A4 Update - April 2016

Being back in America is no where near as fun as last April.  

Matt had the most exciting month. He spent a few days in Paris wooing a fancy schmancy customer, while having pastries near the Louvre.  He said it was a planning meeting. Riiiiight.

Our Spring Break trip to Orlando continued. The Florida sunshine was so nice.

Our living room furniture arrived!  We retired the IKEA chair & John Lewis couch upstairs to the office. We can finally unpack our other decorative pieces now that there's somewhere to put them. Matt's mom is visiting next month so I hope to tap her decorating prowess for ideas.  

Both kiddos had their birthday. Oldest Kiddo wanted to update her room, so she picked out a bedside table and new linens. She also got some new clothes and accessories. Youngest Kiddo is still easy to shop for.  He was thrilled with Lego and books. When did they get so big?

Summer is on it's way, and the neighbors keep telling us to just wait for the summer heat.  We say, BRING IT ON!

A4 Update - October 2015

We changed the clocks back an hour, and now the sun goes down at lunchtime.  You think I'm kidding?

*Holly & Oldest Kiddo took a day trip to Paris.  It might be one of Oldest Kiddo's favorite days of our whole time in Europe.  

*The kids went to various birthday parties.

*Matt & Holly went to a taping of the Graham Norton Show, which is one of our absolute favorites.  

*Matt was gone from London only 8 days during the month.  That's not too bad.  

*The kiddos had a half-term break.  We split our time between seeing the city and movies on the couch in pajamas.  
*Holly saw the incredible Ai Weiwei exhibit at the Royal Academy 

*The kids trick or treated.  Halloween isn't observed by all households, but from the noise on the street past bed time the older kids loved it.  

*Oldest Kiddo continues to love middle school (weird).  She attends different clubs each day after school, such as art, drama, and orchestra.  

*Youngest Kiddo is obsessed with building everything with Lego.  He likes the prepackaged sets, but he's having a blast with creating his own ideas.  

A4 Update - September 2015

Now that a majority of the tourists have left London, the daily touring has resumed!

Oldest Kiddo started secondary school.  She looks quite smart in her new uniform.  I think she might be one of the few kids in the world that actually likes middle school.  She takes the city bus to and from school each day with heavy texting in the morning to coordinate bus times with friends.  Her school goes through high school so there are some really big kids in the lunch line; she was a bit disturbed that several of the boys sported a mustache.

Youngest Kiddo is now in Year 2 (1st grade in the US).  Since his sister leaves earlier, I have about 45 minutes of time with just him in the morning.  He still is not a fan of leaving his toys to catch the bus, but it's certainly less hectic with only one kid to get out the door.

While the weather is still nice we've ventured way out of our end of town.  The first journey was to Crystal Palace to see Waterhouse Hawkins' dinosaurs.  I've had this picture book for years, and I was happy that we could see them.

On another sunny Sunday the kids enjoyed the massive slides at Victoria Park.

Holly took another tour of Buckingham Palace, The Geffrye Museum, and The Ben Franklin House.

The final series of Downton Abbey started!  

Papa's Shadow

Youngest Kiddo and my dad go together like peas and carrots.  The boys are great partners.  Youngest Kiddo is an eager helper, and my dad is a patient teacher.  It's pretty much a guarantee that if you can't find the boy, he's hanging out with my dad.  

When dad works on a project, Youngest Kiddo grabs his tool belt, safety goggles, and speed square.  Dad always gives him a job to do, and Youngest Kiddo takes it very seriously.  The boy is an expert at holding screws and shining the flashlight.  

While dad's garage (aka the laboratory) was being built, Youngest Kiddo had a blast hammering nails into scraps of wood and measuring everything in sight. 

   

When the work is done, the boys have no problem relaxing.

Peas and carrots

A Pause In the Summer Holiday - Touring Tuesday

After a few days in Lisbon, we jumped a quick flight to Barcelona.  Unlike our trip up the hill in Lisbon, we had an easy trip into Barcelona thanks to the airport shuttle.  Our first night was spent at a hotel in downtown Barcelona. 

 The kids were thrilled to swim and have little downtime from all that walking.  It was a bit too chilly for Matt and I to don our swim gear, but the kids did not care.

