London

This past weekend we took the train to London. Neither train ride was not ideal, Hailey was climbing up and down nonstop in the seats and both of the kids were carrying on. We were totally "those" people annoying people around us I'm sure. NEXT time we are just going to bring the DVD player and hope it keeps both kids seated and occupied (Hailey is a loose cannon but one can hope.) 

We took the tube to Belsize Park from Waterloo Station andstayed with my friend Leslie and her family in London. (Leslie and her husband Peter are former Seatteites that have been living in London for 6yrs. now and have a 3yo son Peter San.) PS is a total cutie and Ethan and him really hit it off right away.

Leslie and I were chatting up a storm and didn't go to bed until 12:45. It was nice to catch up with a fellow expat/mom friend! 

The kids didn't go to sleep until after 10pm and as a result, they were moody the next day as you will see in some of the pics below. :)

Welcoming daddy home Thursday night. Ha, they have been competitive about hugs lately and keep going back and hugging Chris again. Chris loves it!

Melancholy at the Poole train station. Check out how little luggage we have (I crammed all four of our clothes into that one tiny wheeled carry-on.)!

She can put stickers all over herself. As long as she is happy and occupied!

Fascinated with Lite Bright (perhaps a future gift idea). Look how nicely they are playing together in this rare moment:

Best buds playing castle together:

The three amigos:

Ethan was all excited to see Big Ben (it's featured in Cars 2 after all...)

Westminster Abbey:

Loads of Union Jack flags and nicely

manicured gardens at Buckingham Palace:

Breakdowns for both kids at Buckingham Palace. This picture really captures the moment. Apparently they aren't fans of all of the royalty hubbub. :)

And I just cropped the kids out of this one (Hailey is running off and Ethan looks like someone punched him). But Chris and I look happy. :)

Here Ethan is back in good spirits as we are observing the guards:

Ethan kept asking about his friend and when he would get to play with his friend (PS) again. 

Then we met up with Leslie and fam at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park. What a cool fountain! It had all different sort of jets and textures and the kids walked the loop several times.

"No, you da man!"

First they were talking to this "naughty robot" and then they were pretending it was a drive through machine ordering device (I may have put that idea into their head):

Who is playing more-the dads or the kids?

Perusing "The Stables" at Camden Market. I was after handcrafted items but the market was full of a Eastern imports (lots of lamps, rugs, incense, etc). I swear there used to be more handcrafted items. However, I did purchase a unique black patterned zippered sweatshirt dress from Katmandu.

Huge robots outside raver store (which had two full time dancers up on platforms  and all of these glowing items):

It started raining (ha, no rain was predicted so of course we didn't bring raincoats) and we escaped to Waggamammas for lunch. We attempted to go to the British Museum after lunch but the line was around the block and we only had 30min. so we took a double-decker bus back to Leslie's house. We had to make a mad dash for the train and ended up making a quick goodbye and practically walking straight onto the train at Waterloo.

Here is Hailey feeding Chris something (it cracks me up how she opens her mouth up to do so):

London was fun to visit and there is SO much to do but I don't think I could live there. I love their tube but not really the dirty boogers that you get as a result.