit in Center Court. That's the famous one with the retractable roof and Roayal Box Seats. The locals told us that Kate was not coming this year....for obvious reasons, but her sister, Pippa, came a few times as well as Camilla.

The match was Kvitova vs. Flipkens.

It was an amazing match that ran longer than expected....and nobody left. In the end, Flipkens won.

Back on Court 1 there was an exhibition match between the McEnroe brother's (as in John) and McNamara with McNamee. John behaved himself and they were fun to watch.

Lots of joking and playing around. Their love of the sport was obvious.

I'll leave you with one of the many pictures I have of photo bombers. I'm sure they are still trying to figure out the audio tour. I don't think the Sphinx is going anywhere.

Today,  I start my summer schedule. I have a shorter 'work' day than when school was in.....camp drop offs and pickups (no they don't sleep away...they are never leaving me) in two different directions an hour apart. Fun stuff! I am also attacking my 'hit list' for staging my home. I guess I'll spend a week making the list, first.
I know that summer is a slower time for blogging, but I don't think that will be the case for me. So if you are on the net, pop on by....I'll probably have something up that we can chat about.
Now, what did I miss? What have you been doing for the last week?

We're Moving!

Knock me over, looks like we will be moving....again! Apparently, the thing that brought us here...my husband's job....is the same thing that will be relocating us to Florida.
The West Coast area near Naples.
Here is my story in arrows...I moved to San Francisco to be with my husband. His job took us to London and then New Jersey. We thought we would be here until retirement. 
You know what they say when you make plans.

We have one year to eighteen months before we relocate. I'm happy about that because it will take a year to finish this home and stage it to perfection! I also know nothing about the West Coast of Florida. 
I am going to miss my amazing friends. I have the most supportive and loving friends a girl could ask for. Hopefully Florida in the winter will be on their destination list.
I am also going to miss my beautiful home. I love this home and have tweaked every inch of it. I will definitely need a "new project" home to replace this one. Regardless of what the other three people who live with me think.
I will not miss this

Everyone who knows me is aware of how much I hate the winters....except for my dad. He thinks they don't bother me ?!@&

Here's where you come in. I need your help.

What do you know about this area?

For the moment, let's leave the school system out of it. Assuming my kids go to private school, where do I want to live? Where would you live?
Do you know any Florida bloggers? 

London Calling

Fourteen years ago, we lived here, Richmond upon Thames.

Everyday, I would walk all around London. I did not have a car for this half of our experience. Quite often, I would hop on the Underground

It all seems so funny now, but at the time this was my everyday life. The streets I walked looked like this

Via

Via

A woman I met, another American living abroad, introduced me to a beautiful line of unique fragrances (remember this was 1997). They eventually found their way to the states

I shopped for groceries (every 3 days) here

If I was looking for somthing amazing, I would go here

Downstairs is famous for its display of culinary cuisine from around the world

Our daughter was born here

At the Princess Margaret Hospital in Windsor England (by this time, we moved to the burbs). After we returned to the US, our son was born. She is an American Citizen who cannot be President of the United States....and we are not sad about that one bit!

Recently, my husband was asked if we would consider going back....that's it....no major meetings, just something to ponder with "the family". Well, MY BAGS WERE PACKED!! I found schools for the kids, inquired with a close friend about the home rental market in our town, I even thought of a name for my new blog......can you see where this is going? We are not going. Due to "I have no idea what happened", we are staying here.

So, I'm going to continue on with my home goals and see if my friend Lisa would consider giving me her blog title. Do you like change? Does the thought of moving excite or scare you?