It's a small world

I went to Waitrose today. They have refurbished the one up near Swiss Cottage and I absolutely love it. Bright, clean, and lots of organic. I guess it is pretty sad when your life revolves around finding a fancy-good grocery store.

However, it is hard to drive the car up there as the car park spaces are soooo small I have a hard time parking the "estate" - a.k.a. wagon. (they call 'em "estates" here in England and just to let you know, from-here-on-out I will be referring to them as estates too because I think it just sounds so darn "euro" I can't bear it! And the word "wagon" coming from a girl who grew up in Texas, well let's just not go there. ) I digress............ Anyhow, the car park is underground so I have to deal with cement columns and those who 1. obviously aren't Type A and 2. are driving a tuna can and haven't parked within a designated spot. Soooo I usually take the city bus which greatly limits me on how much I can buy/carry. Which is what I did today.....took the stinkin' bus.

It really makes me sad when I go to a "bright, clean, and organic stuff" kinda grocery and can only buy one whole chicken (which of course is free range organic - ya know, cause I'm all about making sure the chickens had a "good life") and a bottle of fabric softener; which is about all I can stand to carry and swing around on the bus. Well, really, I came home with a little more than that today. I loaded up on fruits and vegs for the boys. (ha ha) I thought I would share with you the origins of the food found in my local British grocery store....and dont let this list fool you. We really don't eat all this healthy stuff anyways. It just looks really good in a new stainless bowl I bought.


(see pic above)
Peas from Kenya
Romaine lettuce from Spain


















Tomatoes from Israel


















Peaches from Australia


















Blueberries from Chile



Other items not shown:
Asparagus from Peru
Raspberries from Morocco

dino diggin'

Andrew has a new project. He received a Dino Dig kit for Christmas and has decided to try it out. I can't tell you how diligent and patient he has been through the process! The kit comes with a block of plaster and several excavating tools specially sized for little paleontologists. The idea is to work like a paleontologist carefully scraping and brushing away debris to expose bones. It isn't easy for him to understand the process; he was expecting to be done within 2 minutes hopefully having had scraped all the bones free in prep for assembly. He started yesterday afternoon, did a little last night, and even got up this morning and had a go at it. I never thought he would make it this far! What patience the little guy has. The block is extremely hard and can't be broken into pieces with any of the tools included so he really is forced to scrape and brush. As of this morning he has exposed 3 different dino bones though none are freed from the rock. We will keep you informed of the progress.



We have a vistor this weekend. This is Sparkle the cat. He came home from school with Andrew for the week. We are supposed to document our days, much like a diary, to share with the class on Monday. Of course, Sparkle comes home the week that the Dames' have nothing exciting planned....really nothing. So we decided we might as well include him in the dino dig project. I was surprised to see Andrew playing with him in his bedroom earlier this week. Of course, he was showing Sparkle his Hot Wheels collection and outlining which cars were the fastest, coolest, etc... (and big brother wasn't home to make any comments.)

Christmas past

We got an email from GaGa HoHo who asked about our gingerbread house project. (The email was sent back in December. Sorry, my fault!) So, even though they have gone to the great gingerbread house city "in the sky" I took photos before they were sent. This is Andrew's. He was especially pround of the marshmallows on the candy canes. That is a sandbox in the front, for the kids to play in. (can you see any missing pieces? Andrew was our culprit if we found any candies missing!)



This is Alex's. He did a double. By the way, all of the candies were imported from Houston. Poppa Ed and GaGa HoHo and Aunt Steph brought in a suitcase full of candies for us to use. It was difficult to find candies here in London. Even candy canes were hard to find.

This is Christmas eve dinner with Grammy and Grandpa Dames. They visited us over the Christmas holidays. On the menu: tortellini soup, antipasta, and a green salad. We are wearing our paper crowns from our Christmas crackers. Did you know that the origin of Christmas crackers is from right here in England? Tom Smith came up with the idea and you can find crackers everywhere all over London at Christmastime. (Don't you feel lucky to have your own personal conceirge of British Christmas traditions??)(Unfortunately, that is the extent of it.)

This is a picture of our tree. The photo really doesn't do it any justice. It really was beautiful! However, it too has gone to the Christmas tree farm "in the sky" and this pic is all we have left.

Whoops. Sorry this is out of order..... I am still learning how to upload pics. Anywho, this is John's creation. It's a church. My favorite part is the rose window! (my London townhome is in the background.) We ended up with quite a nice gingerbread city, a.k.a. ginormous (british term for gigantic and enormous) super-secret snacking post for some kids who will remain nameless.

This is Andrew's gingerbread house he did at school. Before the Thanksgiving break the teachers requested that if anyone was going home to the states for their T-giving holiday, please bring back candies for the gingerbread house project. Needless to say, they ended up with more than enough and lots of variety.

Hampton Court Palace

Over the holidays we made a trip southwest to the London borough of Richmond upon Thames to see Hampton Court Palace which once was residence for King Henry the VIII (among others). This is the front/north entrance. (as you can see from the scaffolding it is under refurbishment inside.)



We were lucky enough to get tickets to ice skate there on the palace grounds. An ice skating rink is set up during the month of Decemeber and January. Here is Silly Chap #1........(notice the bridge over the Thames River in the background!)

Here is Silly Chap #2 clinging to the wall. Both boys caught on quite quickly and did amazingly well for their second time on ice skates!

Around the backside/south side of the palace are beautiful gardens. Even in winter they are green and groomed. This is a Yew tree with both Silly Chaps standing underneath. See how big those trees are? And better yet, they are not pruned or trimmed. This is their natural growing shape or at least that is what we were told. I have tried to find them via Wikipedia and have come-up with nothing though to confirm these facts.

They line the walkways like soldiers! We learned from one of the docents that these trees are only 1/3 through their life span, and they were planted back in 1690. They are slow growing trees and provide medicinal components used in current cancer treatment drugs. For more great information and pictures visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace

S.A.D.

Ever heard of S.A.D.? Otherwise known as "seasonal affective disorder"? Well, we heard it is quite common around here and let me show you why...........

This is outside our mansion flat, AT 4:00 P.M.! It is this dark when I drive to pick-up Silly Chap #1 from school at 4:15! I didn't believe those who were telling me that it starts to get dark around 3:30 in the winter. It seems to be quite true. (It does make it easy to put the little ones in bed though!) However, we are now on the upside after the winter solstice and the daylight hours will be getting longer very soon. Just in time........as we get really "s-a-d" around here some days!

Platform 9 3/4

For all those "Muggles" out there.....we made a stop at Kings Cross tube station and found the Holy Grail for Harry Potter fans. Yep, it really is there - Harry's luggage trolley stuck halfway through the platform wall - and it really is at Platform 9 3/4!! Imagine that. (we weren't the only ones taking photos, either!)