Spring Break!!!

Hi all.  I'm dreaming of warm weather right now as we prepare to head down to the sunny Canary Islands in Spain tomorrow.  I checked the weather and it looks like this:

How pumped are we!  It has been an absolutely dreadful winter here.   I know I'm preaching to the choir on this to my friends/family at home since this winter seems intent on sticking around there too.  It is unusual though for it to still be this cold and snowy in London.  I'm so glad that I convinced JJ to go as far south as we could for Easter :)

It will be our first experience with a budget airline while traveling with a toddler as we are flying Ryan Air.  I flew Easyjet with Reena years ago and didn't mind the no frills at all, but that was 10 years ago before I now take about 25 lbs of extra luggage for a kid, not including the toy/snack bag for in flight.  So we will see how that goes! 

Things are going well here in London.  The stomach flu that I had stuck around until about Friday, making for a miserable week.  Luckily neither JJ nor Tyler got it so my technique of hand-washing til they bleed must have worked.  We stuck close to home last weekend since it was snowing and I was still feeling lazy from the sickness.  Now we are just looking forward to heading south and relaxing for a few days.  We get back on Easter Sunday - JJ gets two bank holidays on Friday and Monday so we will have Monday to recover and get back to real life.  Happy Easter to everyone - hope you have a nice relaxing holiday!  Here are some pictures from around the house this past week.

March Madness Baby!

Tyler loves the bubbles in music class.  He is so cute during bubble time that other moms were taking pictures of him.  Here is a photo that a nice mom sent to me.

Bubbles!

No more bubbles?  OK I'm outta here!

This picture made me sad since he looks like such a big boy walking on the sidewalk by himself walking home from music class. Where does time go???

When it snows outside, we need to find fun indoor activities.... like more bubbles!!!

Dad braved the weather to still take him out for outdoor fun

Go blue!!! The early tip-off Saturday meant we could all watch Michigan make it to the Sweet Sixteen!  The game this weekend starts at 11:30pm here.  Don't think we will make it to the end (if they are showing it in Spain at all)!

He loves Daddy time, especially rooting for Daddy's favorite team :)

St. Patty's, Celebrations, & Sickness (Again)

Last weekend we celebrated St Patty's Day, London-style.  JJ and I went out for another date night in London Saturday.  I had set this up a while ago, thinking that March Madness started and we would set off to find some basketball games to watch.  Well I should have done my research because March Madness doesn't start until this week but that meant we had a free date night to check out the city.  We ended up going out in Camden Town, a trendy neighborhood only a few tube stops away from us.  The strange thing about restaurants here is that they don't really have a "list" to put your name on to wait - everyone makes a booking ahead of time.  We were turned down from about 6 restaurants saying they were entirely booked.  It was raining and we were getting hungry so we finally found a tapas restaurant that actually accepted us.  We had a nice dinner but they do tapas a little different here.  I was disappointed to find that my two favorite staples at tapas restaurants in the states were not on the menu: goat cheese with tomato sauce and bacon-wrapped dates.  After dinner we went to a local pub called The World's End. This made for some really good people watching since people here have what I would call interesting style, especially in Camden.

Despite the truly awful weather of non-stop rain, Sunday we braved it to go see the St. Patty's parade and party in Trafalgar Square.  They had a stage set up in the square with Irish music and dancers and a beer tent serving Guinness and cider.  Since Tyler chatted through his morning nap, we were on a speed mission to see everything we could see before he needed to head home for his afternoon nap.  It was fun and seemed a bit more low key than the craziness of Chicago during this holiday so that was refreshing.   Then we spent the rest of the afternoon Skyping with family & friends.  The big news in the Kern family is that JJ's brother, Matt, got engaged over the weekend to his girlfriend Rajani!  We were excited to hear their story over Skype and Tyler always enjoys making funny faces at Uncle Matt and dancing with soon-to-be Aunt Rajani.

