Big day!

(written on May 3rd)
we've had a great time so far in London! first of all though, i have an announcement... ASHER WALKED TODAY!!! =0 we knew he was so close to walking so we kind of didn't push it so that he could take his first step in London. He's had a couple of really rough days because he's teething, but after an especially long day, he took his first steps in Scott and Maggie's flat! he kind of pivoted first and we weren't prepared with the camera so we had to wait so we could get out the cameras. he took a few more steps and then practically collapsed because he was so tired (not from the few steps, but from a very long day.). that being said, let's find out why he was so tired...
well, our trip didn't exactly start out well. jeff had set his alarm for 6:15 pm instead of 6:15 am, so luckily he woke up at 6:40 or we wouldn't have made the flight! jeff's brother trevor took us to the airport and since we hadn't left when we'd planned, we hit a bit of traffic, but not much. we had trevor drop us off at the international terminal... well, little did we know that you can't check in at that terminal, so we had to run back to terminal 2 to check in. so i limped on over and we tried to check in at the kiosk, but we couldn't because we had an infant in arms. so we rushed up to have someone check us in... mind you we had less than 45 minutes before our flight left. the clerk was all put out, but got us checked in. jeff suggested that i should go back over to the intl. terminal and stand in line. so i hobbled back over quickly and just as i was walking in the door, jeff called and told me that the clerk needed the tickets to finish up... yep, you guessed it, i had the tickets. so i ran back and gave them the tickets then we all ran back to the intl. terminal. we had 1/2 hour now! jeff told the security guard our problem and he pretty much said "too bad, so sad." so jeff made an announcement to everyone in line that we were totally late and asked if anyone had a problem with us cutting in line. everyone told us to go ahead so we butted in and got through security. we were at the last gate in the terminal and made it just in time. pessimist jeff said, "90% chance our bags won't make it on the plane." jeff! think positively! we had to shuffle seats with some people so that we could sit together, but they were nice so we had aisle seats across from each other... in the last row of the entire plane! oh well, we made it and we took a deep breath and tried to relax. asher was great. he slept for a while and was fine the rest of the time. we flew into newark and switched terminals, went through security... again, and went to eat in the food court. we had lasagna and the guy at sbarro was really nice and gave us a plate of spaghetti for asher at no charge! we ate and headed back to our gate. there was an open area with no seats for asher to crawl around (i know... gross, but he needed to move and we washed his hands afterward!), so we let him play for a little while. we loaded up had great seats on this flight. people were nice again and moved so that we could have 3 seats together. we were told by the pilot that we'd be off shortly because they were still loading luggage into the plane. then a few minutes later he informed us that there was an emergency situation on an incoming flight so we'd be a little later. then he told us that we could finally start taxiing, but that it would be 45-60 minutes before we could take off... are you kidding me!? once we took off the flight started out okay, but oh my, it went downhill! asher struggled getting to sleep and he'd scream, so we'd let him play some more so that he'd stop crying, but we'd have to do it all over later. finally, i gave up in frustration. jeff stepped in (what an AWESOME daddy!) and took him into the lavatory to let him scream it out and he finally wore himself out. he slept for a few hours until we landed and dozed in our arms until passport control. he was fine after that... for a while. we got on the gatwick express to victoria station where we planned on meeting scott. i didn't know if he'd gotten my text and my cell phone doesn't work over here, so we wandered around trying to find scott. we didn't see him anywhere and we debated asking someone to borrow their phone to call him. i went to a payphone and was trying to figure it out when scott showed up. yea!
we headed to scott's on the tube and were delighted to have 2 more hands to help with luggage. we made it and were relieved to be there. we hung out with scott, maggie, marli, lisa, and pedro (who had flown in the day before). maggie fed us yummy food and we hung around for a while chatting. jeff got asher to sleep and lisa, pedro, maggie and scott went to the market while jeff and i crashed! asher woke up screaming and had a hard time getting back to sleep, but jeff is a great daddy and took care of him. he had a pretty bad fever (stupid teething!), but slept for a little while longer. when we woke up, we all got ready and went to the London Eye. We walked up out of the tube station and Lisa told me to look up and whoa! there was Big Ben! it took me by surprise and it was really cool. we walked over the bridge and looked at all of the cool buildings... we're in London!!! very cool! the Eye is really cool because you can see so much. Asher really enjoyed being able to walk around in the pod and loved looking down. the pictures are funny because you can't tell that the glass is there so it looks like he's just standing at the edge of a platform or something. he's so cool! anyway, after the Eye we took photos on the bridge and walked over to Westminster Abbey and then on to Victoria Station... long walk! but it was a really nice night and we had fun seeing the city.
ok, i'll end this one and start a new one for the next day. i'm a few days behind! love to all, MK