King Garden's Park

I have to say, the playgrounds in London are pretty cool... 

drawing

In between all of these cultural activities we also like to take some time to draw pictures of haunted houses.

Holland Park

This park had lots of cool statues

But the best part was the peacocks!

Until that wasn't really the best anymore, as apparently the peacocks were a bit pushy at the lunch table... 

but they did leave cool feathers lying around

Museum of Childhood

The kids actually ended up at this museum twice in a week - they went with mom and sue and then went back with us over the weekend.  On the weekend trip there was a festival so the kids got to watch some musicians, a storyteller, and a magician.

Eva's favorite part was this mirror & sparkle area...

Noah met a robot

There was a big table with magnetic shavings under glass... 

 And rocking horses!

More park pictures

I spent the week back home in Newton, spending way too many hours at work (there were some big meetings this week I came back for).  In the meantime, the kids continued exploring London with mom and Sue and they sent me pictures to post for you.

Noah and Eva are very serious about their park play.  Whether they are driving equipment...

Or sailing ships... 

I think their summer is going ok so far... 

Facetime

The kids are definitely missing their best friends back home but we are trying to help them connect via Facetime... 

Eva catching up with Natalie about life in London

Highbury Fields

Highbury Fields is a park a short bus ride from our house with some awesome playground equipment... 

and a super huge slide

Hogwarts Express

I forgot to post one neat thing about our Scotland trip - we left from from King's Cross Station and found platform 9 3/4!! 

Tower of London

This weekend we went to check out the Tower of London, which it turns out isn't actually a single tower at all and is instead really a fortress with a series of towers and connecting walls.

We saw some very serious guards

Walked around the towers for a while and then headed into the armory

It was pretty impressive... 

serious knights are serious

Noah and Eva tried on some helmets... 

I think they were a little big.... 

Then we went to some "touching" exhibits.  This one said "who is trying to steal some gunpowder?  Put your hand in to find out"

So, of course they did, and to Eva's delight there was a (stuffed) rat in there!!

(seriously, she was delighted.  I was a little horrified)

look mommy, it's a rat in there!  Hello rat!!

In slightly less horrifying displays, the kids got to touch some weapons

 And to the kids' delight we saw a dragon made from guns and swords

We then went to view the crown jewels, which were pretty cool.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in there but I did one of this guy at the top of the facade... 

And a pretty good view of the tower bridge... 

Tooth, where are you?

Noah finally lost that tooth in the front that has been shifting to the side for weeks... 

And it turns out the tooth fairy operates in British currency in the UK.  He made out quite well with the exchange rate.

The continued adventures of Noah and Eva

After we returned from Scotland the kids spent one lazy day at home and then got back into their routine of visiting all of the cool places in London with Grammy and Grammy Sue while Mommy and Daddy work.

They saw big fountains... 

Waded in the splash park... 

Went to the British Museum and got to touch some ancient coins

And hid out amongst the big, old columns.

Last views of Edinburgh

There was just a lot of cool scenes in Edinburgh.

Eva takes on Edinburgh... 

On our last afternoon we hiked up to a different hill with some old monuments

And amazing views of the city

and, of course, another cannon

Scottish Seabird Center

Our second day in Scotland we took the train out to North Berwick, a lovely little seaside town

To visit the Scottish Seabird Centre.  The center was located right at the shore, so we enjoyed the view for a bit

Then went inside and learned all about birds and some other sea creatures

Then after lunch we got on a boat and headed out to Craiglieth.  This is a big rock with a ton of seabirds living on it.  I apologize my pictures aren't awesome, I don't have a zoom lens and the boat couldn't get that close to the rock.  But take my word for it there are a LOT of birds on this rock.

Noah and I even saw a grey seal - see his little head poking up in the middle there?

The most exciting part for me, though, was getting to see some Puffins!

See them there?  With the orange feet?  They were smaller than I expected, but really cool to see.  Apparently there are a couple thousand nesting pairs of puffins on this rock, but they are only there for a few weeks before moving on with their migration.  So we were really lucky to get to see them.

When they fly they look like little rockets with wings

(the top flying bird is a puffin, the next one I think is a Gannet)

Next, we went over to Bass Rock.  This was one of the coolest things I have ever seen, but Sarah you might want to stop reading now.

The boat was oriented such that we couldn't really see the rock as we approached it, then all of a sudden the driver turned the boat and there it was.

All of those white dots?  Are gannets.  It is like the rock is alive.

For this rock we were able to get a lot closer to see the nests

There were some little fuzzy babies as well

I can't say enough about how cool this was, it was really one of the most incredible things I have ever seen.

(if you want to see more birds, you should look at the seabird center website - there are several live webcams on the islands where you can see the birds up close!)