That brings me to the sickness part of my title.  Somehow I have come down with the stomach flu again.  That is twice in one year which I don't think has ever happened to me before.  This little bug hit me hard this time.  I started feeling bad Monday morning and sweet Tyler seemed to know to take it easy on me.  He played independently all day (granted he completely trashed the house - every toy was out, every book was out, everything he could reach in the kitchen cupboards was out- but he wasn't needing constant attention and seemed happy so I didn't care) and took good long naps that I could sleep during as well.  Now today I still don't feel well but thankfully had arranged for Alison to come over so I could go to work.  I had to cancel my meeting at work and have been sleeping all day while Alison has been having fun with Tyler.   I hope I'm starting to come out of it and I have been washing my hands and disinfecting things like a madwoman so that JJ and Tyler don't get it too.  I think these new British bugs know to attack the newcomers or something. 

One day Tyler decided his favorite toy was a milk jug. It went with him everywhere - even the dinner table!

The scene during my work from home day last week at a coffee shop - tasty latte and productive day!

Tyler LOVES birds.  We found all of these birds during an afternoon run in the park.  A woman was feeding them and gave Tyler some stale bread to feed them.  As I expected, he put the stale bread straight in his own mouth

He loves horsing around on the couch cushions...

We undressed him to give him a haircut while he ate.  I kind of feel like he has some muscle in those arms already!

Such a big boy haircut

Congrats Matt & Rajani!

Green St. Patty's smoothies for everyone!

I also made spinach muffins for St. Patty's.  Tyler approved!

Trafalgar Square

Tyler's official Ireland sweatshirt JJ brought back from Dublin.

Our beers by the fountain.  Apparently they must have had some trouble with people jumping in the fountain in past years.  These poor security guards were patrolling in the water all day.

Happy St Patty's from the Kerns!

It actually looks like he likes me in this picture - must be because I made him another smoothie :)

Waffles, Chocolate, & Beer: Glorious Brussels

We spent a rainy couple days in Brussels over the weekend.  Despite the weather I was pleasantly surprised with how cute Brussels was.  I wasn't expecting much for some reason.  We of course were excited about the beer, waffles and chocolate but I had no idea that the old town there where we stayed had so much character and really felt like old world Europe.  We got up early to catch the 7am train to Brussels.  The high speed Eurostar goes from London to Brussels in under 2 hours.  Tyler enjoyed the easy train ride and we arrived for a waffle breakfast.  Tyler snoozed in the stroller while we cruised around the Grand Place.  This is the main tourist area where we stayed and on every corner there are at least 5 chocolate shops, 3 pubs, and 4 waffle shops - on EVERY corner.  It was heaven!  Tyler woke up and we set out to find the Manneken Pis.  This is a fountain sculpture off the Grand Place of a little boy peeing.   Apparently it was first put there in the 1600s and people have stolen it several times so the one there now is a replica of a replica of a replica....  After reading about it online, there appear to be many legends about it's significance but it's a funny little statue that gathers quite a crowd of people.  One of the funniest things to me is that he has a "wardrobe" that is changed out several times a week.  They also said online that sometimes they hook a beer keg up to him and pass out cups of beer that he "pees" out to people.  We got a couple of pictures of Big T with the little peeing guy and then set off to enjoy the old town. 

We had lunch at a restaurant near our hotel.  We were familiar with the menu we thought since we were just in France skiing and it seemed to be pretty similar.  One thing I forgot to put in my blog post about skiing in France was I found a new favorite sandwich of all time: the croque monsieur sandwich - description here:
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/croque_monsieur_ham_and_cheese_sandwich/
It's this delicious grilled cheese sandwich with melted cheese on top and ham inside.  I saw that on the menu and was sold.  JJ saw the sandwich americain and we googled it and it seemed to be like a hamburger.  I found a fromage sandwich for Tyler and thought - oh grilled cheese - perfect!  We ordered feeling like experts (except that I pronounced the last e in my beer choice Leffe - which apparently is silent).  When the food came we all looked at it with disappointment.  The fromage sandwich was just cold cheese slices on a baguette, my croque monsieur did not have melted cheese on top and was really sad looking compared to what I had in France.  But the worst and most appalling was the sandwich americain - this was raw ground beef on a baguette.  We both looked at it in horror.  JJ touched it to find out it was cold and not cooked and we put it as far away from us as we could.  Tyler and I shared our sandwiches with him and we at least had a good laugh. 

