Russellsphere

This is my favorite car ever; and this one is personalized to my tastes.

0-60 in 4.7 seconds
Top Speed: 190 MPH
Price: Cheap – > $170,000 – thats NOTHING

This particular model has speakers that raise up and down; and name plaque (with my name of course) and a track pad thing that you use to change gears; oh yeah.. I will be purchasing one soon.

Toad has decided to make a life with the Russell’s in their screened in back porch. Toad is a nice Lizard; he is a bit scared of us; but will keep still sometimes – especially when he snuggles nice and safe in his home (a plant we bought) – Toad is a very young Lizard; and two other Lizards hang around too (perhaps Mommy and Daddy) – whatever the case; he is welcome; and I’ve been feeding him steaks when I can.

Click on the pics for bigger versions

On Tuesday we traveled from Manchester to IAD via Heathrow. The LHR experience this time round was better; however we had a fright when we were taxi’ing at Man. They said the flight would be 50 minutes late; putting our connection time at an intense state. However; they changed their mind and took off after 20 minutes; and he went fast.

We saw some sights over London; The London Eye; Buckingham Palace; The Thames; we even saw Wimbledon Tennis courts; it was very call.

We landed at around 7.30pm – everything was good; until we left the luggage area; disaster; we forgot one of our bags. We went to the service desk; and we finally got out of there around 9.45pm.

We then went to our hotel; and it was very nice; very contemporary – on Wednesday we drove down 480 miles from the hotel to our home; took roughly 8.5 hours; we did well. The kids did well; Jenny did well; she is so sick with bronchitis. We all did well.

It is the end of an EPIC VACATION!

We got home late last night after the Wedding; and so got up late . In the mornint we said our farewells to some family members; and waited for Jonathan and Elizabeth to arrive. We went out for a pub lunch; weather wasn’t great; and we came home for extended naps. Tomorrow we travel down to see my grranndmother near Stafford. Mum surpriised the kids with some scooby doo cookies and they were eaten promptly.

Today – with great sadness I report Emily has the stomach bug; been sick all day. So we’ve been going out to local places; shopping ready for the Wedding on Saturday. We also got Harry Ramsdens Fish and Chips; and I took a video of all the England stuff going on at the moment with the World Cup! In the evening time we went to Tesco to get Lauren some Mac and Cheese; and we got a cheap pay as you go cell phone which was really cool. Tomorrow; we have the ‘test run’ of the wedding at the church; so we all know what to do!

Well the trip to England was pretty intense; things started out well with Dulles being pretty good; and the flight from England to Heathrow was quite smooth. It was quicker than usual; which usually means the trip back is quite long!

However things collapsed at Heathrow; we took a wrong turn and went through customs at Terminal 1 – when we needed to transfer direct to our flight from Heathrow to Manchester. We got totally lost; and the locals weren’t particularly friendly. But we got through it; and took off from London and landed in Manchester on time.

Its great seeing Mum and John again; and Mum made us breakfast already; we’ve been taking catnaps already; and the kids are having a great deal of fun with new toys :)

Today we got up and went to McDonalds for breakfast; the kids were in foul moods; they weren’t ready to party – but we had to get through it; and so we did. We went to more family visits (Granddaddy) – and Jenny and I had to fix computers all morning; Jeannes iTunes were stuckulated. We unstuckulated it and sent the bill.

We met at Carlos O Kelleys for lunch; but quickly nipped in downtown to get our first Virginia GEOCACHE! Awesome stuff.

After lunch; we went to Chuckie Cheeses; so the kids could play with their cousin Nathan; and Nathan got over 400 Chuckie Cheese tickets and was able to get half a piece of candy with the $20 worth of tickets.

After that; we went back to base with Grandpa and Grandma; and had some delicious fajitas; and settled down for the evening; this time tomorrow we will be flying high over the Atlantic ocean; so might as well get as much rest as we can; as the trip is gonna suck big time ;-)

To see a continuation of EV Day Three and Four pictures; please click on the following link

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This morning we got up early; because the kids were excited to see GrandPa and GrandMa – at 7AM no less; we stormed the house and had breakfast; we tiddled around a bit; including a quite thrilling ride on an ATV no less – and the hit Walmart and Vinnys for some much needed lunch time food.

When we returned; we checked out Grandpa’s awesome camper; and had yet more food (an amazing beer soaked Chicken) – we also met Kathys sister and husband who were very pleasant.

We got to see some of Fredericksburg; and its amazing how much it has changed; even in 26 months. The shame of it all; is the road infrastructure is still quite weak; and cannot support the additional number of shops – and I mean; A LOT of shops. So it’ll be interesting how they will cope; they certainly are getting the latest stuff here.

Tomorrow we will meet some of my friends from my previous job; and on Monday we get to see Granddaddy and Grammy; its just raining grand parents down here in Virginia. BTW – it is amazingly hot; it is so much more humid up here than it is in Columbia; I think because we have more pine trees and we’re near a massive lake; which generates great wind currents that help it feel like 95 instead of 96.

Click on the following picture to check out what we have got up to today.

EV