34 Favorite Photos from NYC, June 2011

June is one of my favorite times of the year. Not only has summer arrived in full force, it's also the month when we visit NYC for ten days. And the timing is usually great, because both Sean and I get to run a race in Central Park--something that we both love to do. My race is the women-only 10K and Sean's is the Father's Day 5-mile race. This year, Sean wasn't able to take any extra time off and so only spent about 48 hours total in NYC during that 10 day period. Additionally, this year, my step-mom, or NuNu to the kids, was only around through the first Tuesday. So this year, it was mostly me and the kids and my dad, aka BaBa. We had a great time. And like always, we crammed in all sorts of activities, some new and some old favorites. Here are my favorite photos. Click here to see the whole album.




The trip started with my 10k race (6.2 miles), basically one lap around Central Park. I've run this race 7 out of the last 9 years, or something like that. It's the oldest all-women race, and this year marked its 40th anniversary. The race also commemorated the life of Grete Waitz, an exceptional runner, role-model, and pioneer of women's running, who died of cancer in April. This is always a very inspiring race for me, to be shoulder to shoulder with thousands of women runners. Even though a terrible case of plantar faciaitis has hindered my running since January, and even though I basically gave up running in May in hopes that it would heal, I couldn't resist running this race. Additionally, my old high school friend, Lauren, ran it and we were able to meet up after the race and catch up a bit.

We still have a lot of good friends in NYC. One of Sean's best friends, Dan, (Sean would say that he's Dan's mentor, although I wonder if that's the way Dan sees it) always finds time to meet up with us. We saw him a couple different times during this trip. Here, he and Auric bond over a Thomas the Train book.












After my race and some lunch, we worked our way down to the very impressive NY Fire Museum, in SoHo.












It's a small museum, so it's well-sized for us. And the reproductions of all the old fire trucks were very impressive. Despite Auric's love of fire trucks, it wasn't the best environment for him because most of the exhibits are hands-off. I think this would be something he would love in about 6 years. But it wasn't a failure by any means. In addition to all the very cool displays, both antique and modern, we got to try on a fire fighter's gear!




















After the Fire Museum, we fed the kids dinner at Peanut Butter and Co., a restaurant that serves-- you guessed it--peanut butter sandwiches. But the menu is very fun and has all sorts of wacky concoctions. We stuck with the pretty standard PB, Honey, & Banana, and PB & Nutella. While there, Thora worked on her Create-a-Face Sticker Book, an activity she did at almost every opportunity during the trip. That page of eyes isn't creepy at all.



Auric enjoyed playing with his new fire department truck set, purchased at the museum gift shop. Here he combines his love of stacking and his love of vehicles, stacking the fire department car on top of the fire department van.








On Sunday, after Sean's run, we piled into our car (I drove down on Friday afternoon) and drove up to Larchmont, (a suburb of NYC) to visit our friends Kelly and Loyd and their kids Sidney, Tai (twin girls), and their younger son, Drew. We all have so much fun with these guys. (Sean and Kelly use to work together at Columbia so they have a lot to reminisce about.) And the kids all have a great time, despite the varying ages. They seem to get a kick out of Auric, even though he's so much younger than all of them. And Thora plays with Drew (they're a year apart) but also the older girls, who include her in all sorts of games and pretend play. With a regular work day looming ahead on Monday morning, Sean drove the car back to Boston after dinner. Kelly gave me and the kids a ride back into the city. And here's where we began our week of being NYC tourists.

On Monday morning, the kids, my dad, and I took the train all the way downtown to South Street Seaport to meet my good friend Elizabeth and her two boys at the fabulous Infinity Park. This was the first of several awesome parks that we discovered on this trip. Here is Elizabeth and her new baby, Noel. It was great to catch up with her--although we ALWAYS fail to get a photo of her and I! Actually, it was a little tough getting any very good photos of the kids or the moms for that matter, what with the kids running all over the place.









Here is a rare photo of my two kids and Sam, her older son, all in the frame at the same time! It was a very hot day and the kids loved this playground's water feature.

We all hung out until just before lunch time, when Elizabeth needed to get her kids back home to Brooklyn for their naps, and my dad went to meet my step-mom for lunch.

We bid our farewells to everyone and then I took the kids across the street for what would become a regular food source for them in NYC: hot dogs from a street vendor.

We ate, found a nice person to take our picture in front of the Brooklyn Bridge (right), and then found some ice cream for the kids.











After the ice cream, I took them back across the street to the playground, figuring that there was more for them to enjoy. Here's a view of the playground, looking toward the seaport and the big ships across the street. They played in the sand and climbed up the steps to a small tower, and cooled off in the water when they got too hot or sandy.












Here's Auric playing on some kind of contraption.







And if Thora had a cd out, this would surely be the cover!


They had a great time, but were thoroughly exhausted when I gathered us all up to leave.








