Fall Break

Hello all and Happy Halloween! I have been CRAZY busy nannying during the fall break...so happy it's nearly over and just in time for me to spend it all on my new yoga membership...I am biting the bullet and purchasing 6 months worth. Which costs the same as a years worth in Houston. BOOhoo but it's something I love, use daily, and it's good for me.

OK, so I have literally been babysitting my normal family for 12 hours every day. It has been exhausting. They are GREAT kids, too! But I used to always think that having the job as a Stay At Home Mother must be so easy....now, after practically taking on that job for the past 3 days, I am realizing it SO isn't. You have no time to yourself. At least while working out of the home, you have lunch breaks! But, as the mom I babysit for told me, you have no time to spend with your kids when you work out of home and that just sucks. These past few days have just shown me how much I love having time to myself and freedom to do whatever the heck I want and I am not sure if I want that to end anytime soon! So to all of you moms out there...Stay at Home and the ones that work out of home....I just have to say, you are all amazing and deserve so much recognition and praise.

On Sunday night and Monday morning, a "hurricane" blew through the south of the UK. I know it was worse outside of London, but the way the media was describing it, you would think that the apocalypse had hit the UK. A couple of trees fell, and that's it. Monday actually turned out to be a beautifully sunny day and I actually walked during the supposed height of the storm.

 

The girl had an acting camp this week, so I only saw her in the mornings and afternoons. Since traffic was crazy and things were shut down, we had a low key day of pumpkin carving, seed roasting, and book reading. The boy, Michael, is just so cool. He was content walking around the stores and drinking hot chocolate with me at Starbucks to pass time.

 On Tuesday, we went to the Imperial War Museum. It is under lots of reconstruction for the 100th anniversary of WWI, but it was still a magnificent museum. So well done- we walked through the exhibit on WWII and another exhibit geared towards children that was about spies during WWII, which was SO cool and informative! It showed different weapons (pens that were guns!), taught about spies that risked their lives for freedom, and shared crazy methods of sabotage (like putting explosives in dead rats and placing them where the Germans were, so when the Nazis went to throw the dead animals in the fire, BOOM!).
I think this is obvious, but WWI and WWII are focused on a lot more here than they were at home, just because it really did influence London more. So many people were killed during the Blitz and most of the buildings were destroyed, let alone the fact that 1/3 of all British men aged 18-30 were killed during this time. It's all so tragic and interesting to learn about because we are there, where it all happened.

Yesterday, we went to the Princess Dianna memorial park near Kensington palace. It reminded me a lot of Peter Pan- a pirate ship, teepees to run through, tree houses. It was a gorgeous day and my face got a little burnt!

After the park, we went to go see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. And the cost, for 1 adult, 2 children, and two kids pack of popcorn.....drum roll....$70. I was in SHOCK. And the theater had nothing on the ones back home. The movie had some laughs, but I really don't like movies much in general, and I find that children's movies that are not Disney/ Pixar generally suck. But the kids loved it, so I'm glad they were happy.

OK, gotta run to do some more babysitting! Hope you all have a great, chocolate filled day!