Brighton on a Bank Holiday

Monday was a bank holiday, which means we celebrated nothing--it was just an excuse for the whole country to go and play! We chose for our outing Brighton, which is a popular seaside city. We drove by the cool-looking Royal Pavilion palace (we thought it better not to go inside a building where we would have to explain to the girls why it is "so important"--as Emily has been known to ask, especially when they knew the beach was a few blocks away!).

We checked out the pier and had our first (and last?) fish 'n chips and some candy floss (cotton candy).

Then we set up on the beach and tried to figure out why this was a popular beach!? There was no sand! Just big pebbles that made for amusing entertainment to watch people walk barefoot. I thought the girls would last for 5 minutes (the water was cold, too), but they found stuff to do to last for 5 hours! Here's what they did:

Relax! Who cares if you're sitting on a big pile of rocks?

Look for pretty seashells, sea glass, fossils and rocks (there were a few to spare).

Who needs sand castles when you can be buried to your head in rocks?

The best, though, was just playing with Dad in the very cool water.

Our House

For those who have asked for pictures of where we live:
Here is our sidewalk (good for bike riding) and our house (and 'new' van). The big front window is the playroom. The window next to the garage (which most people don't use) is the den. Above the den is the master bedroom. The dormer window on the right is Emily's room (she's been caught a few times sitting on her windowsill with the window open just looking outside and thinking! By the way, window screens are not used in this country!) The other dormer window is over the landing.

Here is our front door with no doorknob--just a lock. So far, I've only been locked out once--luckily one of the back doors was wide open! Here's part of the backyard. Houses are very private--usually high hedges around the front and high fences around the back.

The First Day of School

Here is the girls' school bus (which
showed up 15 minutes earlier than expected this morning!)






They sit in nice comfy seats with seat belts (Jon's wondering if they have a TV inside). Their bus driver, Ms. Una, is very kind. The girls were excited as they walked hand in hand to the bus.

They met their teachers yesterday. Emily has Mrs. Harrison--a native Nebraskan who has been teaching for 26 years. She and her husband, a music teacher came to teach at Hillingdon 7 years ago with their 2 kids. Emily was very pleased with her and compared her positively to her 1st grade teacher who she absolutely loved. There are only 12 kids in the class!


Rachel was happy with her British teacher, Mrs. Blair who has taught for 30+ years. Rachel first checked out the supply of books--she gave them a thumbs up and then explored the kitchen, the dolls, the sand table and the toys. 12 kids in her class, too! Mrs. Blair told Rachel that Grandmas are always welcome to help out in the classroom!






The whole school is impressive--guarded gate, immaculate grounds, big classrooms, dark wooded spiral staircases, a presidential-looking red room for meetings, a catered cafeteria with amazing menu items prepared by chefs. I felt excited for the girls as we walked through the school and met people and listened to all the different accents from over 26 countries.

Mary Poppins

Part of Emily's birthday celebration included going to see Mary Poppins. So, Tuesday night we excitedly got ready. Hannah happily stayed at home with her very own Mary Poppins (our child sitter, Sarah).
The play was great! Emily took it all in with awe and wonder with her eyes and mouth wide open--"How does Mary fly?" "How did Bert walk on the wall?" Rachel took it all in, but with not a lot of awe and wonder. She would quietly turn to me and say, "I see the ropes on Mary and Bert." We were all very pleased with the whole evening--quiet and calm train ride into London (read: No Hannah), a quick snack at a bakery, a fun show, good music and a late ride home. We bought the music and the girls listened to it several times the next day. Hannah has now adopted a Broadway singing voice which makes for fun listening!

PARIS!!!

Yea! We made it to Paris before the baby came! My doctor (who I saw for the first time 2 Sat. ago) said we had one more weekend to travel. Jon quickly booked train tickets and hotel rooms and we left Thursday! We got back last night (Sunday). We took 150 pictures, but I will refrain from posting all of them. Here is Paris in 4 days:

DAY 1

*Walk to train station from our house--go to London.
*From London, take train to Paris (going under the English Channel at 100 miles per hour)

*Arrive in Paris, figure out French train station system
*Take subway train to hotel

*Check in to our 2 rooms (one for me and Hannah and one for Jon, Em and Ray)

*Find closest restaurant, which is an Italian pizza place (ah, memories of Rome!)

*We all happily fall asleep--exhausted, full of pizza and dreaming of adventures to come

DAY 2

*Take train to Eiffel Tower--it's a 2+ hour wait to go up, so we appreciate the view from the bottom while eating our breakfast (we chose picnic style over the Eiffel Tower cafe which is $300 per person!) We took many pictures of the Eiffel Tower because it was so amazing from every angle. It's 1,000 feet high, over 100 years old and can be seen from all over Paris.

*Then we took a bus across Paris giving ourselves our own tour guide of the sites

*Next we went to Notre Dame. Jon and I appreciated it from inside-out, but the girls only enjoyed feeding/chasing the pigeons outside. Emily's best line, "Why is this place so important?"

The outside of Notre Dame is massive with ugly gargoyles and beautiful stained glass windows.

*On to the Louvre. It was HUGE! I don't have any great shots of the Louvre outside, but inside we saw some good stuff. We saw parts of 1 wing--there were still 2 to go!

Rachel with Venus (the goddess of love) and the famous Mona Lisa (small but still mysterious)

*Then we went back to the Eiffel Tower to try our luck with the lines, but they were still 2 hours, so we found a kids' park close by, played in the sand and watched the sunset. We walked to Trocadero Square, which has the best view of E.T., and watched the 10 minute show of glittering lights. Hannah was mesmorized. From then on she called E.T. "Nannah's Tower!"

DAY 3

*Another great view of E.T. is from the Montparnasse Tower--not a beautiful building, but it has an awesome 360° view of Paris

*We push our luck at another great art museum--the Musee d'Orsay--it houses Europe's greatest Impressionist collection in an old train station

*We have pushed too far! The girls are losing it, so we ditch the rest of the museum and our plans to see the Rodin statue gardens and Napoleon's Tomb and Les Invalides Army Museum to go outside to play on huge animal statues!

*We take it easy for the rest of day and pretend like we live here. We pick up dinner at a French bakery and have a picnic near all the sites we wanted to see. We play tag, watch lawn bowling and soccer and eat great Parisian pasteries.

DAY 4

*We start our last day at Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe and have fun learning about why it's "so important"--it has (among other symbolic things) the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WW1

*Next we walk down the famous Champs-Elysees boulevard ("one of the world's grandest, most elegant, and celebrated streets, home to big business, celebrity cafes, glitzy nightclubs, high-fashion shopping, and international people-watching." It's a Parisian Magnificent Mile. We hit the Disney store (has anyone seen Ratatouille?) then end at the Place de la Concorde (where 2,780 people were beheaded with the guillotine). The guillotine is gone, but it's a beautiful square with big fountains and an Egyptian obelisk.

*The girls and I have a fun time at the Luxemborg Garden kids' play park even though it rains.

*Time to go home. The girls get ready for life in England again by watching Mary Poppins on the train.

Thoughts on Paris?

We loved it! It was clean, beautiful, and felt spacious. The food was good. The train and bus systems were cheap and easy to use. There were gardens and parks throughout the city for picnics and running around. The pigeons were nice. Saying 'bonjour' and 'merci' all day was fun. Everything we did felt romantic. There was a lot to see and do but it didn't feel overwhelming. I am looking forward to the next time we get to go.