Like the civilized children they are, they had a quick game of chess before dinner.  

We could already see a difference between Lisbon & Barcelona just from the view in our hotel room.  We had no idea what was waiting for us tomorrow.  

Half Term In London - Touring Tuesday

One thing I really like about British schools is the half-term break.  I suppose I never grew out of the "how many days until the next vacation" countdowns.  Even as a teacher I secretly knew how many days it was until the next day off or better yet week off.  

In Britain the kids get at least a week off during each term (autumn, spring, and summer).  They get almost two weeks off around Easter.  While some of our American friends might be jealous of this time off, you must remember that we only had 41 days of a summer break.  Now, the difficult part of managing this time off is that the entire country has a week off for half term as well.  Hotel and airfare prices reflect this.  Unfair?  Yes, however there is nothing we can do about it.

Matt's work schedule did not allow for him to take time off this half term, so our options were a little different.  I am game for taking my kids on unknown adventures, but I was not interested in navigating a new country & language alone.  So I decided to take the kids on adventures in London.  This October half term was blessed with the most amazing weather.  We debated pulling our or shorts one day, but we resisted.  

Our school decided to tack two institute days on the end of half term so we benefitted from extra days on our break.  All in we had 11 days of togetherness.

Saturday - Youngest Kiddo attended a birthday party for a classmate.  I was happy to attend with him so I could catch up with some of my mum friends from school.  After the party we met Matt & Oldest Kiddo at the mall for some good old 'Merican Five Guys burgers and free flowing Coca-Cola.

Sunday - Our clocks fell back one hour last night so everyone was up and ready to go this morning.  Well after our weekly pain au chocolat that is.  Matt and Oldest Kiddo went out for some together time to Covent Garden while I hung at home with Youngest Kiddo.

Monday - The kids and I ventured far out of our west London confines to the Horniman Museum out in the south east end of town.  I've had this museum on my list for quite some time.  The museum's must see is the over stuffed walrus.  The taxidermist who stuffed the walrus did not know that the species is naturally wrinkly and he filled it to the brim with whatever taxidermists use to stuff animals.  If you did not know that the walrus was overstuffed, it would not really stand out to you, but it was funny to see.  This museum also had an aquarium for an additional small fee.  Besides the walrus, our favorite part of the museum was the gardens.  The Horniman Museum has an edible garden, medicinal garden, fields for running, a sound garden, and great views of the city.  

I don't want to hang out with this guy

Tuesday - The warm weather continued on Tuesday, and we took another trek out of west London to Greenwich.  The boy was thrilled to take the DLR on our journey.  In February we visited this borough and marveled at the Prime Meridian. Today we visited the free Maritime Museum and ate falafel & empanadas from the market food stalls on benches by the River Thames.  

 

Wednesday - Rain was in the forecast for the entire day so it was a good time to go to the cinema (British for the movies).  Plus I think the kids were worn out from all the walking on Monday & Tuesday.  We decided to partake in the cinema's £1.75 feature of How to Train Your Dragon 2.  We'd seen it before so no one minded that the theatre was full of crying babies and wandering toddlers.  After the movie the kids picked out some new fall clothes as the weather will change to dark, cloudy, and rainy before we know it.    

Thursday - Big kudos to Matt for stumbling across the free pumpkin carving at Kings Cross Station.  The station created an installation of 3,000 carved pumpkins to be lit on the terraced stairs by the canal.  The kids each chose a huge pumpkin and created their design.  I have to say that this was the best way to carve a pumpkin since the mess was not at my house.  I was surprised that Youngest Kiddo wasn't upset that we did not bring his pumpkin home.  Some of the pumpkins on display were very creative.

Friday - This was another low key day as Youngest Kiddo was in a foul mood.  After lunch he'd perked up enough to take the bus to run a few errands.  He was really excited when we ran into one of the teaching assistants from his former class.  The kids did not trick or treat as they really did not care either way about going.  Plus, there was only a handful of houses on our street that participated.  Truthfully, I did not feel comfortable taking them to get candy from people we don't know.  Back at The 407 we knew what houses to visit and which ones to skip.  Both kiddos were happy with the candy I bought at the store for them.  

