Church of England

We went to the Church of England yesterday. Before you think that we're switching teams, we had an ulterior motive. Daddy has a friend at work that goes to the Church of England. They made a deal: if we go to his church then he'll come to ours. Yesterday, we went to his church.

David's church is in an old building that was originally built in the 1400s, although it's been rebuilt since then. The sermon was about whether children should be allowed to take communion. Actually, it was more a matter of the vicar (the priest) trying to convince the congregation that it was a good idea. Afterwards, they took sort of a straw poll to see how everyone felt about it.

After church, David invited us to his house for lunch. He has a great house with a beautiful garden (garden = yard for you yankees). Here's a picture of the swing in his rear garden.

After lunch, David had a bunch of other friends from his church over for an Easter egg hunt. All the adults hid the Easter eggs and then we kids got to find them. I found a lot.

All in all, it was a really fun day. When we got home, Daddy asked me if I noticed anything different about David's church.

"The sacrament table," I said.

He was impressed at my astuteness. "Anything else?" he asked.

"The sacrament," I said, acknowledging that they hadn't passed it around. Daddy said I'm a smart kid.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone. We had a fun Easter here.

On my last day of school, I gave chocolate easter bunnies to my teachers at school, and one to the crosswalk lady that helps me cross the street on my way to school. She thought that was pretty neat.

Yesterday, we had the missionaries over for dinner. Mama cooked a gammon. If you don't know what a gammon is, that's okay. We didn't either. Mama went to the local organic butcher and asked for a ham. She got a blank stare.

"Do you mean a gammon?" the butcher asked.

Apparently, she did.

The gammon came uncooked. Mama soaked it for a few hours and then boiled it for another couple of hours. It turned out great. It was the best gammon I've ever had.

Snow

It snowed here yesterday and it's snowing again today. It even hailed a little yesterday. It's not cold enough to stay on the ground, but I caught some snowflakes in my hands and in my hair.

School's Out!

Yesterday was my last day of school for the term. Daddy says it was my first last day of school. He says not to get too excited because I'll have a lot more. Now, I'll go to museums, play at parks, and have friends over for a few days. Then I get to go back to Atlanta. I'll see my friends in Atlanta and check out my old stomping grounds. Then when I come back to London, I get to go to school again! I can't wait.

Babysitters

After we got home from Paddington Station last week, Karen and Brody came over to babysit. Brody is the Elder's Quorum President at church and Karen is the Relief Society President. Why two presidents from the same family? Because the old Relief Society President (the Stake President's wife) will be moving soon.

Karen and Brody are a young couple from the States. Brody works for Nokia as a designer. He likes to design cool track layouts with my train set. That's what we did when they came to babysit.

While we were playing with trains, Mama and Daddy went to see a play in London's theatre district. They saw The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie. Apparently, it's been playing in London for the last 55 years. After that long, shouldn't someone have figured out whodunnit?

Kensington Gardens

Last Saturday we went to Kensington Gardens. To get there, we took the train to London Victoria, and then the Circle Line tube to Bayswater, near Kensington Gardens. Kensington Gardens is a big park that's just the other side of Hyde Park. It has a big playground called the Diana, Princess of Wales' Memorial Playground. It's a pretty sweet playground. It has a pirate ship, some log houses, some teepees, and some slides. We played for a while until it started to rain. Then I chased some birds around the park.

After that, we went to Paddington Station, just a couple stops from Kensington Gardens. Paddington Bear is named after Paddington Station. My friend Benjamin is a big Paddington Bear fan, so here's a shout out for Benjamin!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day.

"Huh?" you're probably saying, if you're reading this from the States.

Well, today is Mother's Day in the United Kingdom.

At school, I painted a porcelain box at school so I could give it to her for Mother's Day. She also got a present from church: a little candleholder that says "Oh Mum, you're so special.". She thought it was cool to have a present that says "Mum" on it.

Horniman Museum

We went to the Horniman Museum yesterday. It's a small museum in Dulwich, south of London.

We went with our friends, the Goulehi family. The Goulehi's parents are from the Ivory Coast in Africa, and they lived in France before they came to London. The Goulehi kids speak French and English. It's pretty cool hearing someone say "McKenzie" with a French accent.

The kids are Iman, David, and Gracie. David is my age and Gracie is McKenzie's age.

The coolest part about the Horniman Museum was a room they had with some drums and other percussion instruments that you can play. Here's McKenzie jamming on the xylophone with David.

London Zoo

The week before last was half term. Half term is when all the kids get a week off from school because it's half way through the term. After being used to going to school every day, having a week with no schedule was a bit rough. We found some fun things to do, though.

One fun thing we did was go to the London Zoo. Mama, McKenzie, and I went with our friend Katrina and her Mom (or "Mum" as they say here). Katrina's mom is from Russia (Siberia, even). Her dad is from Wales. She speaks Russian and English. She's one of my many multi-cultural friends here.

Here's a picture of me, McKenzie, and Katrina on the bus on the way to the zoo. We took three buses to get there. Some were double deckers; some were regular buses.

The zoo was a lot of fun. We saw giraffes, bears, monkeys, and lots of other stuff. We didn't get many good pictures because it was cold and overcast. But you know what all those animals look like anyway.