Museums, First Taste of London Rain and a Really Cool Park

Friday we decided to check out the British Museum if it was rainy and a park if it was nice.  The day dawned beautifully but characteristic of London, by the time we were ready to leave, it was dripping on us.  We donned our rain jackets and off we went.  The British Museum required good ride on the tube and a nice walk from an unfamiliar station.  It took a few tried to get it right but we were there by 11.  We quickly realized everyone had the same idea we did.

My littlest tube rider.

Jonathan really wanted to see the Rosetta Stone which is what everyone else was there to see.  We walked around to a side and I pushed him in front because there was no way he was going to get in front of all those adult strangers.  I think Jonathan really enjoyed the museum.  He was interested in what metals were used.  He found the different artifacts interesting and listened to me talk about the history bits I can remember.  We walked through a bit of the Ancient Greece portion and then headed up to the mummies.  Again, so was everyone else.

Very British row of houses on our way to the British Museum.

I was actually a bit disappointed in the exhibit.  It was just like any other exhibit just with mummies, though still really neat.  I was expecting something grand, probably because as a kid I thought mummies were really cool, actually, I still do.  I expected some awesome decor like in "Night at the Museum".  I really shouldn't "believe" everything I see on television! ; )  (Managing expectations is a huge challenge on a trip like this.)  It was also hard for me to really see anything because of all the people and trying to keep track of my kids.  The other kids also, weren't really impressed but I think it had more to do with the crowds than the actual museum.

We left the museum and it was raining pretty good so we ate our squished PB&J sandwiches and apples just outside the museum.  After lunch, the kids asked for something a little more interactive so we decided to check out the Science Museum.  This required another trip on the Tube and a rather long walk.  We went in a more round about direction and ended up walking a lot.  Spencer really wanted to go to the park and the rain kept starting and stopping so we went back and forth as to whether we were going to make it there or not.

As we walked up the street we passed the Hyde Park LDS Church building.  The kids were asking for a break so we stopped at the Visitor Center to see what they had inside.  A sweet sister missionary took us in to watch a video about God's plan for the family.  We've seen it before and it is always touching.  It was a good respite from the chaos of everywhere else we'd been.

I think this was a model of the Lunar  landing module. 

As we left the rain really picked up but we were right across from the Science Museum so we decided to step inside there and see what it had to offer.  This is a cool museum.  There were a lot of really interesting exhibits and hands on teaching.  Again though, it was super crowded.  We went downstairs to where there was suppose to be a lot for the little ones to do but there was a considerable wait to get into the play room.  We were only there for about 45 minutes but we will go back.

When we left the rain had let up so we headed to the park.  This time we made it and we are glad we did.  It ended up being a bit of a hike for the day but it was enjoyable.  The playground was the Princess Diana Memorial Playground.  It is heavily themed on Peter Pan and there is lots of sand, water, trees and shrubs to hide in and it's gated and monitored, so rather safe.  The kids were in heaven.  Ben loved the water and even though it was a cool day he splashed and splashed for about an hour until he got too cold.  Spencer sat in the sand for most of the time and just shoveled sand around.  Charlotte, Hannah and Jonathan happily ran around, explored, and imagined. Hyrum met us there after work so we could all ride the Tube home together.

Shoes off and ready to play!!

Hannah and Jonathan climbed up in the rigging around the mast. 

20 minute tube ride is a great place to get in some reading or catch a few zzzzz's.

Ben finally getting nap for the day.

Each day gets better and better as we learn out way around and become more comfortable here.

(Sorry the pictures aren't great.  These are all from my phone since it's way easier than taking the camera with everything else I have to carry around for the day)

Off on the Wrong Foot

Thursday started as a rough day because we were all still tired.  The kids didn't want to get up and every little thing that didn't go just right ended up feeling like a disaster because of our exhaustion.  We were all on short fuses.

I woke up around 6:20 Thursday morning and got ready for the day and suitcases unpacked until I woke the kids up at 9.  We only had a little over an hour to get ready because we were meeting Hyrum's sister-in-law for an orientation walk at 11.  No one wanted to get dressed, eat breakfast or do anything I asked of them.  We left the flat 15 minutes late and unfortunately without Hyrum since he had to wait for our delayed luggage to arrive.