Saturday - I found a source for, what I hope will be, quality tortillas and salsa.  The shop is located near the Portobello Road Market.  As we had never visited the market, today's sunshine was the perfect reason for a detour.  Whoa.  The streets were crazy packed.  With both kids in tow it was not a pleasant experience.  Maybe the market was busy because of half term or the gorgeous weather brought people out of the woodwork, but it wasn't what I thought it would be.  It's nothing like Hugh Grant showed us in Notting Hill.  I'll give it another go in a few weeks just in case our first go was an anomaly.  On Saturday night, we left the kids home with a babysitter for a little shopping and a little wine with a kid-free dinner.

   
Sunday - Again, kudos to Matt for finding free kids admission for the observation deck of The Shard.  This skyscraper is the place for an amazing view of London.  The typical admission (£24.95/adult and £18.95/kid) is out of my comfort zone for what you are really getting, but free kids admission was worth it.  Unfortunately it was a rainy morning and the rain drops messed with the camera's ability to focus.  We rounded off our outing with burgers, cheese fries, and shakes from Shake Shack at Covent Garden.

Monday - Most of the London schools went back today, but we still have two bonus teacher institute days.  I think days of go-go-go finally took their toll on all of us.  Youngest Kiddo slept until 9:30!  The rain falling on the windows and the visible breath of the neighbors walking by did not encourage motivation to get outside. Instead, we decided to don comfy clothes, play Legos, drink hot chocolate, and watch a movie.  

Tuesday - On our last day of half term, we spent a few hours at the Natural History Museum.  The kids' last visit here was on a weekend with every other family in London.  Today, they experienced the exhibits without queues for the dinosaurs or masses of prams (British for stroller).

We had an errand to run down near Knightsbridge Station, so we walked down to Harrod's to see their Christmas display.  Not as posh as I expected, but maybe I missed something in the store's labyrinth of rooms.  Oldest Kiddo was excited to see the Paddington Bear outside of the store that was designed by Emma Watson (you know her as Herminone Granger of Harry Potter).  

We made it back home just before the rain started.  We will make bangers & mash for dinner so the kids have full bellies for a good night's sleep.  Back to school tomorrow!

Hello Tooth Fairy!

Matt's mom held on to the Tooth Fairy box that he used as a kid, and Oldest Kiddo had the pleasure of using it for all of her teeth.  She lost her last baby tooth a few months ago for one more milestone achieved in her life.

Youngest Kiddo then became obsessed with when he'd loose his first tooth.  He would frequently run to us with his fingers in his mouth and garble that he had a loose tooth.  Unfortunately, it was just wishful thinking.  

Just about a month ago, Youngest Kiddo came running to us with the same garbled statement.  However, this time he was right!  He had a loose tooth!  It was not super loose, but it had to start somewhere.  I saw a lot of this:

Then when eating dinner one night, he casually said his toot fell out.  Leave it to Youngest Kiddo to be all calm about losing his tooth.  The tooth box graciously came out of its short retirement and has a new owner.

The first tooth must have told its partner that it was time to go because a few days later the next one was loose, too!  That tooth was ready to come out, but Youngest Kiddo was having nothing to do me pulling it out.  He wanted to hold on to it.  Truth be told, it looked disgusting in his mouth.  I'll spare you a photo.

We soon found out why he held on to the tooth.  He wanted the tooth to come out on vacation.  As soon as we got on the metro train in Lisbon he indicated he was ready for me to pull it.  Two teeth down, eighteen to go.  

Yes, the Tooth Fairy does visit Portugal.  

#our41daysofsummer

Our first summer in London, affectionately known as #our41daysofsummer, is over.  The kids went back to school on September 2.  They were both so happy to play with their friends again.  It was surreal how everyone seemed to scatter across the continent the moment school let out.  On a personal note, I was thrilled to see their friends' parents again to catch up on the summer.  I sure missed spending leisurely mornings with them at the coffee shops.  

Our summer was only 41 days compared to the 79 days our American compadres scored (but who is counting).  No one can tell us we didn't try to squeeze 79 days worth of fun into our 41 days.

Sometimes our fun was in London

Other times it was outside of the city

For just a bit more fun, we took trip to Lisbon & Barcelona

And then there were just some days we had to be home

We made many memories during #our41daysofsummer.  Now it's back to real life and plan the next trip!