The in between time.

Before the next adventure of Scott being gone for just over a month, I thought I should share the fun stuff we have recently been up to. While we have been working ridiculous hours during the week, we have managed to do some fun stuff on the weekends here in London. In addition to going to Hyde Park (with an obligatory stop for delicious hamburgers at Hard Rock) and seeing Buckingham Palace, we have also taken the kids a few other place, including the M & M store. One of the coolest was going to a Safari Park. This ended up being extraordinarily fun. The only way I can see this having been cooler was if the monkeys jumped on our car instead of all the cars around us.

We also had an adventure and took the kids to St Albans in far north London to see some of our friends from Amsterdam that moved to London just before we did. It was really nice seeing friendly faces. While we have greatly enjoyed our stay in England, we have found it a bit more difficult to meet people that we want to run around with. Most of this of course if our problem — too much work and not enough play.

The kids had their week out of school and started back on Monday which happened to be Halloween. We had a good time although it proved to be quite different than the proper American Halloween escapade. We had quite a lot of children show up at the door dressed up. Most knocked and then said “Happy Halloween!”. This seemed fine until we knocked on a door and our kids said “trick or treat!”. The man looked confused, paused (uncomfortably long), and then said, “Treat is I guess my choice.” Random, but funny. The British kids were uncomfortable grabbing more than one “sweetie” at a time, even when encouraged. So polite of them. So British of them. A stark difference indeed from an American Halloween.

Mary-freaking-Poppins has been great. I finally asked her if I could use her name and pictures on this blog, and she kindly agreed. So Mary-freaking-Poppins will now be known as Marisa. The kids love her. We love her. She is an equal in our house and we no longer have three children. Such a good place to be.

Scott left this morning for the airport to go to the States for a month. I’m sad to see him go, but it will be nice to see what happens with his trial. He has lived and breathed this case for five years. It will be hard on everyone in the family, but this should be the last long trip we have.

Wish me luck as I navigate this country, this family and this next adventure without Scott!

A video of the last few weekends: