Week 8

YAY!! This has to have been our best week so far! Not only did I get my mew computer (praise the lord), but we had visitors! Yes - more than one!

On Monday, my cousin Erin came to spend the day (and night) with us. She's a captain in the US Air Force and by chance, got sent to Swindon for the Royal International Air tattoo. We didn't make it to the show, but she took the train to London on Monday and we got to spend some time together. It wasn't until after she left that we realized we hadn't taken a single picture. I know - impossible. Sad, but true. But trust me, she was here and we had a great time.

Tuesday we set out for the airport to meet KK. Cade was really glad to see her and boy does he have her number...immediately he started asking for presents We got her settled in and on Wednesday we went to the park. It was fairly warm and very sunny. We had a great time.

Thursday we went to ply group at the church in the morning and Gymboree music class in the afternoon. Cade is not totally into the following directions and participating as this mother would like, but he enjoys it so we will keep going. And it's paid for...so he better get with the program. Friday we went to Westfield and did a power shopping day. It was lots of fun for the girls. The boys - well, they played along. Then we went to open gym at Gymboree in the afternoon. This is much more Cade's speed. No rules - just run and scream and do whatever you want. I sat in the corner with Cole and bit my tongue.

Saturday we took the train to Windsor and toured the castle. It's really really big and you can't take buggys inside, but we managed and it was interesting to see. We also got to see Henry VIII burial place which is pretty cool since Steve and I have been watching the Tudors box set, so are learning about his reign (from the highly historical showtime channel). Nonetheless - cool.

We also got to see the changing of the guard again. This by far is my favorite picture of the day...

Sunday we went back to Westminster and did the London Eye.

We didn't do as much this weekend as we have in weekend's past, but we did enough to tire everyone out seeing as though 1)Karyn isn't use to the crazy that is London in addition to the crazy that is C squared.

2)Steve and I were sick.

Steve's project is hitting full tilt and work days extend to weekends now as well as late into the night. I'm so glad to have someone here to help out and share my days with. I can tell already that it will be hard on all of us when she leaves. The boys are pretty much sick of spending all day with me and love having other people to terrorize. We are trying to fit as much into her visit as we can, but more and more days without naps are leading to crankier spells, so we'll see how long we can keep this up.

Week 7

So this week kind of a lot happened - although it wasn't all necessarily stuff that we were planning on or appreciated...

My phone broke, which wasn't a huge problem, more of a minor inconvenience. Had to send it in for repair. Got a loaner which was a downgrade...from the $6 phone...so you can imagine what a gem that was. Whatever - it was fine. Then. Um. IT happened. I dropped and killed my computer. Dead. No bueno. Panic set in. Thankfully, my generous hubby agreed to buy me a Mac which was awesome. But it's much cheaper to buy one from the US than the UK. Problem is - they won't ship it here. So we decided to ship it to his mom who was leaving at 4:00pm on Monday to come here...Perfect. So we overnighted the computer to her and the Mac web site said that it should be there either Friday or Monday. But on Friday, we got an email saying that it was going to ship and should be there by Tuesday. Um...wait - that doesn't work. So I called Apple and kind of went on a mini tirade. I asked to speak with a manager. They put me on hold for 20 minutes and never came back. Well, I guess that was kinda fair. Anyway, we finally got a shipment notification and it said it should be there by 3:00pm Monday. Whew...lets hope. So we squeaked in just under the wire. I got my new baby when Karyn arrived this week...but more on her arrival in the week 8 blog. Lets remember that I'm a week behind here due to this little set back ;)

It rained a lot this week, so incidentally, we didn't go out much. So - for the enjoyment of all in their cushy houses back in the big TX...I decided to hit on a few highlights of our home here in London. Working our way across row 1 of pictures from the upper left corner...This is our living room. It's the biggest room in the flat if you don't count the impossibly long hallway (to the right). It's decor leaves something to be desired. Yes, that sofa probably does belong to Austin Powers. I mean...what were they thinking? The next pic down is a view fro the opposite side of the living room into the dining room. Since we do so much entertaining. It seats 10.

2nd row of pics starts with our bedroom. Yes - the drapes match the chair. If you look very closely at the end of the bed you'll see a throw rug. That is the extent of the "carpet" in the flat. So - carpet beetles huh? And never in this room. Weird. The blue tiles are from our master bath. I especially love the 1x2 holding up the corner of our sink. And the 4 tiles that totally don't match. Finally, we have our microwave that is no lie older than me. It has a lock people. never seen anything like it. Yes, I am certain it leaks radiation. And finally is our dishwasher. No - I didn't open it to show you how lovely it is. This is as far as it opens and thus this is as far out as the bottom rack slides out. Sweet. No, this isn't all of the loveliness that this apartment has to offer. I just picked some of my faves. Those of you who come visit get to see it in all it's glory.

Saturday we visited the Churchill War rooms. Much more interesting that I though. How would you like to use a "chemical" toilet instead of a flushing one? Um, Ewww.

After the war rooms, we headed to Trafalgar Square. It was super busy, so we kept walking. We came upon this HUGE parade. Probably about 5000 people - and worship music. Wow - maybe this is why it was so busy...

Next, we headed on to Picadilly Circus,

up to Oxford Street, back through Hyde park and home. Another full day.