Our second stop of the day was back up on the Upper West Side, The Manhattan Children's Museum, which had transformed its first floor into a huge Curious George exhibit. The kids loved this. But they were also happy to move to the activities on the other floors as well. At the right, they're driving a bus in the municipal vehicles section. This was much cooler than it looks, because there were all sorts of switches to flip and buttons to push, and when you pressed on the accelerator and the brake, they made very life-like sounds of a big city bus stopping and starting.


On Tuesday, our big outing of the day was to the Natural History Museum. Actually, to be accurate, the whole visit was kind of a bust, which was a huge disappointment since I LOVE this museum and it can be really great for kids of any age. This visit was the first example of how traveling with young kids to the same place year after year can prove VASTLY different as the years go by. Specifically, last year Auric was a non-walker and was carried almost everywhere in the Ergo backpack carrier. This year, he was a walker/runner who loved to be chased. So in retrospect, we needed that backpack/leash for Auric that we ended up getting prior to our trip to London in September WAY sooner than we thought. Being at this always-crowded museum (and by crowded, I mean crowded by NYC standards) as the sole adult with a 4 year old and a two year old was about the worst punishment I could ever imagine.

Eventually, we worked our way to my favorite place, the Hall of Ocean Life, and I just parked there, letting the kids dance around in the open area. That's what is happening at the left, hopefully not to the annoyance of the other patrons.

If they were annoyed now, I hate to know how annoyed they would become. As the museum was about to close, both kids began to melt down simultaneously, with me not being able to find the elevators! It was comical, actually. I finally managed to get the kids out of the building, and in the middle of the cacophony of wails, Sean called from Boston to see how things were going and to say hi. Hah! They sobbed to Sean for about a minute over speaker phone while I grabbed them both a hot dog from a vendor. I could literally see their demeanors improve with every bite. Thankfully, with that behind us, we walked up to Broadway and made our way up to the Upper West Side for dinner and a much-desired beer for Mommy.

Okay, now on to better times! On Wednesday, our big outing was to the Bronx Zoo, something that we do every year. I had my dad with me, and so didn't run into the same trouble of taking two young kids, solo, to an incredibly crowded tourist destination. And all in all, we had a great time. We saw so many animals, including our annual Riding of the Camel, something we've done for 3 years now (at the right). We also toured the Children's Zoo (the petting zoo at the end is always a huge hit), and rode the Bug Carousel. Good Times!









Here is part of a cute sequence of Thora sharing her ice cream with Auric.














































Here is Auric inside a log in the Children's Zoo.










In the afternoon, we left the Zoo and headed back to Manhattan. I took the kids a bit further south, to the great playground at 96th and Riverside Drive. The kids had a great time, except that Auric kept making a break for the exit. Again, this was a new dimension to traveling in NYC that I hadn't realized in years past: some of the great parks don't have child-proof exits. This park was great last year, with a non-walker and a 3 year-old. But Auric, as a two-year-old, needs to be enclosed! His fascination with running out of parks or along the sidewalks of busy streets so that a grown-up has to chase him... well, that didn't work terribly well at this park. On the plus side, we did get a nice photo of Thora on a triceratops. (This is called Dinosaur Park because of these sculptures.)

Thursday proved to be the most successful day. We started the day with my dad accompanying us to Brooklyn. We ate at a 5 Guys burger joint (I'd never tried them and have to say that the burgers are incredible, i.e. indulgent), and then headed over to the New York Transit Museum, which is housed in an old, unused subway station. The kids loved running around among the various antique cars, and of course, driving the buses.

Here's Auric driving a modern-day city bus.

And here's Thora, below, driving an antique. What would you think if you saw your bus driver steering with such flair?

















After the museum, we parted ways with BaBa, and I headed with the kids to the incredible Pier 6 playground at the end of Atlantic Ave. It sits on the water looking across at lower Manhattan. The park itself is divided into four main areas. The first area we were to stop at was Slide Mountain. Here is the view of Manhattan from the top of Slide Mountain. After a few good slides, we were feeling pretty hot and we wanted to find out what this park was all about. So we went over to check out the water park, called The Water Lab. This was, by far, the best water feature I've ever seen at a park. There were pulleys and pumps and sloped ground to create flowing rivers. There were sprinklers, splash ponds, and a kid-powered water mill. In short, it was awesome!



After the water park, we spent the remaining time before dinner in the sand pit area and then Swing Valley, an area with about a dozen different swings, including some rope swings and tire swings, as well as your basic, standard swing.

As it neared dinner time, we made ourselves look as presentable as possible and walked our way back up Atlantic Ave and headed to the ChipShop just up the street. It's an authentic English fish and chips shop transported to Brooklyn. We all split the massive serving of battered cod and chips and I had a pint (all to myself). It was an incredibly successful, albeit brisk, meal in a restaurant (there's always a risk inherent in dining with little kids), and a long and yet fun ride home on the subway back up to the Upper West Side. (Somehow I still had the lemon wedge that we'd gotten on the plate of fish and chips and we were taking turns sucking on it and then making a puckered face.) Success all around!

