Europe I. England with Cristina, Andrew and James

You probably know that we were crazy enough to drag our 3-year-olds around Europe for 3 weeks in October. To be honest, I was dreading it. All in all, we took six flights, stayed with five families, visited four countries, met three new babies, carried two huge backpacks and had a singularly wonderful time.



Part of the reason it went so well was that the girls slept on the long-haul flights. We left Denver at 8:30pm and by the time we'd had dinner, they were very tired. It took about 6 songs until they were asleep but then they were sleeping deeply enough that we could reorganize them head-to-toe across our seats.




Upon landing in England, we stayed with our friends Cristina and Andrew and finally met their baby, James.






The weather was beautiful, the leaves were turning, and our accommodations were cushy enough for us to spend several hours awake each night. We explored near Reading University (where C & A both work) one day:



The girls type on bus-stop-seat "computers"


The girls were interested in all the new flora; Mae met a stinging nettle bush for the first time. (They also noticed the differences in the toilets and the bathroom lights, describing everything as "funny"). We also visited a few fabulous playgrounds in England which made us wish they would export some of their designs to the US.

I found this particular mushroom patch interesting as there were examples of each stage of the life cycle: