Mostly, I hung out in my parents’ living room, and baby D was all…

Oh, and he took up giggling in a big way.

Sherry threw us a baby meet & greet though, and D got lots of neato stuff I still need to write thank you cards for (I am disgustingly behind on that)

And he discovered the joys of the baby executive toy bouncer. GOOD TIMES!

Then we flew home. Baby D was again a flying champion. He’s a good little dude! We were home for a few days until we were back at the airport to fly off to the UK. We scheduled the flight for bedtime, which was pretty much perfect as he slept the whole flight. He was so good and quiet that the flight attendants made him this crown. Next stop.. Toddlers and Tiaras!

Once we were in London, we made our way to our old house to crash with and see our old flatties. GOOD TIMES. Jane changed her first ever diaper.

We explored London for a few days and even took Derek into a few pubs (totes legal there). I demonstrated some amazing multitasking.

Saturday morning arrived, and we made our way back to Gatwick to pick up our rental car and head to the Cotswolds. Rather than drag D’s seat all around, we rented one from the rental company, which was kind of a mistake because he hated it with the fire of a thousand suns, and I basically had to sit in the back seat with him the whole time and entertain him and feed him and MAKE EVERYTHING A BIT BETTER BECAUSE STUPID CAR SEAT IS STUPID. This is the closest he got to smiling. Excuse the milk.

After a few hours of driving, and some stern words with Janice (it’s what we’ve named our GPS – she’s kind of know-it-ally and bitchy and just seems all around like a Janice), we arrived at our rental cottage. NOT TOO SHABBY! Pretty much looks like a scene from Jane Eyre or Tess of the D’Urbervilles

The rental was on a real working farm, so there were adorable baby piglets to admire

Baby D is not so sure about the pigs. THEY ARE THE SOURCE OF BACON, YOU SILLY BABY!

Or perhaps he just hates his hat. I can’t blame him. His mama dresses him funny.

Our week in the Cotswolds was spent relaxing and hanging out and going for walks and playing lots and lots of Draw Something. I am addicted to that game. Mostly because it provides me with many excuses to draw penises.

Once our week was up, we hopped back into our rental (and the dreaded torture car seat of doom) and went up to Northern Wales to visit Mike’s grandparents.

They were over the MOON to meet him – he’s their first great-grandchild. Derek also got to take a bath in the same sink Mike was bathed in as a baby. (Well, not the same sink as it was replaced, but same sink location).

We did a walk around Wrexham as well. Want to make a bajillion dollars? Go sell babywearing wraps in Northern Wales. Everyone LOVED them. I was stopped several times so people could admire him and comment on how snug he looked.

After a few days of hanging out there, it was time to go home. Back on the big plane for a LONG flight home. Sprocket was an angel again and enchanted all of our seat neighbors. We’ve been home since Thursday and have been making up for lost social time – dinner and Cranium with Tyler and Leslie on Friday, BBQ with a bunch of other friends on Saturday, and dinner at Mike’s mom’s on Sunday. Everyone seems pretty much over their jet lag now, so I have my fingers crossed that there won’t be any 3:30am wake ups tonight!

We met in Soho with Shaun and Roseanna, and basically sat inside the Glasshouse. Everyone else drank beer. I had orange juice and water. Discussed babies and pregnancy and baking and other GIRL STUFF with Roseanna (I LOVE having a girl come to these nerd boy meetings) while the boys were all “Render render, sub-surface scattering, rigging, render, voxel, animation, render”. Seriously love having a girl to these things. I mean, I can nerd it up with the best of them, but after the first 3 hours of VFX talk, I’m ready to drop dead of boredom.

I had thought we might remember to take pictures, so I actually used a hair straightener and put on MAKE UP, but we forgot and so my prettiness is not documented. Sad. It was a lot of work and use of time I could have spent napping.

Anyway, we got home and were greeted with a very loud, very drunk houseparty. We knew it was going on but had to give it a pass to meet up with Aussie (no regrets – we love our Canadian visitors). Tried to hang out with them a bit, but roommate Andrew was smoking a cigar, and roommate Michael was very drunkenly concerned about me breathing in cigar fumes. Also, I was sober (of course) and they were very, very drunk… it’s never a lot of fun if the drunk levels are too far off. They were even too drunk for Mike, so we went upstairs and hung out in our room until the party died down around 3am.

