London

Jen at Piccadilly Circus (I believe)

Our vacation was a whirlwind trip, and London was our longest stop at three days. As such, we felt like we were able to see quite a few sites. We visited a few of the major art and history museums. Mercifully the majority of these museums have free admission, which was a lifesaver in a city where everything costs double what it does here. We took a quick trip to Windsor castle (where, surprisingly, the highlight was several sketches from Da Vinci's notebook, although tea with the Queen was nice too). We took a site seeing tour, and we attended an organ concert at Westminster Abbey.

Windsor Castle

For Jen the highlight of London was a morning trip out to Hampstead Heath--800 acres of untouched countryside surrounded by London suburbs. At the edge of the heath is Kenwood Manor, an old manor house that has been converted to an art museum. The countryside was beautiful and Jen would be lying if she said it didn't make her feel just a little Eliza Bennettish. She also loved our quick stop at the Dickens Museum.

Kenwood House at Hampstead Heath

Pictures of the grounds at Hampstead Heath

For Alec the highlights were superb Indian food at Piccadilly Circus and authentic Singaporean food at what was (unbeknownst to us) one of the top rated oriental restaurants in London.

Jen at the Dicken's Museum, which is located in one of Charles Dicken's London homes.

Installment Plan

Let's be honest about it. Our lives would not make for an interesting Hollywood movie, or a popular novel. Heck, they wouldn't even be fit for a Hallmark movie or an unpopular novel. With this in mind, you better believe that when something semi-interesting happens to us we are really going to milk it for all it is worth. For that reason we are going to share pictures from our recent trip to Europe in several installments. Days 1,2 and 3 were London, so we'll start there . . .

Terrible

Happy Birthday to Lillian, who just turned two years old. To be honest, it wasn't much of a birthday party. I guess that's what happens when your selfish parents take a trip to Europe during your birthday. Luckily for her parents, you can still get away with such things at this age.


Not knowing the difference, Lily was quite pleased with her princess toys and her cheap, store-bought cupcakes. If only she had known that her parents were so homesick for her that they would have done anything to make her happy. She really could have milked this birthday for all it was worth had she been a teenager.

Happy Birthday Lily! Welcome to the not-so-terrible twos.

Birthday Party

Just a few pics from Eric and Lily's friend McKenna's birthday party.

Chubby Bunnies

Family Home Evening at the Brown home is not a model to be emulated. The best two things that can be said about it are, 1) we faithfully ensure that our children's diets are rich in the ice cream group, and 2) some kind of something-or-other that can loosely be referred to as Family Home Evening happens almost every week

Case in point; this was our activity for Family Home Evening last week: