WARNING: LOOONG POST!!!

Ok obviously I am behind on things. We have been home for over a month now from our trip to England, and we went on a cruise! So, stages....1st up is the England trip!! Yeah! I had over 900 pictures, but a picture is worth 1000 words so I had to post quite a few!!

We arrived on a Sunday morning, not too jet-lagged because Bella slept most of the way so we got rest too. (thank you gravol.) On Monday my mom sent Mason and I on the train to London (we were staying 30 mins out of London in a town called Guildford) for the day and night. It was her Christmas present to us, and she watched Bella for us! So we got to do some serious sight seeing sans needy toddler, and it was amazing! We went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London, got to stay in a downtown London hotel and we saw Phantom!! It was truly an unbelievable experience, the theatre was fabulous and we felt like 2 little London-ers by the end of the next day!

Mase and Shrek at the wax museum!

Audrey & I...love her....too bad my arms are 3X the size of hers!! she was tiny!!

At the top of St. Paul's....it was incredible, I wish I could've taken pictures inside, and then by the time we left it was seriously snowing and I couldn't take pictures of the outside!! We took like a 2 hour tour of it, and it was so informative and impressive, loved it.

At Her Majesty's Royal Theatre, to see Phantom! Absolutely incredible, best show of my life! Again, due to heavy wet snow I couldn't take pictures outside! So sad! And no pictures in the theatre, I took my camera out and then someone behind me was reprimanded for taking a photo...so I took one quick one of the stage and put it back!! :)

Mason at Tower of London....the smallest doorways ever! Those Brits were small...if ya know what i mean!!

Me at Tower of London with Tower Bridge behind me...I love all the architecture, so neat!

Me at Tower of London

Tower of London body armour....hilarious, I couldn't even stand it! These were EVERYWHERE, they sure liked to brag back then!!! Haha!!!

My mom's pink tree! Loved it!

Train set for Bella!

spoiled little girl!!

Christmas Eve we flew to one of the Canary Islands (off the coast off Spain, close to Morocco) called Lanzarote for 6 days. It was so much fun! Not too hot, and so not too crowded, we saw and did so much stuff! The beach was wonderful, Bella loved the ocean!

Bella on Christmas morning, in Lanzarote. We gave her presents before hand, but I had to have her open something Christmas morning! So she opened a puzzle, a pony and a magnetic dress up doll!

Christmas brunch! Right by the beach!

Santa playing music on the beach! Loved this guy!!

Our days on the beach were spent alternating fetching water for Bella! By the end of the trip however she was right in the water with us, she LOVED it!

Christmas "dinner"!!

Exhausted after our day at the beach!

Our view from our apartment

Getting water!!

My lil Diva!! All dressed up for our island tour!!

Such a cool island - all volcanic rock landscape

On our tour of the island

Cool volcanic rock...it was beautiful!

My loves

Birthday dinner for Bella!

Happy 2nd Bday to my angel baby!! Can't believe I have a toddler!!!

I heart palm trees!!

My lil bugaboo

Our "sandcastle"!! A little sad, but Bella liked it!!

I could add a billion more pictures! But this post is long enough!! We had so much fun in Lanzarote, and when we arrived back in London town on New Year's Eve we still had a few more days left with my mom. We went into London a couple more times, shopped at Covenant Gardens (probably my most fave place in London, it is AMAZING...picture cobblestone streets, street performers, the Royal Opera House, and the neatest markets ever!), ate at fantastic restaurants (one of which was in an old theatre, with little box seats and everything and they had live performers in amongst the diners!), and of course did some damage at all the High Street shops!! We went to Hammleys (this HUGE toy store), Zara (3 floors of awesomeness baby!), Mango (kinda like Zara, 4 floors though!) and a few other fun stores. I love it, it was shopping heaven! We were sad to leave, but glad to come home after so long. Oh, yeah, coming home was quite the ordeal too....basically all of Britain shut down because of 2 inches of snow, so we got stuck sleeping in the airport one night! Bella was a trooper though, and my sweet hubs kept me happy with Starbucks peppermint hot chocolate so we got through it!! That about does it, thanks for reading this ridiculously long post! Next up: the cruise!!