Pond Jumpers: Half-term...twice.

Half term breaks can be tricky in London. Your children get a week, or two. Depending on the time of year, it can even be 4 weeks. You soon realize that you too have a bit of a vacation. No school run, no making lunches, no real schedule..what more could you ask for? By the end of their time off though, I find myself thinking..."where did the time go?" and "gosh what did we do?" in which case my answer is often "not a thing". So this time around, despite the girls being on differing schedules (while Av was off Sloane had school and visa versa), we went....da-da-da-daaaa....

Bowling.

That's right...

And yes, she did beat me in the second game!

Not sure Anders really got the whole bowling thing...but he sure did look good...

For another one of the days off I decided that I would be a good mum and do what all other Londoners do with their kids. Get their behinds into a museum for a little cultural perspective. So hmmmm...where to go that might actually keep all of our attention??...the Natural History Museum of course! So off we went. This time, though Sloane was supposed to be in school, we pulled her out and she got to play hooky (shh...I do believe they actually have truant officers here!). The first thing they saw in the museum was about the only thing they really got excited about.

Our very own journey to the center of the earth!

We managed to snag them Explorer backpack sets so that they could roam the museum looking for a mystery animal using the clues provided in said packs. Sloane chose the Mammals one while Avery chose Oceans. They each got a pair of binoculars, a sweet looking hat and a bright red pack filled with pens, pencils, clues and paper. The girls wouldn't be caught dead in the hats but Anders wasn't fussed about it. The kid has style and quite a bit of self confidence!!

No clue what dinosaur this is but it was pretty big with teensy little arms!

For Sloane's half term (along with every other school's break) we decided that she should be able to get to do a little something with just us like Avery did. So off to the London Aquarium we went. Thinking that every other school is also on break , we arrived at the aquarium with 1 minute to spare before it's opening. We queued with the other patrons at 1000. We stood in the queue, bought tickets, waited for lifts (elevators), got Sloane a sparkly tattoo, even got her a picture of her swimming on top of a shark, saw every single exhibit and we were out of the museum at 1055. Not what I would call a quality place to go, it's sort of like Madame Toussauds--don't waste your money. But it was certainly quality time!

This isn't a bad shot actually...usually she has her head cocked sideways and a leg wrapped around the pole...I have to tell her to stop looking like she's pole dancing. Thankfully she doesn't quite know what I mean. The other passengers get a bit of a chuckle.