The next day, a rainy one, demanded some inside fun, and we managed to find it at two indoor places. The first, The Children's Museum of Art down in SoHo, is a place we've enjoyed three years in a row. Auric is now the perfect age for the morning Wee Arts drop-in time; however, Thora seemed a little too old this time around. But regardless, it was fun as always. At the right, Thora does some serious-minded painting, while Auric drops the whole idea of "painting with a utensil," (clearly that's for dopes) and decides to cut to the chase and paint with the paint itself. (He's plucked the round paint disc from it's tray and put it right on his paper.)

In the afternoon, we tried out a new place called City Treehouse, which is an indoor play space that has a nice water table, a climb-able and slide-able tree, and a couple rooms for some movement and dance, as well as a baby room. It was a good find, although kind of pricey. However, given the rain, I was happy to have this option.






Throughout our time in NYC, we enjoyed lots of quality time with BaBa. He hung out with us in the playgrounds in Riverside Park and regularly accompanied us, at the very least, on our commutes to our destinations, but often he went along with us for the whole outing. One of the things that the kids love is getting to accompany BaBa when he takes Qali, their dog, for a walk in Riverside Park. Qali, who's an older dog, tolerates the kids' interest pretty remarkably. Walking the dog is a fun excuse to get down into the lower level of Riverside Park. On this day, I got a cute photo of Auric running along the paths in the park, sporting his new #1 subway t-shirt. (The 1 train is our train when we come to the city since it's the one that goes up Broadway through the Upper West Side.) This was a few minutes after we happened along the grate in the grass that stands over the high speed commuter train that zips underneath Riverside Park. Now, when we walk over grates of any size or location, Auric asks hopefully if there's a train under there.

On Saturday morning, Sean arrived for the second half of his 48 hours in NYC. We met an old friend of his from his residency days at Columbia, and her family at a school fundraising street festival. We had a great time visiting with Nataki and her family, and then a late lunch at a pizza restaurant. After that, we ran into another one of Sean's old fellow-residents, Linda, and we met up with her, her husband, and their two boys at a park on Riverside Dr. We all had a great time while the kids played in the water (another great playground!) and did lots of running around. They invited us back to their place to feed the kids, and then before long, we were back in the Upper West Side winding down before our last day in the city.


Father's Day for us is usually spent cheering Sean on at his annual 5-mile race in Central Park and then cheering Thora on in her kids' race that follows. This year was particularly significant because it was Sean's first race after his lung surgery in April. We were so proud of him, seeing him run across the finish line, something that none of us could be sure that he'd be able to do prior to his recovery. Sean is incredibly driven, and a remarkable athlete!









Here is Thora, getting her game face on, ready to take on all the other 4 year-old girls in her completely appropriate red cowgirl boots.

My dad, a runner and a father himself, loves to come to the Father's Day races and cheer on Sean and Thora. (He's currently nursing a knee injury, but in years past, both he and Sean have run it.) After the races, we let the kids play in a nearby playground in Central Park, before heading off for our annual post-race, Father's Day brunch.



Here we are, taking some great Father's Day photos with two of the dads in our lives.















After brunch, we packed up the car, and drove back home to Boston, totally exhausted but already nostalgic for the city that we love.

England, September 2011

For a look at the whole photo album, click here.

We began our trip on Thursday night, September 15th. We arrived at the airport around 5:30 ready to go. I'd replenished the kids' travel backpacks with new books and activities. We had a suitcase devoted entirely to consumables (diapers, wipes, the kids' favorite non-perishable foods and snacks). I'd borrowed a sit-and-stand stroller from a friend. We'd charged up the portable dvd player and had a large selection of dvds in our carry-ons. The kids had eaten dinner and were in their jammies, warming up to the idea of sleeping on the overnight flight to London. We were ready.

If we'd known in the above picture that our dvd player wasn't going to work (disaster #1), I doubt we'd have such happy smiles on our faces. But in fact, we survived the 6+ hour flight just fine, like the millions of people did up until just 10 years ago, before the luxury of portable dvd players. I didn't sleep a wink on the flight, and Sean slept for about 30 minutes, but lo and behold, we saw the sun rising as the flight attendants began the breakfast service.

We arrived at London Heathrow, and after an hour or so of passport control, baggage, and customs, diaper changes and wardrobe changes (Thora's first outfit was a gold tank top leotard, a silver metallic skirt, and pink and white tights), our friend Mike Chapman spotted us among the other travelers. I met Lauren Chapman when our oldest kids were babies, at a new mom's group in Cambridge, MA. They were in the states while Mike did research at MIT. In the fall of 2010, they moved back to their home in Cambridge, England. It'd been just under a year since we'd seen them and we were so happy to get to catch up and see their home. Mike drove us the two hours from Heathrow to their place in Cambridge. We had a wonderfully relaxing few days with them over that first weekend of our trip. Thora and Noah, who were best friends back in the states, reconnected as if no time had passed. It was such a bittersweet reunion for all of us, to be with these friends again, but knowing that we'd only be together for a few days. However, what a few days it was. And so begins our travels in England...

