11 months

Gavin is 11 months old today! Here are a few photos from the last month. (I just noticed he's wearing white in a lot of these photos. It's not because they were taken on the same day--maybe he's just really photogenic in white.)

Hampton Court Palace

Saturday we visited Hampton Court Palace in the greater London area (on the Thames River), and it was beautiful. It was the main residence of Henry VIII, so lots of craziness with his spousal situations happened there. It also features additions by William and Mary and other monarchs but hasn't been occupied since George II. It was first opened to the public under Queen Victoria. The above photo shows the fountain that flowed with wine during Henry VIII's time.

The palace features the last medieval great hall built for the monarchy (below). I don't think I got a great photo of the incredible ceiling. The stained glass is beautiful too.

Hampton Court is also famous as the site where the King James translation of the Bible was commissioned in 1604. We saw a first edition of the King James Version in the chapel there.

Also pictured: the fountain courtyard (x2); the throne; Jacob and Gavin in the maze; the astronomical clock; and the impressive staircase mural by Antonio Verrio.

And one last photo of us being silly. :)

Chelsea

We had an amazing night last night at a Chelsea football match. If you're not familiar, Chelsea is one of the top English football teams. Last night's game was a Champion's League match against a Belgian team, KRC Genk.

I love the comment on my ticket about persistent standing. The below photo shows how great our seats were.

We went with friends Becky and Mike; Kim and Shawn (next photo); and Mel and one of his friends.

There were flags on every other seat, meant to be waved in support of good plays. You can see Becky with hers in the above photo. Below is a shout-out to Chelsea's team captain (who didn't play last night) John Terry. There was another banner that said "JT Captain, Leader, Legend." Chelsea won the match 5-0, so we got to see lots of great scoring. It was tons of fun!

Uncle Superstar

Our brother-in-law Adam is in England for his MBA, and we got to spend a couple of days with him (with more to come later this week). He has all of his nieces and nephews call him "Uncle Superstar." :) Now that he's met Adam, Gavin has met all of his cousins, aunts and uncles.

We went to nearby Bury St Edmunds where we go often, but the sunshine was something we don't often get. So here a couple of photos, one inside the cathedral and one of the cauliflower at the market.

Trip food (of course)

If you've been following our travels long, you'll have realized we basically travel for the food, and our recent trip to Vienna and Bratislava was no exception. Due to its recurrence in our travels, I'm creating a new tag specifically for Schweinehaxe, the slow-cooked pork knuckle. The one we had in Bratislava was the biggest we've ever seen, and the massive plank of wood it came on (below) was pretty amazing too.We had to try the famous Sachertorte while we were in Vienna. It's an incredibly rich chocolate cake with apricot filling, covered with a very dark (incredible) chocolate icing.

Unfortunately Gavin managed to eat an entire dark chocolate disk. He stuffed the whole thing in his mouth all at once and wouldn't give any of it up. He's a dark chocolate fan, for sure. (Little Michaela--also a fan.)Jacob bought this little square of ice cream that was labeled as Russian ice cream. It tasted like thick cream that had been frozen onto little wafers. Very delicious. Again, Gavin agreed.Other things we ate: Austrian blood sausage (Blunzengröstl); boiled beef (Tafelspitz); and several pieces of Apfelstrudel. We watched a strudel-making demonstration that was lots of fun. I didn't have a chance to get photos, but here's one of a little strawberry pastry we ate in Vienna.

Bratislava, Slovakia

We visited Bratislava and Vienna, the two world capitals closest together (40 miles). We could definitely see the more Eastern European (and Soviet) influences in Bratislava. It was a fun and interesting place to visit. Above, we're in front of the Grassalkovich Palace where the president of Slovakia lives. We arrived just as a changing of the guard ceremony was taking place, which was fun.We loved the Blue Church (Church of St. Elisabeth). It's unique-looking, like something from a cartoon. Jacob said he thought it looked edible, and it totally does look like it's covered in fondant. As usual, the photos don't do justice to the experience of walking around the corner and seeing this very blue church (the dreary day doesn't help the photos either).
We hiked up to the Bratislava Castle and just enjoyed meandering through the old city.(Some of the trams, like the one above, are very Soviet-looking to me.)

I just had to include this photo of Gavin and Michaela on the train between Vienna and Bratislava. They were so cute together.