Living the London life

JJ and I have had a few discussions about settling into life here lately.  It's been hard to try to make this new country our home, knowing that we also have so little time here.   So recently, we have both made a little extra effort to find ways to maximize our time here.  JJ finally joined a "football" team (soccer for you Americans) so we are looking forward to hopefully watching him on Sundays.  I've been listening to popular music here, instead of only checking iTunes for the top American songs.  And we've even started to watch a little British TV (Family Tree is a hilarious show - it's on HBO in the US - watch it if you can!  Downton Abbey is next for us).  We also met up with the University of Michigan Alumni group who had a football game viewing party at a local bar on Saturday.  We met some nice folks and it was nice to get out at night.  Now this month is filled with travel, birthday parties, going away parties (friends we met are moving back to NY), and the Maloneys come in a couple weeks.  Should be a fun September!

We went to Battersea Park for the first time to meet up with our friends Andrea and Nathan who live near there

They had a big "choo choo" there that Tyler loved

Battersea Park is far from our place and it was a beautiful day so I attempted the stroller nap (we haven't done that in a while) and it worked!  Here he is sleeping outside some sort of mansion in Chelsea!

When he woke up we had arrived at the museum campus so we went into the Science Museum.  The third floor is devoted to a flight exhibit.  Tyler was in heaven - airplanes everywhere you looked!

Airplane!

He is OBSESSED with watching these diggers do work on the High Street in Hampstead.  I have to come up with a way to avoid this area if I'm in a hurry because he could sit and watch them forever!

JJ conducted a private beer tasting for he and I on Friday night.  We wanted to sample the local (or European) brews and he did research on taste differences.  Friday was ales and lagers, we will do a tasting of other types too!

Go Blue!  Big T was showing his school pride.  He loves saying the word "yellow" so he got a kick out of looking at his pants and saying "yeyo"

Saturday night we went to watch the Michigan game with the alumni association.  They stream the game from the internet and put it on the bar TVs.  The internet signal must not have been great because it kept getting cut off.  So we only really saw about half the game but it was fun to socialize with other Wolverines.  The turnout was much more than we expected - about 50 people.  Hopefully the signal is better for the next game!

JJ took the little guy to watch kites fly on Parliament Hill

Singin' the blues in the pantry.  He loves his harmonica!

Mommy and Tyler selfie!

This was a beautiful evening.  We watched airplanes fly above us in the park.  It was a clear day and good for airplane watching!

Tyler has been taking Thomas to dinner lately.  He likes to feed Thomas food and milk :)

The zoo!

Tyler likes to ride in the safari jeep - this is his friend Ellis.

Tyler and Ellis looking for some penguins :)

This was the last warm day in the foreseeable future forecast (it was 82 today and supposed to only be 66 tomorrow) so we went for our last summer dip in the Parliament Hill Lido.  I had to drag Tyler out kicking and screaming - he loves the water (as long as he doesn't have a teacher telling him what to do in the water during swim class)!