Day 1: Friday, September 16

The kids napped in the car from the airport, but Sean and I stayed up, catching up with Mike on the drive. Once we got to Cambridge, look who was there to greet us! Here's Lauren and her 7-month old daughter, Milly. They were a sight for sore eyes. Sean and I took staggered 2-hour naps, and at 3 pm, when Noah came home from school, we were all rested and ready to go on a walk and take a look around their lovely city.


Before heading home to dinner that first night, Sean and I took the bigger kids to the park near their house so that Lauren and Mike could start on dinner. Here are Noah and Thora completing the physical challenge that they worked hard at for about twenty minutes solid. It was very cute how they used teamwork to get Thora to the top so that they could enjoy sliding down together. (On her very last try, Thora managed to pull herself up by herself.) And yes, that's Auric still in his pajamas from the overnight flight the night before.





Day 2: Saturday, September 17

After an astonishing 14-hour sleep, we were up and ready to go! On Saturday, the Chapmans took us into Cambridge. What a beautiful city, with such old charm. We walked into town, down the old, cobblestone streets, past church towers and the historic colleges, and finally to the Cam River.

Noah, Thora, and Milly enjoy a cuddle in the morning.

At the left, we're enjoying a break on the ledge in front of King's College. Thora and Noah enthusiastically devour some ice cream, while the adults munch on a local specialty, cornish pasties, (a historically working-man's meal of meat and potatoes inside a pastry pouch).





The weather was gorgeous, and we were all caught up by the beauty of our surroundings. We let Auric nap a bit in the stroller and then hopped on board a long boat for some punting on the Cam.





Here's Auric anticipating the activity:




On our 45 minute ride, we drifted along, taking in the beautiful sights of the many colleges on either side, the willow trees drooping down into the water (Sean's favorite sight), and the variety of small footbridges under which we passed. The river was full of expert punters and amateur ones, and so we had to remind the kids to keep their fingers inside the boat, since there were a few minor collisions with other less experienced punters.

On our walk home, Thora and Noah enjoyed being up close to the grazing cows, a common sight on the public green spaces around Cambridge. We regularly encountered the herds on our walks to and from the center of town.

During our evenings in Cambridge, we enjoyed the fun and relaxation of catching up with Lauren and Mike. They cooked us incredible food and we relished in the entertaining conversation late into the night.

Day 3: Sunday, September 18

We slept late again, still not quite on GMT. But by late morning, we were out of the house, this time headed for a large park hosting a food and activities fair. The grown ups enjoyed some delicious custard pies (I was first introduced to these in Lisbon, Portugal back in 2000, when we visited Sean's brother over winter break). The kids were happy to ride the carnival rides, including a donkey ride and a massive, inflatable slide. After a couple hours at the fair, we worked our way back home. We enjoyed a nice dinner, before a sad departure. Mike drove us to the train station where we said goodbye to Cambridge, and an hour and a half later, said hello to London.
Sean's old high school friend, Matt, picked us up at the Tube stop in North London and drove us to his childhood flat, where his mom, Tricia, has lived for over 40 years. She was our generous and forgiving host during our time in London. We got settled in and relaxed a bit with Matt and Tricia before turning in. Because the next morning would be our first day in...

Day 4: Monday, September 19

LONDON! Our week-long sight-seeing adventure began at the incredible London Science Museum. There was so much to engage the kids, while appealing to Sean and I as well. We started out in the young kids hands-on area. There were funny sound machines, machines that change the sound of your voice, a bench with a built-in whoopie cushion (all the kids found this hilarious), drums, a water table, an area with massive lego blocks, and on and on..

After a few hours at the Science Museum, we walked our way north, into Kensington Gardens. Since the Royal Wedding in April, of Prince William and Princess Catherine, Thora has been very excited about the wonderful things Royal we might see in London. So Thora was very excited to see Kensington Palace, the official residence of the new royal couple. Here we are outside the gates.











Then we walked down the row of embassies, up around the corner of Kensington Gardens, and back down in, this time headed for the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Playground, a wonderful, Peter Pan-inspired playground. Thora and Auric played on the pirate ship, looked for keys to the locked treasure boxes dotting the park, and snuck around the rock sculpture of the crocodile.





And of course, here's our obligatory ice cream break. Check out Auric's very silly method for eating ice cream. He only eats it with the tip of his tongue, until its time to get the cone, when he turns it sideways, and chomps down on the middle of the cone.








Here's a short video, which also reveals his word for ice cream ("Ice Cream Shop").




