Congratulations To The Happy Couple!

One of Lauryn's bears, Pody, recently went through 2 very dramatic life changes.

When Lauryn made Pody in San Diego last year, she picked out a Mulan outfit for her. We asked why Pody had a blue nose and didn't that make him a boy? She said, no, she's a girl! And blue is her favorite color! So Pody was dressed as Mulan for many months.

Recently for Lauryn's 4th birthday, we received a coupon for a free bear since her birthday happened to be the same time as their mascot bear, Bearemy. So we took her and her friend Naomi (for fun and support) to get her free bear. She picked out a bear and a Sleeping Beauty outfit for her new Aurora Bear, and Naomi chose a Tinkerbell outfit for her TinkerBear.

Pody now had a friend! But instead of keeping Pody in her Mulan outfit, she asked her daddy to get Pody some new clothes. (She knows better than to ask mommy for such things.) So of course Daddy dutifully took her the other night to get Pody's new clothes. The two of them came back and Lauryn happily annouced the exciting news. Pody got a tux and he's a boy bear! And not only that, Pody and Aurora Bear are engaged to be married!

The next day, we dressed the bears and invited their friends, Cinderella, Belle, the Prince and a mysterious stranger to the wedding. There was music and dancing and even a cake for all to share. Towards the end, Cinderella had a few too many drinks and couldn't stay on her feet. Sydney also attended the festivities and expressed her disbelief.

Congratulations Pody and Aurora Bear!

Favorite Summer Activity

One of the kids' and my favorite activities when it's warm outside is to have a picnic playtime in the backyard. Lauryn loves eating grapes on the blanket and placing Sydney's toys all around her. We lounge and play, water the plants, do gardening and eat cold fruit.

Ahhh....those are the days....

Sydney's Latest Hangout

Our little daughter decided to start crawling backwards while we were in London. Talk about missing out! But we rejoiced in her new milestone! Her latest hangouts have been halfway under our sofas.
And just in the past week, she started to push herself to sitting. I have yet to see her do this with my own eyes. She's done it about 5 times now and I've missed it every time! I put her on her tummy to play and then step away for a few minutes. When I come back, she's sitting up playing with her beads.
It must be some sort of conspiracy!

Something You Don't Want To Do Everyday

Our friends the Wongs were over one night and since all the girls needed a bath anyways we threw them all in our tub. Take two 4 year olds and an almost 2 year old, add a couple capfuls of bubble bath and turn on the jets, and this is what we got.

How Many Princesses Do You See?

We Love Our Au Pair

Our most recent trip to the happiest place on earth was made even happier when our favorite Stanford undergrad, i.e. au pair, got to join us! I think Jennifer enjoyed Disney the most out of the 5 of us.

Paris Sights

Funky and Hypnotic

This 3-D "portrait" is at the British Library.

Versaille is Huge!

I was not disappointed. We spent half a day at the Palace of Versaille just outside of Paris. We saw where Marie Antoinette lived and where Napoleon's coronation room was. We saw part of the Hall of Mirrors (half of it was boarded up for renovations). We saw where the King held court and where he slept and ate. We decided to skip the King's Apartments since the line for tickets was about 200 ft long.
Then we went to the gardens. Oh my! It's gianormous! John had the best idea of the day...we rented a golf cart for the tour of the gardens. Does my husband know me or what? We stayed for part of the fountain show - truly amazing. In its heyday, there were 1100 fountains and basins. Now there are about 300 originals remaining.

Dead Guy

Here's a naturally preserved dead guy from the British Museum.

Yet Another Picture I wasn't Supposed To Take

I honestly didn't know that I wasn't allowed to take pictures here. I looked for signs coming into the British Library, but not seeing any, I snapped a few of The King James Bible and other manuscripts. As I rounded the corner to snap a shot of the Magna Carta, I was caught!

We also saw originals of Alice in Wonderland, Handel's Messiah, some Shakespeare, and lots of other old stuff.

Asian Posers

I don't know what it is...and I'm sorry for picking on this lady, but is this REALLY necessary?? (I couldn't resist.)

Harrods

I had to visit Harrod's in London even though I only had 3 hours to spare one day. It was massive and a bit disorienting. I walked through the huge bakery, display after display of candies and sweets, a butcher's area, several restaurants, a section selling appliances, a bookstore, perfumery, kids floor, electronics, and finally had to stop for lunch at the Planet Cafe.

The toy area had these cool life size Lego displays of Harry Potter and one of Jango Fett (did I get that right?)

Bath

Our favorite site during our trip was the town of Bath about 2.5 hours outside of London. We arrived into London Heathrow airport from SF at about 7am. We got to the Paddington Train Station and then took the first train to Bath arriving at around 10am.

Bath is known for...what else...it's Roman Baths dating from about 300B.C. It's continuously fed from an underground spring that bubbles up into a smaller "Sacred Spring" and then diverted to the Bath House. Supposedly the water is full of minerals which makes it green. People used to sit for hours in the water to cure all kinds of illnesses.

Aside from the Roman Baths, the town is just small enough to see in one day. We took a free and very entertaining and informative 2.5 hour walking tour of the city with a long time resident volunteer named Malcolm (no tips allowed either). It's a beautiful town with lots of history. All the buildings in Bath are required to have their fronts made of the local limestone. The streets are narrow and very quaint. They reminded me of the back lots at Universal Studios cuz they look almost as if they're fake.

The 3 tenors once sang at a big celebration for the town (i forgot what for) in the grassy area in front of the curved row of adjoining houses called the Crescent.

Bad Toe or Good Toe?

I've always been told that having your 2nd toe longer than your big toe meant you had a "bad" foot, that all the toes your foot should be decreasing in size starting with your big toe. And since my 2nd toe is definitely longer than my big toe, I've not only been embarrassed by my toe, but my feet in general.

But I've discovered after our travels in Europe that having a longer 2nd toe isn't all that bad. For example, I noticed that practically ALL the statues in the Louvre and the Britsh Museum had the infamous longer 2nd toe. And most of those statues are of mythological gods and goddesses, obviously held in some society's high esteem. Even statues of small babies had the longer 2nd toe.

So perhaps we were all meant to have a longer 2nd toe and it's those with toes all in decreasing size that have a "bad" foot...