September events

Jim and I went to the London Proms for the first time ever courtesy of our friend Claire, who gave us tickets. We decided to walk through Green Park and other neighborhoods to get there, which was really nice. Autumn has arrived, but we still are having pretty warm weather and got to enjoy beautiful London.

The Proms take place at the Royal Albert Hall. We had been there before to see Erasure, but never for classical music.



The view from our seats. It was an opera and since Jim and I have no operatic experience we didn't know that we needed to buy some books which told us what they were singing. So, don't ask me what the opera was about, but there was a lot of angst and anguish and spit flying everywhere. At one point one of the main guys was up to no good with spells and a smoking cauldron and a scary voiced, goblin-type man in the background. It was all very dramatic!

After opera, it was necessary to blow off a little steam:

The next day was the Gayton Road Festival, which takes place on a street in Hampstead. The residents provide music and rides and if we had gotten there earlier, Evie would have had her pick of second hand dress up clothes. Despite missing out on that, she had a great time riding on a train (she picked that over a pink car!) but was not a fan of loud jazz music. Note: Jim and Millie were home taking a nap when these pictures were taken. They joined us later, but I forgot to take pictures.

Little Miss Millie is on the verge of taking her first steps. She has come a long way since this picture was taken. Now she can get up on her own and looks like she's going to make a move at any moment. She likes to walk around the house holding on to one of our hands and is very proud of herself.

We also took the girls to play in Regent's Park, where they were the cutest kids in the sand pit:

And Evie was able to fly around on her scooter, sans hills. Even though she looks like she might be about to have a spectacular crash in the video, she did not.

Millie enjoyed a few moments of life without her diaper on--a rare treat in a land as chilly as England (and a great picture of her standing on her own)!

Jim is always his happiest when he's hanging out with his little girls. And so are they!


Evie has also started ballet (highly anticipated) and, although she has some trouble staying focused when other ballerinas decide to misbehave, she really loves it.

Millie loves it, too!

Jim and I also--FINALLY--went on the London Eye with a group of ex-pats. As part of our London Eye visit, we got wine and appetizers and got to go around twice, which I thought might be a little excessive, but turned out to be a lot of fun. We were kind of busy talking to everyone so didn't really take in the view like we should have, but Jim was able to find the Olympic Park (he can find the Olympic Park from any height in London) and I got to pose with a rainbow.

And I forced Jim to let me take a picture of him, too. He was clearly very excited about it (that's Jim's official fake smile. In the picture with Evie above, you can observe his real and genuine smile).

Another real and genuine smile with Millie on a swing in Golders Hill Park (we are lucky to have about six parks within our reach)!
And if you want to see true joy, give Evie an ice cream cone. I think ice cream is her favorite food in the world, followed closely by cake and sausages.
It's been a fun month and tomorrow we're going to the circus, where Evie will ask, upon seeing the ponies (who have been hanging out in Hampstead Heath between shows), "Where's he's mommy?" She thinks the horses are the ponies' mommies and won't accept anything else.