Jet Lag

Happy 4th of July!

Luvy and I have been walking zombies for the past couple of days.  Our lack of sleep and travels has left us extremely exhausted.  By the time this posts (I preset it to post..gotta love wordpress!), I hopefully will be fast asleep in my cozy bed while the rest of the country is shooting off fireworks.

We finally made it home, as you can see!  Second time is the charm!!

We were at the airport and our plane left at 3am EST.  We landed in DC around lunch time, and enjoyed a nice 5 hour layover there.  Booger.  Lucky for us, Dulles Airport has free WIFI!!  Luvy hit the books as much as he could while we were in limbo.

After DC, we flew to Chicago and had a nice 3 hour layover there!  After that, it was finally home sweet home!!

We don’t look tired at all do we?!?!

Thankfully, we were able to be in bed by midnight!!

Luvy had to be up bright and early for church.  I was bad and ended up sleeping through church, but I made it to Sunday School.

While we were gone, our garden grew like crazy!!  It had to be picked.

I got 2 huge bags of kale, several radishes, and turnips plus turnip greens.

Plus, our first zucchini came in!

I knew for dinner I wanted to make a nutrient rich dish to help fight off our jet lag.  Plus, I wanted to use some of my veggies from our garden!

Jet Lag Soup

• 1 onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, diced
• 2-3 small turnips (or one large), diced
• 4 stalks celery, diced
• 1 can diced tomatoes (or 3 fresh chopped!)
• 1 med/large zucchini, chopped in chunks
• 1 can white beans, drained and rinsed (I used pinto b/c I was all I had)
• 1/2 cup small pasta or 1/4 cup bulgar wheat (I used bulgar wheat)
• fresh kale
• 5-6 cups veggie broth
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp parsley, oregano, and thyme
• salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

Start out by sautéing onion, garlic, turnips, and celery in a skillet until softened.

Bring veggie broth to a boil.  Add in veggies, beans, tomatoes, seasonings, and noodles or bulgar wheat.  Let simmer for 10 minutes.

Add in zucchini and cook for anther 10-15 minutes.

Add in kale. I used about 3-4 cups.  I was very generous with it, plus I had a lot to use!  Feel free to add in as much as you would like.  You may also need to adjust the broth some here as well.  Feel free to add extra broth or water.

Cook until kale is wilted down and tender.  Adjust seasonings as needed.  I like ours spicy, so I was generous with the red pepper flakes.

This soup was just what the doctor ordered for our jet lag!!

I’m back to work tomorrow, and Luvy is busy with PhD classes and work.  Doesn’t look like we have anymore time to recover from our trip.  We are just going to have to hit the ground running!!

Hope you all have had a safe and happy 4th of July!!

There’s Something About Brittany

It’s official.  You shouldn’t travel with me.

Odd things happen to me that don’t happen to anyone else!  I have lost luggage a lot, but today I took my bad travel karma to a whole new level.

Things started out a little hairy last night when we realized the souvenir I bought was crushed along with my new oatmeal mug!  :(

Last night, Luvy and I stayed up late with Dean and Kris drinking coffee and hanging out.  We weren’t too worried about how much sleep we got, because we were planning on sleeping on the plane.  Plus, we had an extra 5 hours tacked onto our day since we were headed west….. at least that was what we thought!

We headed to Heathrow at 5:30 this morning.  When we met at the church at 5:20, the boys were still asleep!!  They threw their stuff in bags and went with bed head!

Heathrow was nuts this morning.  After waiting for about 45 minutes and never moving, we realized our flight had been CANCELLED!  

We waited in line for 4 HOURS to get up to the counter.  They had rebooked us for a Sunday flight out!!  After working with the airline for over an hour, we got rebooked coming through DC to Nashville for tomorrow night.  We wouldn’t be getting back to Louisville until 3am.  Certainly not ideal, but we will take it.

This was NOT good.  Luvy has PhD stuff going on and has to get back.  Plus, we all need to get back so that we can adjust back to EST in order to function at work come Tuesday.  Lost baggage now seems like an easy fix.  The team decided that they will never travel with me again!  John joked about booking a separate flight for me next time!  :)

The airline did give us vouchers to eat breakfast in the airport!  I got a traditional vegetarian English breakfast.

At this point we were happy to have food.  Plus we were super excited to know that the airline was going to put us up in a hotel.  We needed rid of our terrible bed heads!

They gave us passes for the shuttle bus that would take us to our hotel.  We waited over an HOUR for the bus.  We have no idea what took so long.  It is supposed to run every 15 minutes!!  I think it got lost!  Of course, the team ragged me about that as well.  First I made a plane disappear, and now a bus!

After spending 7 hours in the airport, we made it to our hotel.  It is so nice!  It may be the nicest hotel I have ever stayed at.  

The bathrooms even have towel heaters.  I need one of those at home!

The hotel fed us lunch and dinner.  They even made me 2 special meals to make certain there was no dairy or cross contamination. The food was outstanding!

After dinner, Luvy got hard at work looking for another route home.  United ended up switching our flights!  We now have a 3 legged flight, but we are flying into Louisville!  Plus, we get in at 11pm instead of 3am!  Major improvement.

However, we now have a 5hr layover in DC and a 3hr layover in Chicago.

So who wants to be my next travel buddy??

Taking Country to London

Today was a work morning then a playful afternoon!

We finished up the pastor’s study, the hardwood floor in the apartment, and made a good dent on fixing the ceiling.  We did get the roof patched though!!  It rained on it twice now and no leaks!  WOO-HOO!

For lunch, Luvy and I walked down to 222 Veggie Vegan Restaurant on North End Road to pick me up some lunch.  For lunch, they have a buffet.  It was amazing!!  I’m so glad to have tried it.

While I was out this morning, I enjoyed my last fresh juice from Dolce and Banana and picked up a flower for Dot.  Dot is the sweet lady who has housed Luvy and I for the week.

She is the longest serving member at Twynholm Baptist Church. She has been so sweet!

After lunch, we set out to be tourist!  The bus ride took way longer than expected.  For future reference, take the tube!

Once we got downtown, we headed to Buckingham Palace.

I think we make Buckingham Palace look just as good as William and Kate, if not better!  ;)

We of course had to get a group shot!  (minus Eva–Miss you!)

You can take the kids out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the kids.  Nathan took up chasing the pigeons while we were out!

Next up, we found Big Ben.  It rang 6pm right when we got there!

I thought this was a pretty shot with London Eye in the background.

Being us country folk again, we couldn’t pass up cramming our entire team in a phone booth.

Classy.

After seeing the beautiful Abby, we headed across the bridge.

I am loving traveling with others, because Luvy and I can actually get pictures together!!

We had fun being “tourist” for an afternoon.  Of course, we didn’t have time to see everything, but that is motive to come back!!

Hopefully, we will be bringing all of you back with us at some point!!  You had better get your passports ready!

Just in case you were wondering, we took the tube home!

Our plane leaves at 7:45am here (2:45EST) and lands in Chicago at 10 something.  That would be 11 EST.  We are all trying to stay awake as long as possible tonight so it isn’t so hard on our bodies to adjust to the new time.  We have all just gotten used to London time, and now it is time to leave!  I don’t think I would ever get used to the sun rising at 4:30am every morning no matter how long I’m here!!  It is crazy!

See you all back in the States!