London day 2 (2 days late)

London Day 2 is also known as HARRY POTTER DAY.

Leah and Adira took a bus to Watford. (The bus was 40 minutes late so that was an exciting wait) and while Adira slept the whole bus ride, Leah got bus sick looking out the window at all the signs and familiar town names.

We arrived in Watford and saw Leah's friend NICOLA who took us to Giraffe Restaurant and Tesco in a borrowed car seat.  Adira got a new friend - Paddington and while she may have REFUSED to eat her fish fingers and chips she dutifully ate every pea and drank her milk.

THEN back in the car for Harry Potter (at least Nicola and Leah were very very excited)

The Warner Brother's studio where they filmed all of the HP movies is right outside of London (near Watford....) and they have set the whole thing up as a museum with sets, and props and behind the scenes info - So off we went.Words cannot describe, and there are hundreds of pictures - needless to say we had a lot of fun and spent more than 3 hours there. Highlights include (besides time spent with Nicola and Adira of course) trying butterbeer, the outdoor lot, getting a picture of Adira on a green-screen broomstick, her joy of seeing the owls and a spectacular view of Hogwarts castle. Come visit our coffee table to see the very expensive souvenir I got myself. Here are just a few pictures of our amazing day.

 sitting at a table in the great hall

 Mirror of erised

Entrance to Chamber of Secrets

number 4  

 night bus

 butterbeer-while they can't tell you what is in it, they can tell you the allergens

Adira burned off lots of energy running back and forth on the bridge in the background.

 Hagrid's bike

Ginny Weasley's wand 

By the time Nicola, Adira and I got back to the Hotel, dinner had already started. Nicola was able to join us and we had wine with our meal, truffles with dessert and Adira got warm milk.

Nicola even brought us cupcakes from her bakery - some of the best I have ever had - and I KNOW my cupcakes! 

London 2013 - Day 1

7:30 am Adira woke up
8:30 Breakfast - note - adira does NOT like baked beans but loves smoked salmon
10:00 Leave hotel and find underground
11:00 buy ticket for Matthew and week long ticket for Leah and Adira and go to buy paay as you go phones

12:00 we split up! Adira and Leah Take on London (also known as: Adira sleeps through exciting tourist attractions) We started at Green Park and Buckingham Palace

2:00ish - We trek back through Green park, stop at Wellington's Arch and Adira wakes up just in time for Hyde Park

THEN..... we made it to the Princess Diana Memorial Playground - Sand, Water, Pirate ship, crocodile, swings and slides what more could a kid want - OH flat bread pizza lunch and a nice locked fenced in area for safety. Adira even played with a little girl.

4:30 Adira started getting tired so we walked to Harrods (more Adira naps through London)

5:00 Harrods

6:00 Adira and Leah headed back to see Matthew - Rush hour on a tube with a stroller is exciting - but everyone on the underground was very helpful with getting the stroller over the steps.

Photo Book

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Shutterfly photo books offer a wide range of artful designs and embellishments to choose from.

Testing the Email Update Feature

I'm testing the email update feature of Blogger. I'm also adding a picture to see what happens! 

Updated Blog!

I've updated the template of our blog with the hope that it will inspire use to post more often.

Here is a picture of the sukkah that we made. These were the first High Holidays in our house and it was nice to have the backyard space to build a sukkah. We had friends over for dinner Shabbat night and enjoyed eating in it ourselves the rest of the time. Didn't sleep in it though... The plan is to reuse it again next year and maybe add more decorations!

 That's all for now. Bye!

Hard work is hard to see

This weeks adventures started off BAD - The HOA sent two notices. Fix the raised panel of sidewalk and fix the outrageous weed problem....in 14 days or you will incur fines. We were not amused.

Matthew spent the week calling people to fix the sidewalk and we spent the weekend weeding.

UGH!

(break from the grumpy...)

If you were to rotate this image you would see that the Rose of Sharon that we DRAMATICALLY cut back and transplanted from Peter and Laurie's house SURVIVED - check out the growth!!

We planted Bulbs -Gladiolas and Ball Dahlia along the back of the house behind the blueberry bushes and also in the flower portion of our vegetable garden.

Now we wait....

Also check out our additional soaker hose - hopefully this helps the blueberries and bulbs survive

Back to weeding - this hill was covered now it is a little better and we can use the pile of pine needles as pseudo bark dust for a little bit

We also weeded the front lawn AND bought a cute hand-spreader and distributed fertilizer

While weeding, a neighbor introduced them-self and offered us some little plants that his wife didn't like because they were prickly and gave them to us.

We said thank you.

Aren't they cute and evergreenie - not sure how they will do, grow, etc.

Matthew climbed along the roof and removed GUNK from the gutters and got rid off moss from the roof

Then after all that we helped Peter and Laurie clear up their garden by taking some unwanted Japanese Maple Saplings off their hands

With all that done - it is 10:00 maybe we should get some weekend rest before the next long week.