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 :)