School Days

With the flip of the calendar to September, it was back to school time in London.  After a fun filled 8 weeks of summer holiday, it was time to bring it to an end.  

September 3, 2015

First day of school

For Olivia, that meant returning to school but to a new class.  She is now in Reception, which I think is the equivalent of US Kindergarten.  (I'm still trying to work out all the differences between the UK and US school systems.)  Even though the other students in her class are predominately new to her - only two kids are in her class from her class last year - she has had no trouble adapting to her new teacher, Miss Healy, and new classmates.  Everyone morning she walks right into her class without a glance backwards.  

For Ashton, this whole school thing is brand new to her!  She is in nursery/preschool and goes full days everyday from 9-3:00 just like her sister.  Originally I was a bit apprehensive about putting her in that much.  When Olivia was in nursery two years ago, she only went part time for three hours everyday.  With Ashton being my baby and having no previous experience with being away from home daily or a structured environment lasting more than hour or two, she seemed so little to be able to handle such a drastic change.  However, if we decided to put her in part-time, that would mean I would be making three school runs (morning drop off, noon pick up and afternoon pick up) five days a week and that sounded so much worse.  Then when we found out Baby 3 was coming this fall, the full days definitely made the most sense and confirmed our decision.

I'm happy to report that Ashton adjustment to school and the full days has blown away my low expectations.  She hasn't shed a tear yet when I've dropped her off.  She is eager to get to school each morning and is so far handling the long days amazingly.  It definitely helps that they have a rest time every afternoon where she gets about a 45 minute nap.  This means she's in a really good mood when I pick her up and generally does not have major meltdowns from exhaustion later in the day.  She's new to the potty training scene as of July, but she's just about mastered the bathroom at school with the exception of the occasional accident.  Her teachers tell me all the time how laid back and what a happy girl she is.  I feel like in the past 4 weeks her vocabulary has significantly increased (I now can have small conversations with her) and even sounds more British.  Plus, I look at her and all I see is a big girl.  Not my little baby.  :( 

Second day of school when they wanted me to take their picture again.  

Fortunately, this has not turned into a daily routine.

Our prayers are that both girls will have great school years filled with learning, friendships, personal growth and most of all fun.

Five

As of September 7, we have a 5 year old in our family.  Our first-born, our precious Olivia Rachel is now the big age of 5.  I'm not sure how that's possible.  I'm mean, I'm pretty sure I just took this photo of her last week!

I really can't believe how quickly this time has gone by and it kinda scares me because I know that the next five will go by just as fast if not faster.  We love this girl so much!  She is sweet, full of endless energy, attentive and full of love.  Olivia is such a bright spot in our family and I feel completely blessed to be her mama. 

We kept her birthday a low key event.  Having just returned from Paris while trying to get into the rhythm of school, we had a simple celebration the day of with our little family.  She had a fun day at school and got to wear a special birthday pin all day long for the occasion.  I think she enjoyed the day.  You can see for yourself:

Making her birthday cake.  Chocolate, of course!

Looking so very grown up

Someone else thought the cake was yummy

When Olivia turned three and then again last year on her fourth birthday, I asked her the same set of 15 questions.  To commemorate her 5th birthday, I once again brought out the recurring interview questions to get her year older, and maybe wiser, responses. It's fun to see how some of her answers have changed but how others have stayed the same.  Here are her 5 year old answers:

1. What is your favorite color? Pink
2. What is your favorite toy? Elsa Doll
3. Where do you want to go on an airplane to?  New York City to see the Statue of Liberty
4. How old is Mommy? 34 (correct)
5. What is your favorite outfit to wear? Strawberry dress
6. What is your favorite food? Fish fingers
7. What is your favorite animal? Giraffe
8. What is your favorite book? Any book with Cinderella pages 
9. Who is your best friend? Nushiika (girl in her class she just met)
10. What does Daddy do at work? Works at his computer
11. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Play
12. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries
13. What do you want to be when you grow up? Be a princess like Cinderella
13a.  What do princesses do?  Nothing!
14.  What do you like to do at school? Paint
15.  What does Mommy do while you're at school?  The dishes

Good-bye Summer

Summer has come and gone.  At least on the calendar.  It seemed like it never really arrived according to the weather this year in London.  Olivia had an eight week break from school, so minus the two weeks we spent in America, we had six weeks to be filled with activity.  Here is how we kept busy:

West End Theater - One of the (many) things I love about London is the amazing amount of theater available and not just for adults.  There are always children's shows to be found and especially in the summer when schools are out.  I took the girls to see a performance based on a collection of English author Julie Donaldson's books and they loved it.  Especially since they were familiar with most of the stories from all of our book reading.

In Chinatown after the show

In August of every year, the West End theaters have kid's week where you can get a free child's ticket with the purchase of an adult ticket.  A friend of mine had tickets to Mama Mia that she wasn't able to use for she and her son, so Olivia and I went instead.  While the story is a bit mature and one that I'm glad Olivia is young enough to not understand, she loved all the music, dancing, lights and costumes.  It also helped that it involved a girl getting married.  She kept asking me the entire time when the girl was going to wear her wedding dress. 

