Nanny and We-Pa: Our First Visitors!

It's been a while since I've blogged, as we've officially hosted our first visitors in London!  Instead of snuggling up with my MacBook at night to update the two people who read Flood family blog fans on our whereabouts and happenings, we've been sight seeing, drinking lots of beer and playing Euchre with my parents the last week or so.  They arrived on the 8th and they are all gone as of this morning. The time went too fast, was too fun, and I was begging my Mom on her way out today to book the next trip soon.

Top 10 Most Memorable moments and facts about Nanny and We-Pa's First Visit to London: 

10. We discovered that 9 oz beers ( typical bottled beers here in England) don't last long when my Dad's in town. We all felt that we could drink all day long more frequently since he was here on vacation, and the small beers warranted us double the quantity.
9. We got to ride the London Eye for the first time and get a better view of the city we are falling in love with.

 Dad's self portrait - this city is a "photographer's" heaven:

8. My Dad can't even survive a few hours without internet connection... He doesn't check on work email, need to post status updates, pictures or tweets, he just needs to know that the internet is working on as many devices as he brought with him, and he brings a lot.....Okay, so maybe the rest of us are the same way ( that is 1 MacBook, 1 iPad, 1 iPhone, 1 iPod and 1 inferior Android-something phone in this picture...a pictured captured by the second iPhone we had in the house).

7. The girls haven't lost their love for swimming since the pool closed last summer. We were lucky in that for a few days Mom and Dad stepped away from our flat to get the heck away from the chaos a different view of London, to a wonderful Marriott hotel in the heart of it all with a pool! So the girls and I knocked on their door one morning and took a dip! We had a great time swimming in the luxurious pool - and even ticked off some old grouchy British women who weren't so thrilled with Avery's cannon balls she was practicing in the pool.

6. I've realized how much I miss my Mommy. I miss the tea she makes me, the fact that my girls beg and plead for her to take care of them rather than me, her one and only rude comeback she has in her ( flipping her middle finger with a cute smile on her face and red cheeks), and really just having her around to help. While she was here I read a book ( off of her Kindle of course so I didn't have to pay for it), took an hour long bath, went on numerous trips around town by myself, took a jog without pushing my huge double stroller up and down hills, and got to go on a date for an entire day with my husband. She's a saint.

5. Stella doesn't walk - She runs! She must have been saving up all of her skills to show off to her grandparents, because during their visit she went from toddling around 5 steps maximum to going all over the place, and quickly. It was great to have Mom and Dad here to see how she got going in such a short time!

4. London knows how to do Christmas - London doesn't celebrate "the Holidays", they celebrate Christmas. They say "Merry Christmas" and have jolly festivals, decorations and events all over the city to lavishly celebrate the Christmas season. We found a few festivals around town filled with shopping, kids rides, Santas, snowmen and even a carousel bar! ( No body said that they make sure that Jesus is the reason for the season... it's more of a pagan tradition based Christmas!)

The best part of this bar was that Avery liked to look at the horsey-cocktail table tops....while the rest of us bought beers:

 (Stella's first kids ride!):

 Avery has missed the suburban-Santa blow ups from years' past at home... So she needed to give Santa a squeeze:

 Princess Avery ( She's been really into the Cinderella movie, so she talked about this ride for days after!)

 Stella loves any adventure where she can get out of her stroller and explore (or try to steal things from inanimate objects)

3. You can see more, and take great photographs with two extra adults around. We got to see so much that we hadn't been able to see yet since Mom and Dad were here to help with the girls. Just look at some of the pictures my Dad took! ( He will be mad that I posted these, as I am sure he will be editing, cropping and touching up to make them perfect for weeks when he gets settled back at home).

Avery has been dying to get in a traditional phone booth, and we waited til Nanny got here so WePa could get the pictures:

 Abbey Road cross walk from the Beatles Album cover. Since this really is just a cross walk on a busy street in a quiet neighborhood, you feel silly doing " the walk", but others were doing it so we went for it!

 Abbey Road Studios:

 The front gate to the Queen's house:

 Union Jack!

 Nice Shot We-Pa!

 Avery was crazy about this talking tree at a Christmas festival, and We-Pa got a great picture for her!

2. We don't Need no Stinkin Boys - we have girl power! Over the last few weeks of putting cabinets and tables together in our new flat, the girls and I have coined this the official motto of our house (we've done it all while Lane was at the office). Well, Mom and I continued the motto as we officially won the week-long euchre tournament against Lane and Dad. We don't need no boys to win!

1. Just because we are across the pond, doesn't mean our parent's won't spoil us rotten. From Christmas gifts, to specialities from home, from buying carts full of beer to fancy dinners....Nanny and We-Pa showed us a great time in our now home city. We are so thankful for their generosity in taking the time away from work and money to come all the way here to visit us.

With everything going on in the world around us from holiday celebrations to disturbing news stories back home, it was great having a slice of home here with us for the week and we look forward to hosting them again.......now I have to put down my computer and start preparing and planning for our next visitors as the Floods come to Hotel Lane and Lauren in 8 days - time to stock up the bottles of wine for that week!

~L, L & the girls