Easter Holiday, Week Two

What a beautiful week it has been here!!!!  The weather was perfect every day for adventures out of the house, it was great!

Monday was a bank holiday, and Brad was off, which was a treat!  We went to the park with one of Lauren's classmates, Sebastian and his family.  He also has a little brother, Dominic, who's in reception (the year between Alison and Drew.)  We had a lovely picnic and then the kids played in the park for almost 2 hours.  It was great!!  Drew was having the best time kicking the football around with Brad, Sebastian, Dominic and their dad.  The boys came back here with us for a playdate, which went pretty well.  Drew absolutely loves having other boys in the house!

Tuesday, we went to the library, which is always an adventure with all three kids.  Usually, I just go with Drew when the girls are at school, but I think it's good for them to pick out their own books.  After we picked out books, Lauren read to Drew from his Thomas the Brave book,

and I read to Alison while she made faces at this little baby boy she befriended while we were there.  In the afternoon we went to the park where the girls go into the mud puddle last week, but it was all dried up this time!  We stayed there for almost 2 hours; the girls met a friend from school and they had a great time.  Mister Softee is even in London and he drives around to all the parks, so he came and the kids got their first ice cream in London since it was finally warm enough for ice cream!  They were SO excited!

Wednesday, we went to Fulham Palace, which is an old bishop's home that was built in 745!  There wasn't really much to the palace, but we stumbled upon another awesome park right next door.  This park was called Bishop's Park, and it had tire swings

which were super cool, and a large sand pit that entertained the kids for an hour!  I now know that if we are going to a big park, I need to take the sand toys with me.  The girls found a bucket and a spade and they were happy.

 Drew was happy just picking up the sand and ROLLING around in it.  

We also saw a 500 year old oak tree.

Thursday, we went to Build-A-Bear.

Alison made a Frozen bear named Elsa who sings "Let it G0," Lauren made a rainbow bear named Annabelle who says "I Love London" in Lauren's voice, and Drew made a dog name Thomas who barks.  Drew and Lauren picked out glasses as their accessory, and Lauren has worn her glasses more than her bear, and the fact that there are only two pairs of glasses has caused quite some controversy as well.  But they had a good time.

Friday, we got out all the summer clothes, and it was nice to have the girl's help since I typically do that chore all on my own!  I discovered that Lauren has more clothes than I thought, so I won't have to do as much shopping in Florida as I was anticipating!  That's always good news.  Then, in the afternoon, we met a couple neighbors at the park down the street.  It was pretty crowded because it was a PERFECT day to be at the park.   My friend has a son, Carl, who just turned 4, and Drew and Carl had the best time playing football, picking up sticks, chasing pigeons and hunting!  It was really cute to see Drew interacting, and they got along great even though Carl mostly speaks Danish.  The girls made a new friend, Mary, while they were climbing a tree and then they played for a bit with a friend from school.  Drew has finally figured out how to use his scooter!!  Hooray!!!  He was all over the park on his scooter, it was great.  It's amazing how proficient kids are on scooters over here.

Saturday, we went to the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden.  I would like to go back to Covent Garden sometime!  It was a very busy place, but looked so very cool.  There were street performers everywhere; we saw a guy who was suspended in the air resting on a shovel.

 Pretty incredible.

The Transport Museum was a great place, as well.

 They had all sorts of old buses and trains that you get climb on, as well as a couple of play areas where you could drive a bus and repair a bus.  There was lots of information about the history of transportation in London, but we didn't read much of that.  I almost want to go back without the kids so I can learn all about it!  They had a stamp map for the kids, where they found the stamp areas, and stamped their card with different shapes.  The girls were all over that of course!  They also had a volunteer who was talking about how bus tickets were sold on older buses, and the conductor would walk around and sell tickets, so each kid got their own ticket.  Seems pretty inefficient to me, thank goodness for the Oyster card!

After we got back, Lauren and I went to the optician and it looks like she is definitely going to need glasses.  We have to go back on Tuesday so they can put drops in her eyes.  That should be fun with all three of them!

Today, we went to church, grabbed some lunch at Chipotle and then went to the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum  (Keeping it local!). It was cool to see the trophies and some of the costumes the women had to wear a long time ago.  I didn't realize that it was required to wear white to play at Wimbledon.  We also got a cool view of centre court, and the kids enjoyed the 3D movie about Wimbledon.