ENGLAND....

What an amazing trip!!

Cody turned the big 3-0 this year. I wanted to do something special for him because he always does way amazing trips and gifts for my birthdays. Cody loves soccer and is an avid fan of Liverpool--a team in England. We have 'dream lists' that we talk about and one of his dreams was to go watch his team play at their home stadium. I took it upon myself to go ahead and make this happen for his birthday.

I decided to try and pull this off as a surprise--pretty daring for me. I put this plan in motion over a year before his 30th. Trying to plan this trip was almost the death of me...and Cody. Smuggling money from my husband isn't very easy or fun! I can't count (or want to remember) all of the fights we had about my 'excessive' spending when really I was just stashing the money away. The trip planning was so stressful, but ultimately was such a great thing. The actual trip was spectacular.

We were able to scalp tickets to 3 games while we were there. Getting the tickets was an experience in itself. The first game we went to was Chelsea vs. Arsenal at Wembley Stadium. I think it seats 90,000 or so and all of the seats were full. We had pretty cruddy seats but the atmosphere made up for it all! We sat in the Chelsea end--the fans are actually separated in the stadium--they can't sit together and we found out why. They even had police officers on horses separating the fans walking into and out of the stadium. These soccer fan are NUTS! There wasn't a minute during the game that the fans weren't cheering or chanting. Cody or I wasn't routing for either team but we sat with Chelsea fans. Cody was wearing the wrong color and stuck out like a sore thumb. Arsenal scored and the Chelsea fans went crazy. Then one idiot Arsenal fan (who had obviously scalped tickets for the wrong end) stood up and cheered. The Chelsea fans started throwing things at him and yelling profanities. They didn't stop though--they kept going until they police had to come get the guy and throw him out. As he was getting pulled out people were jumping into the aisles to hit him! A guy right in front of us ran out of his aisle and spit on the guy! It doesn't stop there though--after the idiot fan was kicked out, some other Chelsea fans started pushing each other around. Why you ask? Because they were mad that one of them didn't hit the Arsenal fan as he walked out! It was awesome!

This picture pretty much shows it all--the huge stadium that's completely filled, the terrible seats we had (if you look really close you can see the players on the field), and the crazy fans. They guy on the left is the one who ran out of the aisle, knocked another fan down on his way, took a few swings at the Arsenal fan (never connected), and then spat on him as he went through the tunnel!

I love this picture, too. If you look at the upper right hand corner you can see the stadium in the distance. I took this picture as we were walking up the steps to the tube platform. You can see that the fans are still separated at this point by the police on horses. You can see that one side is blue and the other is red.

The next game we went to was Liverpool vs. Arsenal. This was the reason I took Cody on this trip--to see his team play on their home field. We had to stand outside the field and try and scalp tickets. It wasn't looking too good for us--we both weren't wanting to get arrested in a foreign country. Cody decided to walk around the stadium to try and find somebody selling tickets. He was gone for a while and I had pretty much given up hope that Cody was going to get to complete his dream. Cody eventually returned and acted like he had no luck...until he pulled out two tickets in the Kop end--the Liverpool intense fan end! Here is a picture of Cody looking like he just won the lottery.

It turned out that we probably saw the game of the season--it ended 4-4. We had amazing seats and saw a ton of goals. Here are some pictures to of this game. My picture taking was not great because we spent most of the game jumping up and down and cheering with the fans! The first picture is of a corner kick--we were that close!

The last game we went to was Manchester United vs. Portsmouth. Manchester is my team with my favorite player! We had decent seats right at midfield. I was able to see Cristiano Ronaldo play. It's a good thing I saw him play this year at Man U because he moved teams! Here is a picture of him...I didn't get as close to him as I would have liked :)


So, we did see some other sights, just not too many! The first day we got there we went to see the popular sights in the POURING RAIN. I gotta say, it was pretty miserable. BUT, we did see

Buckingham Palace....

The London Eye...and Big Ben...Well, that's about it for the England trip! Not really, but it's enough for now I guess!

Easter

This year for Easter we went to Ephrata and spent time with Corki. Cooper was absolutely rotten at church (as usual), but was in a great mood when he was able to hunt Easter eggs. I wasn't sure how well he would do hunting so I put most of the eggs (plastic, because I didn't have much faith that real ones would last) in very visible locations...It didn't take him much time to find them all. He even found the egg in the tree and with Daddy's help was able to capture it! The Easter Bunny brought a TON of candy with him this year... It's a good thing I have a classroom full of students that are willing to help me eat all of it!