Something to look forward to

Ian and I booked our next trip.  We have a wedding in England on December 19th and decided to make a trip of it.  I don't really think there will be as much exploring and sightseeing as I would like because Ian has a lot of family we have to catch up with.  Ian's parents are also going, and Ian's brother will be meeting us there (he lives in France).  We'll be visiting both of his nan's and seeing all of his cousins, along with many family friends.  I'm super excited but also slightly nervous to meet all of these people all at once, being the only American among them.

We were originally going to come home before Christmas so we could be home for the holiday and see my family.  But we decided we probably won't want to do Christmas in England after we have kids, so we should take advantage of it while we can.  We also do not go to England, and the opportunity for our flights to be taken care of by Ian's parents, so we decided to come home after Christmas.

Ian's family has already started with the "oh we can do this all together, and let's go here all together."  Ian's brother even suggested that he will be stealing him from me for the majority of the trip.  I had to QUICKLY put a squash on some of those ideas.  Don't get me wrong - we are going there to visit his family and I so look forward to finally spending more than a few hours with them.  But we will be there 9 days.  9 days of family time.  We will be staying at various family member's houses (possibly in twin beds for part of it), with all of his other family members there as well.  I love his family, but 9 full days together - but being with my family for that many days without any alone time with Ian would drive me crazy.  So I quickly suggested demanded that we have 1-2 days to go explore without his family with us.  And I don't mean we'll go and spend 2 full days at a hotel.  I mean we'll still spend dinners with his family, but take the day time to go explore London, visit where Ian grew up, and see other places.  For my sanity, I need some time away to just be with my hubby.  I think we'll be going on lots of walks to have some quiet time from the madness (read: drinking fest) that I'm sure will occur.  After all, this is my vacation and Christmas too!

I have only been to London twice - the first time was for a long weekend while I was studying abroad in Spain, and the second was on our way home from our honeymoon in Greece and we stayed a total of 12 hours.  But I am not sure if Ian has really ever done the touristy thing there, so it'll be fun for us to do that together.

Once we figure out the details in terms of whose house we'll be staying at, Ian and I will schedule in the two days we're spending just the two of us.  But I also have to start planning Christmas gifts.  I'll have to take them with us I think, which will make packing interesting a disaster.  And it also means that we will likely have to get some little presents for extended family - people we don't really know that well and normally don't get presents for.  This will be interesting.  What the hell have I gotten myself into?