Day 4 - London

May 5, 2008

Hi All! This will be a short post as we are trying to get out the door but I wanted to let you know briefly what we did yesterday and are going to do today.

We had a very easy morning and afternoon (I even got in a nap - it was very much needed). Around 4:00pm, we went out for a drive so Jeremiah could get used to things and boy was it different, even for me the passenger. I think we'll do fine after a little more practice though (there is a lot to think about all at once which can get confusing).

We drove not too far away to Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Cottage (Queen Elizabeth I; originally built for Henry VIII - even had wider steps to accommodate the "portly sovereign"). It was very beautiful with open green fields around and then the Epping forest behind (this forest used to be much bigger but with expansions has been cut down for its timber).

We walked around for a bit and enjoyed the scenery while eating some delicious ice cream on a cone. We walked over to a "man-made" pond (it was "man-made" by a V2 bomb in WWII).

After a bit we drove back home and prepared dinner which was very tasty and Gillian made an apple crumble with minced meat for dessert (heavenly!). (Oh, and Mom, I found out where they get their tea and we will be ordering some so that I can take it back with me at the end of the trip - they buy it from a factory in Wales who actually imports it the ingredients from India and China).

Oh, as dinner was being made, I had a chance to watch a documentary on the BBC's Young Musician of the Year award. It's been going on since 1978 and man do they have some talented young kids over here. The winner in 1984 was a clarinettist and she was amazing (I thought of you dad as I listened to her and would have thought you would enjoy her playing).

After dinner, Mike really wanted to watch a TV movie called "Flood". It's one of those what-if disaster movies but this one was saying what would happen if the Thames flooded. They only showed the first half last night and the rest will be tonight. It was actually rather good. That brought us to bed time.

We finally got in bed around 11:30pm.

This morning we got up a little later than we were hoping for (my fault; I had set the alarm a little early to get up and have time to write to you but then I guess instead of getting out of bed, I fell back asleep and had already turned off the alarm! So we got up 15 minutes later than we wanted but we'll make it work).

Today we are going to the Tower of London and Jeremiah has some surprises along the way that he would like to show me.

Well, that's gonna have to be all for now as we need to get out of here. More to come later.

Oh, and if you could keep our health in your prayers; we both woke up with a soar throat this morning. We took some Airborne which will hopefully help and we'll try to be careful. Thanks!

We love you all and look forward to our next "chat".