Public Transport, Pancakes, Pints and our little Pick Pocket

To celebrate Lane's last day of "vacation" before he starts off to work tomorrow here in London, we decided to celebrate by taking a trip into an area called "the city"to locate the office in which he will spend most of his time in London. It was a wonderful Sunday morning, and here are the highlights of each member of our family.

Public Transportation: I am absolutely in love with having access to public transportation. I love getting my i-pad app that shows me all of the transportation methods out each evening and planning the following days excursions. Today was no exception as I quickly had to re-route our days trip from how Lane wanted to get there, into a more family convenient route. Nothing makes me feel more like a city-gal than arriving to a new location with ease. I think Lane is sick of hearing about how much I love "the tube". I think I am going to make my permanent screen saver the tube map. Sorry Avery and Stella, your screen saver is cute, but you can't get me across town in 20 minutes.

Pancakes: For those of you who know Avery well, you will know that the girl can take down a record-breaking amount of pancakes for a 2 year old. I have been working all week to find her pancake mix to make and before today I had only been able to find pre-made pancakes at a convenient store and have not found any maple syrup as of yet (it's hard to dig into a new grocery store with two kids and husband in tow to figure out where things are). Today we hit the jackpot at a breakfast spot that served not 1, not 2, but 5 silver dollar pancakes with warm maple syrup, all for the bargain price of about 3 pounds. My girl ate them up and then begged for more (thankfully for me, they no longer served breakfast when she was ready for helping #2).  The need to point out that Avery had pancakes for breakfast on this blog post probably seems trivial to most, but the smile on Avery's face when those pancakes were put in front of her and seeing her gobble them down ( she's been a little iffy on the food here) is something I will always remember.

Pints: Remember above when I said we "hit the jackpot" at breakfast this morning? Let's just say the Flood family fits in well here in London where it is socially acceptable (and very common) to have a large pint of Guinness on Sunday morning at 11a.m.  Don't worry Lane, nobody's judging here ( especially not me who was across the table from him here with a pint myself!)

Pickpocket: Many times we've been warned upon coming overseas that we needed to be mindful of pick pockets when out and about. Those less-than-moral people who creep around on the tube, streets and in crowded areas and steal wallets, passports, anything they can get their hands on. Well London, the most adorable, bright eyed pick pocket has landed in town and is ready to get into your personal belongings to find something to take home. Her name is Stella, and her conveniently located position sitting in her stroller allows her to get much-too-friendly with your briefcase or shopping bag. She does not discriminate in her sneaky ways - she's even willing to grab at the crutches of the handicapped man standing next to us on the tube to see what they are all about.  I wish I had a picture of our little thief, but I am too busy while in public trying to tuck her hands in her stroller blanket to reach for my camera.

We had a great outing today, and have already decided to make our breakfast spot a family tradition to share with our visitors when they arrive. Hopefully we will have Stella under control by then, or maybe she can snag us some Christmas gifts.

Off to bed, it's a work day for Daddy tomorrow,

Lauren and Family