It was getting late into the afternoon, and as we were hoping to start our North London commute (about 45 minutes with a tube ride and then a 5-minute double decker bus ride) before rush hour, we headed back east, through the park, with one last stop to make: the Peter Pan statue. Thora was very funny when she saw this. She wanted to figure out which one was Wendy and it was kind of tricky, since the pedestal is crawling with mermaids and fairies. Thora circled the statue many times, running her hands over all the legs of the creatures to find the ones with feet. It is a strange, but alluring statue, and one that invites tactile exploration.

After we were done here, we made our way back to North London.




Day 5: Tuesday, September 20

We started the day at the very fun London Transport Museum, via a short walk through the shops at Covent Garden. I'm sure this doesn't need to be said, but Auric absolutely loved this place. With his fascination with trains and buses still running high, particularly the double-decker buses of London, this museum provided him with so much to see and do. Here he is in the kid area, driving a bus, about as happy as he can be. (Almost all of these vehicles had a video screen mounted in the driver's window, playing a video taken from, in this case, the front of a real-life bus, working it's way through traffic, stopping at bus stops, etc., so it feels like you're really driving.)






















We all enjoyed this place (except it was here that I dropped my camera and broke the lens: disaster #2). Here is Thora and Sean pretending they're one of the period dummies in an old tube car. Clearly they're playing the roles of "Scolding Father" and "Daughter Who Actually Responds to Discipline."









Here is Auric driving the front-half of a modern day double-decker bus. And if you look closely, you'll see that he is holding the tail of his own lion leash/backpack in his mouth so that he can more completely focus on the awesomeness that is driving that bus. At the time, the dangling tail was distracting him. And since he didn't have any free hands to deal with it and drive the bus simultaneously, he did what any sensible person would do. What do you even say about a kid like this?



And then we were on to Trafalgar Square and the obligatory, but of course very fun, climbing on the lions guarding Nelson's Column.

Of course, Thora put her stamp on the moment. Auric, on the other hand, wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do. We'd read a book to the kids before our trip, called Katie in London, where one of these lions comes to life and takes Katie and her brother on a ride to see the sights of London. So it was fun for the kids to take in the massive size of these statues and imagine them coming to life.












Below is a photo with the National Gallery at my back and Nelson's Column in front of me, as well as Big Ben in the distance. Sean took the kids for the obligatory ice cream break while I ran inside the National Gallery for a 30 minute speed viewing. Still. You take what you can get.



After we'd seen Trafalgar Square as much as we were going to, we walked to Picadilly Circus and took in the Times Square-like vibe. Here are me and the kids, posing in front of the Cupid sculpture in the middle of the craziness.













After this, we called it a day, and made our way back to North London.

Day 6: Wednesday, September 21

This day was spent entirely at the Tower of London, kind of unintentionally. We actually meant to spend just the first half of the day there, and then catch a kids activity at a different museum. But as it happened, we managed to be there the whole day! The Tower of London is a great old fortified castle in the heart of London. Hundreds of years ago, this was the Royal Residence as well as a prison. Of course, now the royalty live in various palaces, including the Queen's residence in Buckingham Palace. However, this place has a lot of great history. This is what you see when you get off the Tube at the Tower Hill stop.

What I didn't notice initially, but loved, are the sculptures of the guards at the tops of the towers, about to fire arrows down on intruders. (Click on the photo to enlarge it, since the sculptures are hard to see.) To give you an idea of the size of the Tower of London, here is the image from a postcard I picked up in the gift shop.



That's the River Thames behind it, and the shadow of the Tower Bridge cast down on the water. Our first stop was the Jewel House (pictured at right), where the Crown Jewels are stored. The line of people is snaked around inside anterooms that show videos of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, the last time these jewels were worn.

After 3 rooms, you are led into the vault (there are 1-foot thick, steel, bank-style security doors at the entrance and exit) to see the jewels, which are impressive, indeed. Since you aren't allowed to take pictures in the Jewel House, here is a glimpse from a couple of the postcards we picked up.

After the Jewel House, we had lunch, let Auric nap in the stroller, alternated watching the kids while Sean or I took a Yeoman Warder (aka Beefeater) guided tour of the Tower of London. Click here for more info on the Beefeaters; they have an interesting history. After all that, we headed to the White Tower, which holds, among other things, the suits of armor.

To the left is Thora and Auric in front of a child's suit of armor, one of the more surprising pieces in the collection. (Not quite as surprising as the somewhat absurd, but surely very protective cod piece on the suit below. Sheesh!) Surely this child's suit was just a ceremonial suit of armor. It's hard to imagine that a child could've been a very effective knight. Although, envisioning Thora inside of there, I can somehow see her slaying a dragon.



