I took the five children into the heart of London, by myself.  A few weeks ago I would have been rather nervous about that prospect but I have felt a renewed of sense that I can do what I have to, so off we went. It's about a 25-minute ride into London plus about 10 minutes of walking to get to our destination.  We made it and after saying Hi to Charity and sweet Moses, we all headed off on our introductory tour of London.  We started off in the direction of Trafalgar Square.  The kids enjoyed the Lions until a public-servant-of-some-sort shooed them all off--she must not have know it was the Lions on Trafalgar Square.  We walked down Parliament Street past the Horse Guards Parade, Downing Street (street the Prime Minister lives on), past Westminster Abbey, saw Big Ben and turned to go down the Westminster Bridge.  It was a pretty crowded but fun to see these places I've read about, seen pictures of and dreamed of.  We walked along the south bank and took in the sites and sounds.  There are a lot of commercial shows and thrills along the south bank but between the London Eye and the Golden Jubilee Bridge there were fewer crowds and the Jubilee gardens.  We didn't go in the garden but it looked nice walking by.  I liked the Golden Jubilee Bridge.  It reminded me of rigging on a ships mast.

Blue Bridge at St. James Park

We walked back to Ian and Charity's place where the kids enjoyed their PB&J and we talked for a few minutes until the kids' energy exceeded the space in the apartment.  The kids and I decided to head back into the city to find a playground.  We found St. James Park and it was perfect.  There are a lot of waterfowl--that's what Jonathan kept calling them, I think because we saw world's largest collection of waterfowl at the Bean Museum in Provo less than a month ago.  These were definitely waterfowl.

Playground at St. James Park

We enjoyed a pleasant walk through the park and found the playground.  It was hopping.  There was a giant sandbox which I steered the kids away from and we found an enclosed area with a slide, climbing wall, rope ladders, and rope bridges.  We played there for about an hour and went home.  The kids declared the day a good one.

Watching the waterfowl at St. James Park

We headed home just as Hyrum texted me to say the luggage had arrived.  Charlotte and Ben napped a bit on the train.  We got home just in time for me to make dinner.  We enjoyed our spaghetti dinner after all the PB&J we'd had the past couple of days.  Jonathan accompanied me to the grocery store where we bought enough stuff to fill my backpack, Jonathan and Hannah's backpacks plus four other large grocery store sized bags.  It was heavy but I was so glad to have Jonathan with me.  He was a good helper.  By the end of the day the kids had concluded it a success.

Getting Here

We arrived at the airport ready for our next big adventure.  We made it past the ticket desk without any drama, went through security with probably the best experience ever, and sat waiting for about and hour and a half.  The kids watched planes land and asked questions about the planes and what was going on around them.  Ben, Spencer and walked around a bit  and then "our" plane arrived and the real waiting began.  The kind of waiting that feels like an eternity because you can almost touch the thing you're waiting for but it is just out of your grasp and there is nothing you can do to make it come any closer, any faster.  It was pretty rough, but we got on the plane pretty quickly and got everyone settled.

The kids loved take off.  Hannah was giddy with the feeling of it, even Ben stopped crying to smile and take in the sensation of it.  We flew to Charlotte, North Carolina first and that flight was our test.  After disembarking our plane, Jonathan declared it, "not that bad".  The other kids agreed though their spirits dimmed a bit when we reminded them that the next flight was 6x longer.

We grabbed some pizzas at Papa Johns, stopped at the bathroom, and arrived at our gate just in time to board.  Now lest you be fooled that this all went really smoothly, it really did, but not without a lot of whining that we weren't getting dinner soon enough, or when would we be boarding, or I have to go potty, a few minutes after the pilot turns on the fasten seat belt sign to prepare for landing.   All pretty minor stuff but it adds up in a big way.

The long flight was also pretty uneventful.  It was long and uncomfortable but we all had our individual televisions.  That isn't a good thing when you can't reach your child's in the middle of the night or tell him to turn it off, but when you just want them to sit still it works well.  Between the quiet book I made, the travel toys I bought and the television the kids were pretty entertained.  It took about an hour and a half for the kids to calm down enough to sleep due to dinner and beverage service.  Spencer and Ben then fell asleep on me in various fashions.  I slept for a couple hours and everyone else but Jonathan also fell asleep.  I woke up to find Jonathan still watching movies without any way to communicate to him to turn it off and sleep.  Finally I caught his eye and he went to sleep but unfortunately Hannah woke up.  Hannah and I enjoyed the media services for the remaining 5 hours of our flight.

We landed in London around 9:30 am and waited for at least 30 minutes at the gate to get our stroller then we waited for about 30 minutes at border control.  After that, we went to claim our bags and found two of them missing.  We waited there for probably 20-30 minutes while Hyrum reported it and made arrangements for their delivery on Thursday.  We then headed towards the Underground for our train rides to our flat.  Within about 5 yards of the underground entrance Hyrum spotted a cellphone place that sold SIM cards for our phones so we waited some more there.  By this time the kids were about waited out.  Charlotte was so jet lagged she was not very pleasant at border control.  We did make it onto our first train without any problems--we did run to make sure we caught it though.