Sunday, we did our usual breakfast then on to HP. We went for a stroll along Kensington High street, then back through the park for another carousel ride. At home, we started preparing for our company...TWO visitors this week! More in the next blog, but for now, just this ;)

Week 6

Wow - 6 weeks. So long and yet not quite 1/2 way through. This week we are finally feeling like our much awaited company is getting closer to arriving. KK will be coming for about 2 weeks beginning next Wednesday. We are so excited to see her and have someone else here. We have really been missing our family - we are a REALLY close family. So it's hard to not see everyone so much. And lucky for her - we had the exterminator come back this week - twice! Both the mice and the carpet beetles are under full attack and should be gone shortly. The Exterminator said how unusual it was - or seemingly unheard of as he made it sound - that we had so many beetles in so many room, yet no carpet. He was confused as to what they could be feeding on. Said he'd never seen it before. Sigh...why would I be the slightest bit surprised?
We had a pretty laid back week. We were going to join a second play group on Monday, but the forecast called for rain all day and Mom didn't want to walk over a mile there and get stuck in the rain, so we opted out. We went to the park a couple of days and we went back to playgroup on Thursday. Allie is now with us 3 nights a week since Steve almost always works until 8. She and I have settled into a routine for dinner baths and bed. Pretty much It's still me doing everything and her checking her text messages, but an extra body is still a help, so I won't complain. Friday we were going to try to meet a new mom's group at the park. We got there about 10 minutes early and instead of finding the group, we met another Ex-pat mom with 2 girls ages 1 and 3. She was very friendly and shared their sand toys with us. We played for about an hour and a half then she asked if we ever wanted to play again. I'll probably call her this week and set up a time. Nice to finally have someone we can get together and play with.

We left there and headed to the fountain to enjoy the 80 degree weather (and lets be honest...to wash off the sand). After 25 minutes there, we headed home for lunch and naps. It was a very successful day.
We are getting to the point now on the weekends where we have seen mostly all of the London tourist sights and are having to look a little harder for things to do. We headed to St. Paul's Cathedral Saturday morning. It was beautiful, but I was disappointed at the no photos policy. I look forward to taking pics to share with you all back home. I did snap one "illegal" photo while I was feeding the baby. Shhhhh...don't tell. Steve and Cade actually walked all the way to the top of this dome. You can't even see the balcony, but it's above the windows, around the very highest center point. He said it was quite the walk. The spiral staircase was apparently very very narrow and the ceiling very low. At one point we heard someone yell "he's lost a shoe" and sure enough, Cade's shoe had come off and tumbled down the stairs. Thank goodness the kind people passed it up to him...does this sound familiar to anyone??? Ski...ski lift? Anyone???
After the cathedral, we walked another 1-2 miles to Covent garden. This place is a mad house on the weekends. We found a pub and at lunch outside - enjoying the people watching. After lunch, we hit the transport museum and learned all about the development of the public transport system in London from 1800 - now.

Sunday we did out usual breakfast at Costa and then headed to Hyde Park again. We got to see up close and personal two of the helicopters arriving and then leaving again from Kensington palace. It was a lot of fun for Cade (and I think Dad too). Then we spend a few minutes exploring the pirate ship at the playground.

Next we walked to the Serpentine and the "big boys" took a paddle boat out. Unfortunately, Cole was too young to go, so he and I stayed behind.

Finally, we grabbed a picnic lunch and went back to the memorial fountain, Cade loves this place. I think he could play there all day every day.

And once again, I want to post some pics of CoCo just to show he's actually here...he doesn't seem to be part of the action most of the time and since he's usually stuck with me (behind the camera), he doesn't get as many pics. But nonetheless, he's enjoying himself immensely - especially if his brother is around. He's getting cuter and cuter (if that's possible) and I just love getting close ups of that little face.

Week 5

Well, Happy 4th of July (a little late) from a country that surprisingly doesn't seem to celebrate that holiday...huh.

So this week I tried really hard to do some fun things. We went to the Zoo which was a big hit. The Zoo here is small compared to Ft. Worth. Not as many "big impressive" animals (no elephants or silverback gorillas), but you can get closer to a lot of the animals here, so that was fun.

We also joined a play group. Yes, Mom went way out of her comfort zone and walked a mile and a half each way to join a group that meets at a church. There were a lot of kids and parents. Not a ton of people talked to us, but a few did. We met a little boy named Thor who is 2 weeks older than Cade. Really, the most interesting part of the kid is his name - but whatever. But hey - how many times in your life do you get to ride a scooter up the center aisle of the church?

This was another "close to home" weekend. No beach trip yet, but we did do a TON of other stuff. We took a boat ride down the Thames to Greenwich - home of zero degrees longitude (which separates the eastern hemisphere from the western). If you ever worked with computer programming you may have had to work in Greenwich mean time - voila!

Cade LOVED, LOVED, LOVED the boat ride. He kept saying to people in the boat "I'm on a boat". Bless him.

We also visited the National Maritime Museum - which - gotta be honest...not all that interesting. Sorry Greenwich.

One funny thing happened on the way home. TWO different people came up to me and asked me which train to take to get to their stop and I actually knew the answer. Not sure how this happened, but apparently, I look like a local.

Sunday we went to the London Aquarium. I thought it was really fun and Cade like it too. He got to see lots of "fishy's". He even touched a starfish and got his face painted.

After the aquarium, we headed out and got sushi for lunch - appropriate I would say. In case you were curious, Cade likes curry rice. Then we headed over the bridge to Big Ben and on to Westminster Abbey. Truly beautiful and hard to believe almost 1000 years old!

I just can't believe how grown up Cade seems this week. Maybe it's the haircut - I don't know, but he seems to have become a "big boy" right before my eyes.

They boys are getting closer every day. Cade's answer when you ask him who his best friend is is "baby Cole'. Even when prompted to say mommy or daddy, he says "baby". Love. These. Boys.