Dress up

I was primping for our big date in London and Anastasia decided to primp as well. Take a look at her get up and the self-pics. (Meanwhile,Joe was at a birthday party with birds of prey).

Tom and I had an awesome time in London. We ate at a posh venue (fancy restaurant) with Jamil and then we ventured over to the Royal Albert Hall. It is amazing. The orchestra played in front with several choirs and soloists while the movie, "Lord of the Rings" played in the background. This brings a new meaning to surround sound!

The Incident

Well, we were at Burnham Beeches nat'l park the other day and right as we were leaving all the kids started climbing a rock pile. Unfortunately, Joe slid down and cut his forearm below his wrist. It was a good scratch so we gave him a paper towel. But as we walked toward the car, I noticed that he was really bleeding. Went by the cafe to get some more napkins and he also gave us an ice lolly to apply to it. We went to the doctor where he ended up getting some butterflies and a stitch. He is feeling more himself today.

Anastasia was a great helper and made Joe some treats and care package. She even started cooking him breakfast in bed this Saturday.

First day of School, Take TWO!!

Well, the children started Farnham Common Infant school on Monday. They seem to be adjusting and have made some friends. It is a much easier transition than I anticipated. Yipee!

The warf district

We continued our Portsmouth trip by viewing all of the ships and museums. Our finale was to take the boat trip in the harbor where we explored the shops! Here the kids bounced inside plastic bubbles. I am not certain how this passed UK Health and Safety, but they had a ball, literally. :)

Dockyards

We enjoyed climbing on the ships and exploring the dockyard and museums.

Portsmouth weekend

After the Great Fire, we headed out of the city to the coast. (We encountered Samuel Pepyse, again.) We went back in time a bit to 1660, when he was appointed by King Charles II to pay the sailors and bring the navy up to speed. We had fun exploring the HMS Victory, Warrior, Mary Rose Museum and taking the harbor trip.

Fire Brigade Museum

Here we got the overview of the Great fire of 1666, plus the evolution of the fire brigades. She told about the various improvements in engines, allowed the kids to wear the differing uniforms, showed the fire recruits in training, and discussed how previous fire brigades only extinguished fires of insured customers. Bummer if you did not pay. It was really interesting and the guide was very knowledgeable.

The blazing trail from the Great fire

The kids told us about the start of the fire at Pudding Lane to the end at St. Paul's. We took some pics and a great walk through the area. Wow, it really did spread like wild fire.

Great Fire of London

Well, Joe and Anastasia have learned quite a bit about the Great fire of 1666.

So, we decided to venture down to the hot spots :)

We started at Monument, ventured to Pudding Lane, St Paul's Cathedral, and ended with the London Fire Brigade Museum. We made a stop at the Borough Market near the museum for lunch-- it is really cool and great food. Tom and I discussed that we had seen the tube stop for monument thousands of times and never realized that it was the "Great fire of London Monument." You certainly learn something new every day.

More experiments....

We had great weather and the outside portion proved to be lots of fun. Our yard is now pink and smells like vinegar, but tomorrow the forecast is... you guessed it-- rain! to view the video, simply click on the arrow.

7th b-day Mad Science party!!!

For Joe's 7th b-day we took lots of ideas off of the net. We started out building towers out of cheese puffs, tootsie rolls and gummi bears. More was eaten than constructed.

Then we divided up and began experimenting. At table #1 we made slime and dyed carnations- notice: this takes longer than we realized to dye the flowers. We may post pics in the morning :) Table #2 had the eggs that were sucked into the bottle and the dancing raisins. Table #3 had the identify the small magnified piece of the picture and the static balloons. Most people were able to roll soda cans with the static and get their balloons to stick to the wall or ceiling. Outside we gave each kid a Ziploc to make a bubble bomb. That was exciting. Then we performed the volcano, elephants toothpaste (thank you ladies at the barbershop for the good hydrogen peroxide) and the finale was the coke explosion!! We had fun, got messy and finished up with cake. Here is a look at our big day. Thanks to everyone who helped out!!