We wandered around the grounds some more, snapping photos of the statues of animals that represented the exotic animals housed here in a menagerie that would later become the London Zoo. Also, we made sure to get a good look at the famous ravens that live there and are guarded by the Beefeaters. There was an old superstition that said if the ravens ever died or flew away, the Tower of London would crumble, ending the British royal empire. And so to this day, they house 8 ravens on the grounds, keeping two of the eight in a large bird cage at all times. We posed in front of the Tower Bridge before calling it a day.

Day 7: Thursday, September 22

The Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace! After a quick jaunt through Harrod's department store, we worked our way to Buckingham Palace, with the hordes of other people wanting to catch the Changing of the Guard. It was a lot of standing around and waiting and therefore there was a lot of whining and complaining by the kids (basically, Auric wanted to take his nap; Thora was just plain bored). But once the Guards came into the palace yard with the marching band, the kids really got into it. And once I reminded Thora that on that very middle balcony a few months ago, the new royal couple, Prince William and Princess Catherine, kissed for the first time, she perked right up. (She was very much into watching highlights of the Royal Wedding on Youtube.) And I added, "See all these people, where we're standing, and all those people over there on that fountain? Well remember when the new Prince and Princess came out onto that balcony and kissed and there were all those people that just screamed and cheered? They were all standing where we're standing right now." Those were the details that made this experience real for her.

That's when Thora went from "This is SO BORING!" to "Mom, this is the most fun I've ever had!" Seriously. That's what she said. And even though Auric looked like he was about to slip into a drug-induced sleep, so hard was it for him to stay awake, clearly the experience left a mark on him as well, since this is now one of his favorite activities:











We milled about some more, listening to the marching band (which hilariously played all sorts of numbers including some top 40 hits and a BeeGees number from Saturday Night Fever). We watched the guards make all of their infinitesimal adjustments to their posture and spacing, until we'd had enough. We wandered through Regents Park. Thora and I fed the ducks and a goose. Then we slowly worked our way along Horse Guards Road, behind the Calvary Museum (pictured at right), and back onto the Mall and into Trafalgar Sq, where we stopped in at the Crypt of St. Martin-in-the-Fields where one can do some brass rubbings.

This was one of Thora's favorite activities of the trip.

After the art break of the brass rubbings, we headed down Whitehall, towards the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and ultimately my least favorite part of the trip: The London Eye. It's a massive ferris wheel that spins one revolution in 30 minutes. With my fear of heights, I was pretty much okay during the first 5 minutes and the last 5 minutes. It was the 20 minutes in the middle when were were trapped in a glass capsule hundreds of feet in the air when I was sure that Auric's 2 year-old antics (giving the glass wall a little kick, for example) would somehow dislodge our capsule and send us all plummeting to our deaths. What a fun outing!




Despite my discomfort, I can't deny that the views were terrific, like this one of The Houses Of Parliament and Big Ben.

















Then, on our trip home, Thora spotted this Underground advertisement. She is fascinated with Princess Catherine. Here she is, the closest she got to Kate and her wedding dress. That was a good way to end the day.







Day 8: Friday, September 23

This day started with a race to catch a boat. Our destination was The Tate Modern art museum. Our plan was to take the ferry that shuttles people between The Tate Britain and The Tate Modern via the River Thames. However, the ferry runs just once an hour, and if we missed the 10:15 boat, it would throw our whole morning off (midday naps for Auric were a tricky factor to each day). But despite the longer than expected commute into the city (we took a different double-decker bus/train combination this day), we made it by the skin of our teeth. And at 10:16, we were floating on the Thames, past the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul's Cathedral. We docked on the south side of the river, not far from the Globe Theatre, famous for being the theatre that produced Shakespeare's plays. Then it was just a short walk to the Tate Modern.



A combination of a fun kids area (here are the kids in a pod that changed color inside), a napping Auric, and trading Thora back and forth, allowed the three of us to take in a lot of the art there, way more than we'd anticipated. Thora liked the surrealists, and liked talking about how the paintings are like dreams.


After the Tate, we walked our way along Bankside, the south side of the Thames, until we came to the historic Borough Market, an outdoor culinary market that is open on Thursdays-Saturdays, and has existed in various locations for almost 1000 years. There are food merchants selling all kinds of edibles from all over the world. And the fun is that practically each stand wants you to try what they have. So we had nibbles of paella and curry, olives and chutney. We bought some lunch from the nearby restaurants that cater to those shopping in the market. We listened to a street performing duet. We took in the sights of the bustling market (Thora is eyeing an enormous fish of some kind in the photo to the right), Thora enjoyed some gourmet ice cream, Sean and I bought some yummy items that would travel well, and then we worked our way to Paddington Station, where we eventually caught a train to the country. (The photo at the left was taken during a nice little moment on the Tube, before arriving at Paddington Station.)

We were headed to Matt's place in the country. And while the train ride itself was pretty unpleasant--we spent the entire 1 hour and 15 minutes crammed in the area by the doors of one car, the kids sitting on our bags--when we arrived, we were rewarded with wine and great conversation with Matt and his wife Boo.


