Day 6 in London

I am grateful for the experience of being a parent. One of the true thrills of parenting is leaving the children with a babysitter and going out. This was never such a thrill pre-kids. Last night, after making sure the babysitter had all the information she needed, we wandered back to Portobello Road. Kate wanted to visit a chocolate shop to get some easter candy. The shop had such amazing chocolate, we had to make a purchase. We purchased a basil and lime, tobacco, and black cardamom to name a few.

This is a picture of the bottom of the bag they gave us at the shop.

I have seen many reminders of caring for the environment. I am reminded that in other countries, the human effect on climate change is not debated.

After chocolate, we went to a delicious Mexican restaurant, and later, we stopped at Stephen and Kate's favorite gelato place... again delicious. When we returned home 4 of the 5 children were asleep. One of Kate's neighbors had stopped by to pick up some keys and told Kate the sitter was very kind and calm and seemed to have everything under control. Pretty impressive for 5 kids. Jack reported when he woke up that he wanted her to come back again.

Before going to bed last night, we made Easter baskets for all the kids. This morning when they woke up was a festival of sugar and an impressive display of meltdowns. Kate's kids are still sick and I didn't think they'd go anywhere. However we headed out around 1030 to Kew Gardens where there was an easter egg hunt of sorts.

It took about 40 minutes to get out to the gardens by the tube -- we had to wait longer than usual because of the holiday. The Kew gardens started as a park in the 16th century. In the 17th century it became the property of the Royal family and George III spent his summers there. I couldn't find the current size of the garden but by the time George III was there, it had expanded to 400 acres. It's a very large park. It is host to trees that are hundreds of years old. Today the mission of Kew Gardens to "inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation worldwide, enhancing the quality of life." We wandered around the gardens, participated in a hunt of sorts (we got little tokens from people dressed as various animals then were supposed to collect a chocolate egg -- my kids didn't dig the delayed satisfaction and didn't finish the hunt), then found a cool playground that had indoor and outdoor sections. The kids really enjoyed it. The playground equipment here is different from home.. there's just a lot more of it -- for example, they build little hills that the kids spend a lot of time running over.

We had 3pm reservations at a neighborhood restaurant so we left around 2. IT's traditional in England to go to a local pub for a "Sunday roast." Since it was Easter and Stephen's birthday we splurged and took the kids. It wasn't really a pub. It looked like a restaurant to me. The food was amazing.

The action continued when we returned to Kate's and had a traditional easter egg hunt. We sang Happy Birthday to Stephen while Kate served whoopie pies she had purchased from a neighborhood bakery. At this point, the kids were zipping all over the place. Ryan joked we were stress testing their endocrine systems. We took them all outside to the park to run it out. Yes, Kate's kids are still sick but they don't want to be left out of the action. Tylenol works miracles.

Meltdowns began the day and ended it. We dragged Sonia crying from the park and Ryan is now reading to them. Wow. lots of action.