The Super-Kick-Butt-Awesome, Very Good (British) Day

This post can be the yin to the last post's yang. (?) We had a great weekend, and so we thought we'd post about that and a few more of our good times. Our "brilliant" times.

A week-ish ago we thought we'd give the boys a break from all the errands and boringness, and went to a carnival. Or, here in Britland, a "Fun Fayre". There's that "y" again, jumping on in to all sorts of words. Here's a pic or two. Cap'n Jack's favorite was the bumper cars, or "dodge'ms", I think they called them, and Stinker liked the trampoline-bungee cord fun.

This weekend we went into London. There were some more car-related detours along the way, but they went much better than the last ones. We drove Jimmy D's car to the dealership to pick up my car. Then we left both cars there, making extra sure that they would not be sold or locked behind a gate when we returned, and took a double decker bus (!!!) to the train station. Except... we needed to be at the underground station instead. So, back onto another double decker for a 30 minute ride through town to the tube station. I was a little worried the kids would be frustrated at the long ride, but I guess riding on a double decker bus never gets old. I had fun people watching. I love the variety of people you find here. The closer you get to London, the more languages and accents you hear everywhere. I love how no matter where a person comes from, we're all really the same. This seems to be especially true about parents with their kids. You can see a woman in a hijab (the head scarves Arabic women wear) telling her toddler they aren't going to buy the candy today, a dad speaking Chinese (maybe) putting his baby's hat on his own head to get him to smile, or someone with a French accent picking up his kid's socks and shoes after the kid had bolted to the sandbox. Also interesting: there are British rednecks, and we found British oh-no-you-didn't z-snappin' ladies at McDonalds.

Back to our trip- we saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. One tower we passed was almost 1000 years old, and had a moat. It was the tower where some king stored his jewels and stuff. Yeah, aren't we educated? Who cares- it had a real moat!! We also wandered through some great parks along the way. The British Folks are serious about their "green spaces". We had promised Stinker a Happy Meal, so we trekked halfway across London to get to a very crowded McDonalds. I told him to enjoy it, because McDonalds really isn't worth that kind of trek. Or, in my opinion, any trek. When it was all over, I asked the boys what their favorite part of the day was. They both said riding the double decker bus and the tube. Here are some pictures from that day's adventure:

At a tube station, Cap'n Jack pulled out his camera to take a picture of two Bobbies. They were very nice and let the boys wear their hats for a picture, too.

Eating overpriced ice-cream cones at Westminster Abbey.

This poor guard's hat tipped over his eye during some marching, and he can't move to fix it! I kind of feel sorry for him, but mostly just enjoy mocking him.

Buckingham Palace, as seen from (maybe?) St. James Park.

Well, there you have it. Half-term holiday (I feel so Britishy saying that!) is next week, so we plan on having more fun trips to fill the gaping hole left from no school. I am also adding Jimmy D as an author to the blog, so be sure to watch for his posts. I'll try to change my blogger account name to Phyllis so you know who is posting. Right now it's Peanut Gallery, so if you see that, it's me- Phyllis. (And Phyllis is really me.)