The kids became fast friends with Matt's sons, Charlie and Harry. And the fact that they have a full size trampoline was just a bonus! The photo to the right never fails to crack me up--Auric being bounced, in this frozen instant caught mid-air. All the kids were really good about making sure that Auric was happy. They let him sit while they bounced him around, or they sat while he bounced. Watching kids on a trampoline--there are few things that make them so giddy and exhausted.



After some playing, the kids got fed and bathed and fed again (they all wanted a bowl of cereal before bed). With only some minor tweaking, we had the sleeping arrangements figured out, and the kids were off to dreamland.

Matt, Boo, Sean and I had a nice grown-up dinner after the kids were in bed. We did quite a bit of catching up and then we were off to bed, too. We had a big day planned for Saturday.



Day 9: Saturday, September 24

After we all got up and did a run along the country road (with my still-unhealed plantar faciaitis in my left heal, I regretted that by the middle of the afternoon), we headed for Sean's alma mater, Downside, a catholic boarding school
near the town of Bath.





Sean had a full day on the grounds of his old school, where he spent his teenage years from 14-19. First, he and Matt visited with Dom Alexander, the housemaster of their house, Ramsey. They had a lot of catching up to do, and so Thora, Auric, and I wandered around some of the grounds. The trip to Buckingham Palace a few days prior had begun to sink in, and Auric was very interested in marching like the guards. The photo at the left captures the first instance of Thora and Auric marching back and forth.
















After their visit with Dom Alex, Matt and Sean showed us around the campus. Here they are, standing in front of the building that used to contain their house, Ramsey. Below, Matt, Sean, and the kids pose in front of the entrance to the main building.






We toured inside the buildings, and had lunch in their old cafeteria, the Ref (short for refectory). After the lunch, the rest of the gang (Boo, their kids, and their kids' friends were all with us now, too) toured the Abbey, a beautiful gothic-style cathedral. Auric was in no mood to be quiet, so he and I walked up to the rugby field (or pitch, as they say over there) to check it out. After they were done touring some of the other buildings, looking at old photographs on the walls, some of Sean's rugby team photos, we all met up (in fact, they spent some time looking for Auric and I...oops), we all headed up to the rugby field to watch Downside play.


The weather couldn't have been more perfect. And the view was stunning. (That's the tower of the abbey in the background.) The kids ran around together and had a great time. (Thora and Harry were developing quite the little friendship.) Auric liked wandering around, and getting into things he shouldn't. I found an open supply closet next to the field, and inside was a flat rugby ball. I thought, until someone told me otherwise, it would be okay to let Auric play with it.



Doesn't he look like a natural?!? For those who don't know rugby, you can run forward with the ball but you have to pass backwards, so you end up throwing the ball across your body... just like Auric's doing! If you didn't know that that's also how he throws a basketball and a baseball, we might think we had a prodigy on our hands. Who knows--maybe to Auric, there's only one sport that matters.

Downside won and we worked our way back to the school. Auric seemed like he would be cooperative, and so I got a tour of the Abbey. Then we loaded up in Matt's car and headed back to his village, about 45 minutes away.

That night, we got all the kids to bed, including the pair of kids that Boo had with her all day, and had another lovely grown-up dinner, this time a scrumptious chicken caesar salad and farm-fresh grilled lamb chops. Then Boo was happy to curl up in the living room with a fire in the fireplace while the three of us went down to his neighborhood pub for a couple pints. Boo was still up when we got back, and so Matt stoked the fire a bit, and we sat around for another hour, before finally turning it.

Day 10: Sunday, September 25

This was our last day in the country. Matt and Boo gave us a nice send off with a very nice English Country Sunday dinner party. More old friends arrived, including Fuzz, one of Sean's good friends from Downside, and Charlie, another Downside friend. Here they are, from the left, Matt, Sean, Fuzz, and Charlie.







The place was crawling with kids of all ages, and so Thora and Auric never went without playmates all morning and afternoon. And despite the fact that Auric was the youngest by 2 and 1/2 years, the next oldest bunch, Thora, Harry, and Zara, took a liking to him and were happy to include him in their games and to protect him if the play got too rowdy. Here is the crew on the trampoline again: Thora, Auric, Harry, and Zara.


After lunch, I took kid-duty so that Sean could have a bit more time to catch up with his old school friends without distraction. Matt and his family live in a converted farmhouse, which still has all sorts of buildings and barns and stables on the grounds. And so while we were there, Auric got the incredible luck of seeing a mother and her daughter drive their horse trailer out back behind one of the barns where we happened to be. They unloaded the horse--Auric loves horses--and began the work of cleaning the horse and the trailer. Auric was fascinated. He also found Charlie, who'd been absent with another one of the older neighborhood boys. They had a small pedal car that they were racing down a small hill and around the inside of an empty barn. This big-boy activity had Auric transfixed for some time as well.

In the late afternoon, we said our goodbyes, and Fuzz drove us the twenty minutes to the train station, where again, we caught our train by the skin of our teeth. Due to Sunday evening train closures, we had a slightly extra-long and extra-crowded commute from Paddington Station back to North London. But we made it and were happy for the fun we'd had out in the country.

Day 11: Monday, September 26

We started the day with another commute from North London. And it's here that I must stress how much Auric loved those double-decker buses. He practically sobbed everytime we got off. Since we were traveling just after morning rush hour and just before evening rush hour, we usually got the front seat on the upper level. To the right is Auric relishing his absolute favorite thing. Oh, to be 2, and have your morning commute be your first favorite thing of the day.

We started the day at the wonderful Museum of London, which charts the city's history, from prehistoric times, through it's habitation by different cultures, its abandonment, its rebirth, its great fire, up through contemporary times. We loved all the reproductions of a Victorian-era city street, complete with a pub, a haberdashery, a tailor, a pharmacist, a purveyor of tea and crackers, a toy store, etc. Thora and I loved the Victorian-era Pleasure Garden display, a darkened room with movies projected onto two of the walls, giving the illusion of life-sized actors portraying the well-dressed, at times promiscuous people, intoxicated by the heady mood of the garden beneath the stars. The interior of the room was decorated with plants and trees and a starry-night ceiling. Behind glass were incredibly detailed reproductions of the some of the over-the-top fashion of the time. Auric loved the transportation displays, sitting down and pushing trains on a small track for close to 20 minutes, and only being forcibly led away.







After the London Museum--and it's awesome gift shop--we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral. The kids were losing their strength and composure, and I was hungry, so we just sat for awhile watching some street performers while nibbling on a sandwich.








Then we worked our way, via tube, to the Victoria and Albert (or V&A) Museum of Childhood. This turned out to exceed our expectations. Both the kids and us loved to look at the toys from different times and places, and near each section was some kind of interactive display for the kids to play on. My favorite area featured the dollhouses. I didn't have dollhouses as a kid, but I've always been fascinated by them, the bigger, and the more intricately furnished the better. The photo to the right is dark; but it shows Auric hunkered down at a dollhouse in front of a display case of several massive dollhouses, stocked with tiny life-like accessories. We were here for a couple hours, before a well-deserved treat in their cafe. After that, we spent some time running around the park next to the museum before heading back to North London.

Day 12: Tuesday, September 27

This was the last full day of our trip and we let Thora set the agenda. And this was her plan: start the day at Hamley's toy store, a store that's been around for 200 years, and now takes up 5 stories in a building between Oxford Circus and Picadilly Circus. Needless to say, she was so excited for this. And clearly so was I, because despite the talk we had outside on the sidewalk, where we told the kids that each of them could get one thing for under 10 pounds (about $18), at one point Sean caught up with me and was perplexed as he listened to me explain to him what all was in my shopping bag. (I took photos of it all for Christmas lists and then sheepishly put it all back.)

Above, Thora is running up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe-inspired stairwell.

And here she is, standing next to a display of a Princess Catherine doll in her bridal gown. Only $80 a pop! Seriously? (This was NOT one of the items that I had to put back on the shelf.)

After Hamley's, we headed back to Trafalgar Square. The other item on Thora's agenda was to go back to the St. Martin-in-the-Fields church for another round of brass rubbings. Auric cooperated by taking a nap at this time, and so Sean was able to take a quick spin through the National Gallery. We all met up afterward and headed to a part of the city that we were told had tons of electronic stores. We wanted to look into getting a new dvd player for the trip home, since we were flying during the day and the kids would be awake for possibly the entire 7+ hour flight. However, we couldn't find one that could play U.S. dvds, and so after a frustrating venture to a boring part of town for a fruitless search, we headed back to North London. However, the kids still got their obligatory ice cream for putting up with the errand, so we have this cute photo.

We had our last night at Tricia's flat. The kids had fun with "Nanny." Below, Nanny is sharing one of the chocolate mice from Boston that we'd brought as a thank you gift for her. She's holding the mouse by its ribbon tail while Thora tries to catch it with her mouth.And she got it!

We all loved our time with Nanny. She was a wonderfully generous host. She was very silly and sweet with the kids. They loved her!



During our last night, Sean's old good friend from his Downside Days, Gaverick, came to visit. We had a great time catching up with him; he'd just gotten back from a several-week European Tour with his band, Poino. He stayed the night at Tricia's house and then graciously offered to drive us to the airport in the morning. So after feeding the kids, Sean took them up the hill to the big park that has a pond where you can feed ducks, while I packed us all up. Before we knew it, we were flying away from London and back to our life in Boston. (We survived the return journey, again without a dvd player--potential disaster #3.) We had a great time and it was a really successful trip. The kids had lots of fun. We had lots of fun and re-connected with great friends. We packed it in and were exhausted most of the time. But I wouldn't have it any other way.