Pa and Grandma Barbara

Pa (Jason's dad) and Grandma Barbara (Jason's step-mom) came to visit with their friends Karen and Mark.  They flew in from France where they'd been living it up for the first part of their vacation.  We all had a fantastic time visiting and site-seeing together but I think we all agreed that their visit could have been longer!

Here are a few pics from their visit:

We sneaked a group photo in by using a big (rain spotted) mirror:

Here is a group of Pa and Grandma Barbara with their good friends Karen and Mark:

And a group photo of the Hungerfords on Hungerford Bridge!

One of Charlie's favourite parts of their visit was holding their hands and walking around the city:

We tried to get a good shot of the three of them, but couldn't quite manage:

But we did get a good picture of Jason and his dad in front of the Tower Bridge while we were visiting the Tower of London:

Our last hurrah together was to take a flight on the London Eye.  Jason and I had take a ride on The Eye back in 2007 for our fifth wedding anniversary and we were excited to ride it again.  It was a stunning view at dusk, but it made it a bit difficult to get pictures of people in our pod!

Charlie still talks about them all the time; we can't wait for them to come back!

Holidaymakers

Charlie and I are on our way to the States!  I've set this to publish during our flight, so you can imagine us somewhere over the arctic, having a tea (me), being a good baby (Charlotte) and excitedly anticipating our reunion with Bethie, as well as with family and friends.

It's hard to believe that Charlie and I haven't been away from Greater London (aside from a brief-but-wonderful visit to Paris with my lovely bride) since we arrived here almost nine months ago.  When she became a UK resident, Charlie wasn't much older than this:

(finally, fulfilment of an old promise)

 We've had a good few weeks together, enjoying our first December in London.  

There's something magical about big cities at Christmas, and London is no exception.  It's lovely here.  

Even if it is a bit chilly at times.

And next year we may celebrate the day itself here, all three of us together.

But for now, we've packed our bags and are headed on holiday.  Take a look at this kid: she put the box of formula in the empty suitcase while I wasn't looking.  Charlie has her priorities....

And right now, at 35,000 feet, I'm hopefully with a Charlie who's less like this:

And more like this:

 See you soon, America!

Southbank Christmas Market

Last Thursday, Charlie and I made a brief excursion to the Christmas market being held at Southbank Centre.  Christmas markets are a big deal in Europe, but it's more of a continental thing, and as best as I know, properly German.  "Christmas market" always makes me think of the scene that is supposed to be at the base of Piz Gloria, Switzerland, in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.  I think that's the finest Bond movie I've seen, if not the finest Bond.  But I digress.

London has a Christmas market offering near the Southbank Centre.  The Southbank Centre itself is a set of monstrous concrete blocks designed for concerts.  They're fine concert halls, but were constructed at an unfortunate point in the history of architecture.  Again, I digress.

Here are some photos of our visit.  Beautiful views from just across the Lambeth Bridge:

Here's a frozen child on the river walk.

The Eye is impressive and, in my opinion, worth the price of admission.  That's saying a lot, given the price of admission.  Bethie and I went back in 2009.  

The market was quiet due to it being a weekday.  And due to it being really cold.

The cold couldn't keep the Easter Bunny away.

There were roasted chestnuts, which were also less expensive than Paris, but more than Oxford Street.  I wish I could have the space in my brain that's storing this information for something else.

Severed heads make it feel more like a German village.

Crepes make it feel like a French village.

Charlie didn't get a lot out of the experience except for frostbite.  Not really any baby-friendly things to do there.  I wanted to take her on the carousel, but it looked like it may be too fast and may cause me her to be nauseous.

Truth be told, there wasn't really much to the market.  The company was nice, though, and the pleasure of returning to our warm flat made the outing worthwhile.

A Day Off with Charlie

With Bethie out of the country, the steady output of Charlie photos from Milton's Manor is likely to ebb.  I don't have the knack that Bethie has for documenting the babe's goings on, but I did take few photos today (some blurry, but what can you do).

I took the day off of work so that Charlie could spend some time together.  She wasn't quite as eager to get started: she slept until 9:15!

The rest did her well, and she was soon up and in her usual excited mood.

Fortified by banana mush and a bottle of milk... 

...we put on our coats and headed to the Tube.

We took the Northern Line to Stockwell, changed to the Victoria, and set off north to Oxford Circus.  Charlie was very excited to see the shops.

But shopping can be exhausting, and Charlie called it quits in the Selfridges food hall.  How any kid of mine can fall asleep in the Selfridges food hall, I don't know.

While Charlie slept, I pushed her back to the Tube.  We passed roasting chestnuts, but as I had some of these last week in Paris, I did not partake.  I did, however, note that they are only £1 here but 4 Euros in Paris (OK, what is the keystroke for the Euro symbol on a US keyboard?  I think it may be time to invest in a UK keyboard...).

Oxford Street is easy to hate and easy to love.  It's crowded with people wandering in zig-zags on the sidewalk (the part that's easy to hate), but few places feel more quintessentially London.  It's a really tremendous shopping area, too.  I also think it's built in an infinite loop.  I'm not making this up: you'll pass three Uniqlo stores, two H&Ms, and countless Starbucks between Oxford Circus and Bond Street tubes, which are less than a mile apart.

 When we returned home, Charlotte and I had tea.  For C, this meant yogurt.

And some water.

Some other stuff happened, including a great Skype with Bethie and a Chex Mix delivery visit to the Hallidays', but perhaps the only thing requiring a photo was this apparently ownerless pink dog doing its weekly shop at Sainsbury's.

J'adore ma marraine (et elle me le rend bien)

(The title of the post was taken from a bib that The Twins bought for C in Paris.  My French isn't great, but it translates to something like "I love my godmother (and she thinks well of me)".  Someone please feel free to correct me on that!!)

Charlie's godmoms, Corinna and Maria, left earlier this week to head over to Rome.  We all enjoyed having them around!!  We spent some time around Clapham, toured around some of the more touristy spots and played a lot of board games at home.  It was a fantastic visit!  Here are some pictures from their visit (from a mixture of their camera and ours!). 

ridin' the tube

They were great at keeping Charlie entertained!

the lovely Maria at Hampstead Heath

the lovely Corinna trying to spy Keats's house from the heath

They each fed C a bottle shortly after they arrived.  I think it helped them to bond faster!

Corinna's turn. 

Another great thing about having The Twins around was that they captured some really sweet pictures of Charlotte!

They are completing their adventures in Rome before heading back to Seattle and their work at St James Cathedral.  We miss them already, but are looking forward to seeing them for Charlotte's birthday party in December!

a fake 10 Downing Street photo opp