We went several stops on one line and then changed lines which involved carrying ourselves and our bags up more stairs and through a few tunnels.  The subway is always warm and feels stagnant and the trains are ventilated but not air conditioned so we were hot, tired, and stuffed onto the Subway.  Ben slept for quite a while on the train and all the way to our flat.   I dozed a bit and I think Charlotte did too.   We walked the final half mile to our flat and we were all ready to fall over.

We arrived here around 1:00 and after putting a few things down and handing out toys I sat down on the couch ready to stay there forever.  I was really too tired to think, move or do much of anything.  I was seriously underwhelmed by the apartment.  We found it cluttered, the kitchen was a bit greasy and I couldn't figure out the stove and the oven.  We did however get our cell phones set up, unpack a bit and I went to the grocery store.  It was about all I could do to think about when we needed to get us through the next 24 hours.  You have to deposit a coin just like at Aldi's but I didn't have any pound coins so I had to use the little basket for my groceries.  It was overflowing when I got the register and then I had to figure out how to pay for my groceries since they only use cards with chips and I wanted cash back.  I got it all sorted out after the cashier realized I was asking about the cost of the trolley when I asked about carts.

I got home tireder and hotter than I already was and decided to buckle down and fix dinner.  My blood sugar was pretty low and I felt a little light headed a couple times but I know it wasn't really going to get any better.  I was ready to cry when I went in to make dinner and couldn't turn on the oven to cook the chicken I had just browned.  I did cry a few minutes later when I told Hyrum I just didn't know what to do about dinner because I couldn't cook the chicken and the broccoli was already done.  We could light the stove with a match but we ran out of those before I could warm the broccoli up again. So we ended up eating cold broccoli and peanut butter and jam sandwiches.   Hyrum was sweet and cleaned up the kitchen for me.  We sat in the living room for a bit and I dozed in and out while the kids and Hyrum talked and played.  It didn't help that tempers began to flare as everyone just got more and more tired.  Enough was enough and we put the kids to bed around 8.  We didn't hear another sound out of them afterwards.  We followed an hour later and it didn't take long to fall asleep with hopes that Thursday would be a better day.

All our bags are packed!

This summer has been a whirlwind of activity.  We spent a week camping in the Adirondack mountains, a quick road trip to Utah which included two weddings.  We also finished our backyard landscape work which included replacing two retaining walls, pouring a new patio and putting pavers and concrete steps in thanks to our landscapers.  Hyrum spent his nights and weekends replacing old deck.  All of this while getting our house ready to rent and trying to figure out how to get the seven us to and around Europe.  Add to that all the normal life things we have to do and I'm looking forward to getting to Europe because a lot of that falls away.

When we tell people about this trip we get strange looks and the question is always, "Why?".  For 18 months before graduating with his Ph. D., Hyrum worked for a company based in Sheffield, England and we seriously considered relocating there after finishing school.  After lots of thought and prayer, it didn't feel like the right thing for our family.  Over the years we've continued to talk and think about opportunities for our family to spend real time overseas.  Those conversations have always been met with the feeling that it wasn't quite time yet.

This past Fall, Hyrum was on a recruiting trip at BYU and talked with a colleague there about working overseas.  At the same, as I finally emerged from the fog of postpartum depression I was feeling a need and desire to "grab life by the horns" and do the many things we talk about doing.  Hyrum called during his trip and we decided it was finally time.  He made proper arrangements with work which consisted of getting their approval for him to work overseas for a few months and I made sure to get things in order with our house and the school.

Some friends of ours spent last year in Japan and so I contacted them to see if they would be interested in renting our house while we were gone.  They happily accepted the offer.  The kids' principal has been more than helpful in getting me curriculum maps and textbook isbn's for the kids' math books and helping us through the necessary paperwork so they kids will be able to jump right back in when we get home.  We're focusing on math and will supplement that with daily writing assignments and reading.  Charlotte and Spencer will be practicing their handwriting and their reading.

All in all, things have just worked out and we feel the hand of the Lord in this decision.  We feel like this will be an enlarging experience for our children and our family.  We hope it will be a trip that will touch their lives forever and hopefully make them more grateful and aware of the blessings they have.

So it's finally happening.  The bags are packed, housing is booked for part of it and our friends are here for the keys.  Let the adventure begin!

Life is good with lots to report but . . .

We're headed out of the country in just over two months.  AHHHHH!

We are really excited about our European Adventure but before we get there, we have a camping trip and two weddings to attend.  We have a lot going on so while I would love to keep posting and stay up to date, somethings got to give in my life and it's this blog.  We'll be back, hopefully while we're in Europe but for now, I'm taking a break. 

Enjoy summer 2016!!