Happy birthday to Andy!

Unfortunately he had to work all day, but when he got home we celebrated with dinner, silly hats, a little movie watching, tantrums, and berry trifle.

Mudchute farm and park

Feeding the swan and dinner in grovesner park

Today we went to Harrods

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Wednesday and Thursday were nice relaxing days at home and Wednesday night we met Andy at Piccadilly Circus again and wandered around snacking on food.

Friday I was starting to fight a cold so we stayed in most of the day.  Then we left around 2.30 and went to St. James Park.  Alex wanted to visit "a new park" so that's what we did.  We walked around and thankfully there were a lot of ducks, birds, and swans for the kids to look at.  We wandered for about an hour and found a great playground with the kids' favorite.....SAND.  The kids played while I sat and read and around 4.15 Andy met up with us.  We headed to the South Bank to walk around and hope the food trucks were around like they were a few years ago when we were here with my parents.  Unfortunately they were not, but everyone was hungry so we ate at Wagamama.  Food was good, weather was good, company was good.

Saturday morning we left for the country side.  We had to get a rental car at London City Airport then drive out for a couple of hours.  It's so beautiful out there and we found the area where Andy's ancestors are from, and even a town named Cold Higham.

Friday

 Saturday

Tuesday

Today we went to the science museum, which is my favorite! Kids had a great time with all of the hands on displays. They also got fancy new sunglasses.

Monday we played pin the tail in the morning and then mom decided she needed a day to do what SHE wanted. So, we went to the mall in Stratford. I even found a Pepsi with ice at KFC! After a lot of retail therapy momma went home happier!

Saturday night pizza!!

We explored the Docklands museum and surrounding area as a little outing. The museum was actually quite well done and interesting.

Andy is still gone and no one is very happy about it, least of all me.  I've been just making it through the days and not sleeping great, so posting has been down the drain.  Here are some pictures.

WEDNESDAY

 THURSDAY

This morning we were lucky enough to meet up with another friend from home, my neighbor Lisa.  She and her husband are in town for a conference and she joined me and the kids at the Natural History Museum.  The first thing we saw walking up to the museum was the Butterfly house, which, unlike the free museum, you had to pay for.  My kids do love that stuff, so we went for it.  Lots of fun, beautiful butterflies, and lots of chrysalises opening to watch.  It was fun.  Once we got into the museum we headed for the dinosaurs area and then on to the crystals.  The area with the minerals and crystals was huge and very interesting.  So much cool stuff in that museum we will have to go back a few times.  It was lunch time after the museum so we went to the nearby Carluccios which we know to be a good italian restaurant and very kid friendly!  Just what we needed!

It was really nice to get to know Lisa better.  We had a great morning!  Our afternoon was lazy and our plans tomorrow include more laziness.  We will see how that goes.

Monday was a fun day with my cousin Lori and her family.  We met up at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park and I made the older kids play catch with my kids!  hehehe!  It worked great and the kids seemed to have a fun time in the sunshine.  And it was nice for me to be able to sit and chat with Lori.  We decided we were hungry and headed across the street to the Marriott hotel's secret entrance to the Roofnic......a pop-up restaurant on the roof.  Apparently the bouncer shouldn't have let us by because when we got to the top the employee came over and quickly told us that children weren't allowed!  He said that because his colleague made the mistake that he would let them stay (and the fact that no one else was there), but "for future reference" they couldn't come in.  No worries dude, we won't be going back!!  They were supposed to open at 10.  We arrived at 11.  Apparently the chef hadn't arrived yet.  They didn't ask if we wanted anything at all and didn't seem like we were wanted. They did have some yummy looking desserts and we ordered 1 each and enjoyed them with some water.  The weather was nice though and the kids enjoyed just hanging out.

We were going to say goodbyes and the Parr family was going to go to the Globe, but kindly said they would change their plans to go to St. Pauls cathedral so that we could join them.  We saw a Pizza Express right across the street and since no one got a proper lunch, the kids were hungry and we saddled up for a quick lunch.  It was a nice place to sit down, chat, and use the restroom.  After lunch we went to St. Pauls and enjoyed the beautiful cathedral.

My kids were pretty exhausted by then and ready to go home.  It was so nice to catch up with all of them!!!  Good times!