Lost and found...

I just found about 25 priceless pictures that I thought had been lost when our computer crashed a while back. I'm ecstatic! So to celebrate, I'm going to post a few that were in there from Halloween '06. Yea!!

Bocketts Farm...

One of things we miss about the states, is the pumkin patch. It's kind of our "here come the holidays" tradition. They don't really do them here - or so I thought. Our friend called yesterday and invited us out to this farm just 40 minutes out of London. OK - so it wasn't an actual pumpkin patch, but they had a ton of fall/Halloween activities and we came home with pumkins! The kids are on term break this week, so it was a great day OUT of the city for everyone!

Mom's visit...

My mom made it out here for a couple weeks this month. One of the best things about her coming is that she makes these...

My favorite orange rolls! Noah decided he liked them too...
One of the other great things about mom coming to visit is that I get someone to go exploring with. What made it even better is that the kids were in school! Which meant we had the days to go play. We went to Harrod's, where we looked at a million things we'll never be able to afford (and probably wouldn't buy if we could) and had lunch...

...The British Museum where we explored all the ancient treasures the British Empire has stolen from the rest of the world over the last 2000 years (somehow we didn't take any pictures)...Westminster Abbey, neat place - lots of dead important people...

...and Covent Garden Market where we heard some beautiful music from the street performers, saw some great craft stalls and had our first English pasties, which were very tasty. We did decide to include the rest of the family a little. One Saturday we wanted to get out of the city and went to Canterbury. The Cathedral there is gorgeous! I honestly liked it better than Westminster Abbey.
We also explored the town a little, ate lunch at the park and played in the ruins of a Norman castle.
We still had a few hours of daylight left, so we drove out to the coast to see Reculver Towers. This was my favorite stop of the trip. Not really that much there...but it was breathtaking.

There was one mishap as a result of mom's visit. She brought Drew a Spiderman pen which she didn't realize included an attached ink stamp. Guess who found it? And guess what happens when a 1 year old sucks on a blue Spiderman stamp for who knows how long before his mom realizes he has it..."Baby Smurf"! He was only blue for a couple of days and somehow managed to keep the mess to his little person. Grandma forgiven. So, Mom, you're invited back any time (for the price of at least one batch of orange rolls)! You can even bring Dad next time - if you want.