After lunch we sent our to buy some chocolates.  I have to admit Tyler was a really good prop to take to the chocolate shops.  The ladies who worked there loved him and really wanted him to try chocolate.  They would always give us free samples :)  Tyler actually hated the chocolate - it probably had too much of a bitter taste to him but mom and dad sure enjoyed the free samples.  We had a lovely afternoon exploring and then it was dinner time.  I wanted to get mussels and fries that Belgium is famous for, and JJ just wanted some meat that was cooked this time and he was starving after the sad lunch.  We found a nice little restaurant that actually had a high chair and JJ got a real cooked steak so he was happy!  Despite me spilling my beer all over JJ in a sudden bout of typical Emily clumsiness, we had a lovely dinner.  We headed back to the hotel to put the little guy down and then JJ and I grabbed a couple more beers and waffles at the hotel lobby.

Sunday morning was really cold and rainy.  We had breakfast at a little diner where we finally let Tyler try a waffle.  He, of course, loved it.  After his morning nap we set out to see the Atomium - a huge structure constructed for the Worlds Fair in 1958.  It is modeled after the unit cell of an iron crystal.  It ended up being a little over 3 miles from the Grand Place where we were staying so the hotel directed us on how to get there by subway.  The Brussels subway system was a little dodgy (love that English word) but we made it there just fine.  Luckily the rain had stopped but it was still cold and windy.  We stopped at the Atomium to take some pictures and then we headed off to Mini Europe.  I had read about this amusement park right by the Atomium that has little replicas of all the big European cities.  I pictured it being like Its a Small World in Disney and wanted to check it out.  We arrived to find out that it was closed for the season and opened up the following weekend, bummer!  Oh well we wouldn't have had much time there anyway as we had to catch the subway and then our Eurostar train home. 

Overall it was a lovely trip to Brussels!  I think I may have gained about 10 pounds in 2 days, but it was all well worth it!  I really wish that Tyler would be able to remember some of this.  It's so funny to think of all that he has done.  I try to take so many pictures so that he can see how many foreign subways he has been on, amazing food he has tried, and cool things he has seen.  I can only hope that he is absorbing this adventure in some way!  Back here in London it is so cold, windy, and snowy.  We had such nice spring weather last week that is all gone now.  I really hope that this is the last bit of cold weather for us!

Daddy's boy on the train.  Tyler loves his Daddy so much that if I try to pick him up when JJ is around he screams bloody murder until I hand him off to JJ.  It's a little embarrassing for me in public but I'm glad he loves Daddy so much :)

Street in Old Town off the Grand Place

Buildings in Grand Place

More buildings...

More buildings in the Grand Place square

They love their beer, and it sure is good!

Waffles - mmmm!

This was our first waffle - JJ had white chocolate and bananas and I had dark chocolate

Manneken Pis

My boys in front of Manneken Pis

Not a fan of the chocolate - that's OK - more for Mom and Dad!

Our favorite beer - Leffe Blonde!  Oh and Tyler's sippy cup too!

JJ"s raw meat sandwich - yuck!

The best thing about this restaurant was the fish tank!

Mussels - I'm not usually a fan but these were really good.  Look at the size of the pot they gave me! I ate almost the whole thing!

Happy at dinner!

Tyler and a Manneken Pis replica outside the restaurant

Dessert waffles from Haagen Das!

Dessert beers at the hotel :)

Waffle shop

Breakfast waffle with Daddy

Big T loves escalators!  This one is in a Brussels subway stop

No!  Mini Europe is closed!

Park by the Atomium

Welcome sign at the base of Atomium

Atomium Kerns!

Atomium baby!

Close up Atomium baby!

Big T was so tired from the travels.  We had to wake him up from his morning nap to get going but couldn't resist catching a rare picture of him sleeping.