Labor Day in London

We're back, and on the other side of our move! Boxes, boxes, everywhere, oh, and the big surprise we discovered when unpacking ... but that's for another post. We love our little village, although three weeks without internet or phone was a little challenging, not to mention isolating! So now that we've caught up with grandmas on both coasts, we're back to the blog. We had planned to be in London this weekend with my brother and his family who are visiting, but the stomach bug came for a visit as well! So let's relive our last trip to London over Labor Day weekend when we visited our dear friends, Steve and Lisa Messersmith and their lovely family!

We took the train from Cheltenham to Padding Station. Train travel is so fun, isn't it? There were activity packets on the train for the children that were all about Paddington Bear and his adventures. After an uneventful trip we arrived in London and made our way to the Underground to find that our line was closed for construction!

I must say we did pretty well navigating the tube. We had a few pieces of luggage, the bigger kids walking, and the little guys on the double stroller. It was nice being able to get them quickly on and off the tube on the stroller, but we did run into some challenges with the stairs and escalators. With a little ingenuity, we arrived unscathed!

Bro. Steve met us at the Underground station just a few minutes walk from their church. Wow! They have a beautiful building that I did not do justice to in these few pictures. We were too busy catching up to get any more.

Charles Spurgeon and his son, both had a part in forming this church, amazing, isn't it?

We enjoyed a wonderful Sunday with them and I was more than happy to fill in for their pianist, who was away. The people at Chiswick Baptist (pronounced Chiz-ik, just so you know :) were so friendly nd treated us like honored guests. The Filipino ladies of the church cooked the most amazing dinner, oh my! I'm so dissapointed we'll be missing that tomorrow.

We had a wonderful time eating, talking, and laughing with Steve and Lisa and the kids couldn't have been more happy to be together. It's not often that we get together with a family that has more kids than we do. The Messersmith six are the sweetest kids you'd want to meet. Most of the pictures I tried to take ended up looking like this ... a bunch of bouncing kids and Emily, always serene in the midst of chaos :)

Now on to those darling kids ...

Felicity

Jacob ... to their credit, I snapped these two at the park, so they were in full play mode :)

serene Emily :)

Bard, Zachary and the apples he picked

Jacob, again :)

cutie Micah

you would not believe how excited this grown man got over the Goodyear blimp :)

Stephen

There was a LOT of crazy boy play in that short weekend!

"Why, Lissy, you're twirling just like a princess?"
"That's because I am a princess."
"Well, of course!"

and their amazing mother, Lisa, what a sweet lady, so sad to miss our weekend together :( She let me eat spoonfuls of Nutella out of her jar all weekend and never said a word. Really, that's the measure of a true friend, isn't it?

oops, afraid I caught her mid bite, but such a nice picture anyway. She so graciously gave up her room for us to sleep in. She is beautiful on the inside and out! I hope I have a daughter like her one day :)

On Sunday night we had kebabs ... oh my, yum! This was a new food for me, but we've tracked down a couple of kebab shops in Cheltenham since. They cook the meat and then shave it off and pile it on top of an open pita with a bunch of yummy veggies on top and some great sauce. Yum! We can't wait to go back to London to see our sweet friends and I'm sure we'll get around to seeing some sights one of these trips. It's nice to not have pressure to do everything at once.

Don't forget to ....

Tall Ships Festival, Part 1

I've resigned myself to the fact that blogger is possessed. I've been working on this post for a week!! Blogger has eaten my pictures, my text, refuses to upload pictures, and won't save anything. So ... for better or worse, here's part one of a mish-mash post about the Tall Ships Festival ... there are actually some tall ships in the next post ... grrrr.

It's been a couple of weeks since we went to the Tall Ships Festival in Gloucester. On a side note, after spending my whole life stumbling through nursery rhymes, I finally know how to pronounce "Gloucester." Now on to other mysteries of the world ....

We took the double-decker bus to Gloucester, which the kids were so excited about. They called it the double-duggar bus ;) The day started out clear, but before we knew it we were heading inside the National Waterways Museum to escape the rain. The museum told all about the complex canal systems constructed throughout England. They were used to distribute goods brought into Gloucester Port. It was quite interesting!

It's been neat seeing so many places with names we recognize from home. Reminds us of where we came from, I guess. I spent many an afternoon cooling off in the Severn Run (sort of like a creek/stream) as a teenager.

There were some neat displays about the family's who lived in boats on the canals and the kids' enjoyed the dress up area.

This picture is quite blurry, but it shows not only how much fun the kids had using the pulleys to lift these heavy bags, but also how many people stop and use our kids' antics for their own enjoyment and entertainment :)

This laundry basket would be perfect for our house!

Emerson's experience with the pulleys!! (No two year old heads were injured during this experience.)

Kids playing with the miniature canal boats.

This one made me stop and think for a minute ... candy cotton? Not so much .. maybe it's supposed to remind you to floss after you eat it?

Part two ... tall ships

Tall Ships Festival, Part 2b

Part two (and proof that we indeed saw Tall Ships!)

The buildings in the back were originally warehouses used to store cargo brought in on the ships. Today they have been converted to condominiums and businesses.

There were quite a few historical reenactors and we spent a while talking to them and trying to learn some English history. These soldiers were representing the Zulu War of 1879.

Emerson took it upon himself to personally shake each soldier's hand. He'd go up and pull on their jacket or arm and say over and over, in his cute two year old little voice, "Can I shake your hand, can I shake your hand?"

Then he moved onto the next one ...

This picture cracks me up, because it's so true to life. The beautiful, wonderful chaos of children ... Jackson is holding his ears because of the ship cannons going off while Mathis is trying to pull his hands out of his ears for the picture. Emerson is looking for the next soldier's hand to shake and the soldier is oblivious to it all and thinking only of the picture.

And he's off ...

Another ...

Still at it ...

Another one down ...

It was loads of fun to climb aboard the ships and explore them ...

A very serious sailor :)

This from down below ... perfect for a couple of rooms in our house!

And last, but not least, this is for the Wall family ... because they DO love ice cream!!

Whew, finally we can move on to other posts. I am so tired of looking at these pictures for the last week!