Week Two According to Amanda

Matt and Jacob summarized the week beautifully, but I had to add my color commentary.  I'll try to add in a few pictures and links as well.

The students have arrived and are a fabulous bunch.  Only one marginally late call, and that was minor.  They have been very kind to our kids as we tag along on the tours.  A few have offered to babysit as well, so Matt and I hope to take advantage of London theatre as much as we can.  

Our discovery of St John'ss was really a God thing.  We had intended to visit HCB, where Nicky Gumble is vicar, but the church is quite a tube trip from the student flats, where we were meeting for the London coach tour that afternoon.  So I did a Google search for churches in our post code & we decided to try out St John's.  It was lovely from beginning to end- welcoming, casual and very inviting to the children.  The worship nerd in me is dying to share lots of details that were interesting, but that will appeal to about 3 of you, so I'll share one and save the rest.  The children go to their "clubs" or Sunday School mid way through worship and finish about 30 minutes after it ends, so when worship concluded, they brought around trays of tea and biscuits (or cookies to us) in the pews/chairs!  How very British and delightful!

The coach tour was great fun.  Our guide, Heather was fabulous and loved our kids, so was extra sweet about sharing stories they would find interesting.  Two stories from the tour:

1. As we walked around Buckingham Palace and into Green Park, Heather pulled out a bag of "monkey nuts" (peanuts in the shell) to feed the squirrels.  These squirrels came right up to you if you called them and fed them.  The kids loved it- even the big college kids!  It was only after I was uploading pictures that I saw this sign.  Oops!

2.  When we stopped at the Westminster Abbey area for photos, Heather recommended we either use the public restrooms for 50 pence each or stop in the Methodist Central Hall's cafe for a drink and use their bathroom for free.  Being good Methodists (and perhaps a bit cheap), we figured stopping at Wesley's Cafe would be the wiser plan. The kids were hungry for a snack, so I grabbed a chocolate muffin as well as Matt's soda & left him to pay while I took the kids to the "free" restroom.  When we returned, Matt informed the kids they had better enjoy every crumb of the muffin, because it cost 4 pounds (or almost $6). So much for a cheaper plan.  

We enjoyed our first trip to the British Museum.  It is enormous, so we must do it in small doses to keep the kids interested, but we've got four months.  We started in the Egyptian galleries, which was amazing.  There were ancient wall sculptures that told the story of Assyrian army battles in Nineveh.  Zeke really liked seeing that, because we read Jonah and the whale quite regularly in his bedtime Bible story.  We had intended to go up to see the mummies on the third floor, but ran into a room of Roman sculptures of their gods and Allison wanted to see that first.  Allison and Jacob have both been reading some of the Greek and Roman myths, so the little god statues were very interesting to them.

 This is statue of Ramses that was outside his tomb, if my memory is correct.  It, like all of the Egyptian relics, was in remarkably good condition.

Our second trip to the Natural History Museum came while Matt was at the BBC.  We did the red zone, which is more geology and earth science, and got very repetitive to me, but the kids loved it.  To get to one of the galleries, we had to walk through a room full of stuffed (as in taxidermy) birds...in other words, what I imagine hell is like.  The kids delighted in pausing and pointing out every nasty and freaky looking bird, trying to drag out my torture as long as they could.  The little rats!  I thought I had taken pictures of this trip, but must have been too traumatized by the birds to photograph the thousands of rocks and crystals we saw.

All three kids had their Perform music/drama classes this morning.  Zeke had a hard time with the class- crying as the class began and not participating at first, but the teachers swore he was involved and having fun for the last part.  We’re still deciding whether to register him or not.  The older kids adore their class and their teacher...Rachel Barry.  And she looks like a British Rachel Berry from Glee, which makes it very hard for me not to laugh every time I talk to her.  

We have more exploring to do this week, and will hopefully have more stories and photos to share.  Matt and Jacob are better at getting this done, because I am spending a lot of time planning and preparing homeschool lessons and by the time I'm done, I'm too exhausted to string sentences together.  I think as we get more established, that will get better.  It is all good and exciting and we are treasuring every bit we can.