Photo op by Big Ben on the way home

Local playgrounds - always a good fallback if there was nothing else planned for the day

My little swing lover in full meltdown mode because I made her get off to give someone else a turn

Kew Gardens - We made a couple visits down to Kew Gardens, a large garden/park about a 25 minute train ride from us.  It has a big open green space along with a playground and other indoor climbings areas for kids.

Beach in Tel Aviv - Well, not really.  The local Jewish center had a small temporary beach set up for the summer with sand and a little wading pool.  On the one hot day we had in July, the swimsuits came out and we went to the beach.

London Zoo - We made lots of trips to the zoo.  With a membership in hand this summer, we went numerous times.  The favorite stops were the giraffes followed by the playground.

Daddy's work - While the girls have been to Geoff's office before, Olivia's last visit was when she was 2 1/2 yrs old and Ashton's was when she was 9 months old.  They were overdue for a stop in.  We took the train out, saw his office, said hi to some of his coworkers and then went to lunch together.

Future Anadarko Petroleum interns?

London Transport Museum/Covent Garden - The London Transport Museum is one of my favorite museums.  It's such a great one for kids and they just opened a new section specifically for young children.  The girls had plenty of fun pretending to drive buses and trains around the city.

We followed the museum with lunch next door at Shake Shack in Covent Garden.  There were plenty of sights to see afterwards as we wandered around. 

"Mommy, why is this man wearing a skirt??" - Olivia

Mesmerized by the opera singer below

Battery Sea Park - This might be my new favorite park in London.  While it was a bit of an effort to get to especially without Geoff's help (two trains and one bus ride followed by a decent walk), it was worth the effort.  They have a little zoo there that was a big hit.  Not so much for the animals which really weren't that exciting, but for the play area.  It had big but contained playgrounds and climbing equipment, lots of swings, a huge sand pit, tractors and other little cars to drive around and boats to sail.  The girls were in heaven...and completely exhausted (so was Mommy!) by the time we finally left.

Rainy days and coffee shops - When the weather wasn't cooperating and we (I) were desperate to get out of the house, we took walks to nearby coffee shops for afternoon treats.

Americans in Paris

Paris.  One of our favorite cities.

With one last free weekend before the girls' started school and before the arrival of Baby #3 brings to a halt (hopefully temporarily) of our world travels, we decided to take one last trip as a family of four.  Between being home to EuroDisney (highlights coming soon), our girls' obsession with the Eiffel Tower and it being an easy train ride from London, Paris as our last hurrah was a no brainer.  As we were planning the trip, I thought it would be fun to get some family photos taken in Paris so I reached out to the photographer who captured us so perfectly in London last year.  Wouldn't you know it, she was going to be in Paris for a wedding the same weekend as us. Bingo!  You can see my favorites below from the magical city.

Now to the much more exciting part of the trip:

While photographing on a bridge over the Seine River near the Eiffel Tower, I carelessly left my purse/bag on top of the hood of our stroller.  As the photographer snapped away and I tried to make sure the girls didn't run into the street in between poses, the stroller sat about 20 feet away from where we were.  Geoff was keeping his eye on it from a distance and saw a man walk nearby it.  However, he didn't see anything happen and thought nothing else of it.  However, a few minutes later as we walked back towards the stroller, with a sinking feeling I instantly noticed that my bag was gone.

Knowing he had just seen the culprit, Geoff dashed down the bridge in the direction he saw the guy walking. When he got to the end of the bridge without spotting the man, he quickly turned on the "find my phone" app on his phone that is linked to my phone which was in the now missing bag.  He's such a smart guy.  It showed that my phone was moving along a walking path down the middle of the river which connected the bridge we were on to the next bridge down.  Geoff took off after the guy while the girls and I nervously waited on the bridge with the photographer.

At Sacre Coeur Basilica

Geoff spotted the guy ahead on the pathway and at some point, the guy noticed Geoff chasing him because he started running to get away.  Unfortunately for him, he picked the wrong guy to try to out run.  Geoff is fast. Like really fast. And he has marathon endurance.  After chasing him for nearly a mile down to the next bridge, the guy got off the pathway, darted through a busy intersection (picture cars screeching to a halt and piling up into each other as they dashed across...not sure that actually happened but it sounds more dramatic) and into a Sephora beauty store with Geoff close on his heels.  As soon as Geoff got into the doors of the store, he yelled "Stop Thief!" in French (thank you, French lessons!) and the store security guards pounced on the guy.  The security guards opened up the his backpack and sure enough, there was my bag with the all contents still there: a phone, two credit cards, no cash, a big wad of dirty tissues, lipstick and a candy wrapper.  He had almost hit the jackpot.  Not only did they find my bag in his backpack but another lady's bag too!  Geoff...saving the bags of damsels in Paris one thief at a time.  :)

The French police showed up and took the guy away in handcuffs.  In the meantime, the girls and I were still waiting on the bridge without a clue what's going on.  Eventually, the police drove Geoff over to where we were waiting at and we all squashed into the back of their car so they could drive us to the police station to give a statement.  To the station we went, flashing lights, siren and all!  Olivia was a bit confused by the events as she asked if Daddy had to go to jail.  I quickly cleared that one up.

Once we got to the station, we had to end up waiting a couple hours while they found a translator for us.  (Geoff's French isn't that good.)  Eventually we told our story, pressed charges against the guy and got a good admonition to be more careful with our belongings.  Lesson learned!  

32 weeks

My Hero  :)