Helped the roomies clean up the house (a bit – they did most of the work. I did most of the talking) the next morning. We also decided to slip a note into the letterslot of the nice neighbors (the bad neighbors who let their toddler scream for HOURS at night as well as scream at their kids at top volume at 6:30am on Saturdays can go to hell – we owed them a wake up) apologizing for the loudness.

Mike and I take off to meet Aussie again. Sit on a patio chatting. It was just them (no Roseanna on Sunday ) and I got bored of the nerd talk, so I headed home around six and surfed the internet for a while. Not before forcing the boys to pose for a picture. Boys LOVE posing for pictures. FACT.

Mike is short. Chris is tall. Both are happy.

Later that night, this came in our mailbox from nice neighbors.

Best. Neighbors. Ever. I think they definitely need an invite next time we have a party…

Mike found the Blues Bar Tuesday night when I was getting a haircut, and was stoked to show me because it was SO AWESOME. Only last night we hung around for 2 hours and there was no live music and also one of the barstaff shortchanged Mike £5, so the experience was far less awesome than anticipated. It’s still a cool bar, and we’ll likely go back. We’ll just take a look at the live music schedule first, and keep careful watch of the change we’re given.

We went home and hung out with Loz and Foz for a while, when Mike suddenly remembered that the Xbox was broken and that he needed a working xBox for his FANTASTIC weekend plan of playing video games in his pajamas while I explore Paris. He aims high is what I’m getting at.

Mike: I should take that in with me tomorrow and see if the store will take it back

Me: Flawless. I am sure they’d be delighted to do a full return on a used xbox you bought 8 months ago, especially with no receipt! Hell, they’ll probably throw in a free game to apologise for the inconvenience.

Shortly after that, Mike remembered that he temporarily fixed a red ring issue on his Canadian xbox by overheating it, so he put the xbox in a sleeping bag and ran it for 40 minutes. Shockingly, this did not fix it, nor did it diminish the amount of sarcasm I dished out about his brilliant xbox replacement plan.

I am not sure if he sobered up a bit or was swayed by my sarcasm, but as of this morning, he had decided not to take the old Xbox in and instead just buy another used one and mention that the last used one he bought there had died. Again, flawless. I am now envisioning an apology parade as well as a free game.

Sarcasm aside, I hope he finds a new (at least to him) xbox at a price that doesn’t make him cry nerdboy tears. He is very good about not letting video games take over all his free time (his doing, not mine – I don’t think I’ve ever asked him to not play a game), and he’s earned a weekend of beer and shooting (virtual) people/monsters with all the OT he’s been doing lately. Also, I bought him Alan Wake based on Becca’s review on Urban Moms, and I’m pretty sure he’s going to love it. I want the girlfriend points, yo!

They don’t sell an adapter that lets you convert between the two – you have to buy the plug part and REWIRE your lamps. No kidding. Anyway, I managed to get it all rewired (very proud) and we now have light we can turn on and off using a wall switch. I’m pretty insanely proud of this.

Lovely roommate Jane arranged a dinner at Mien Tay to celebrate my birthday and Mike’s birthday on Saturday. It was very highly rated as well as bring your own bottle, so we were stoked. WE WERE NOT DISAPPOINTED. The food was SO GOOD. THey had Fish Hot Pot on, which they only serve in multiples of 2 people. Jane was interested, and so was I, so we WENT FOR IT. It was so delicious. They bring you a pot of broth over a little burner, and you add raw fish and veggies to it as you go to make your own soup. We thought we’d never get through it, but we did pretty well with help from the boys. It was expensive but DELICIOUS. Here Jane and I observe the plate of veggies in horror. That is JUST the veggies for Hot Pot and was only meant for TWO people. Insanely huge, but insanely good.

On the way out, we overheard a table speculating that Kate Middleton was in the restaurant. Jane’s lookalike powers strike again!

After dinner, we went across the street to a club, where we took a series of silly pictures.

The best of the group photos, marred only by Jane blinking and Mike not understanding how to drink beer despite many years of practice.

Mike tries to earn money for the wedding by stripping. He is unsuccessful, despite Foz showing some definite excitement.

Me violating a disinterested Mike.

The girls!

Mostly a regular night out, except for one drunk guy feeling a little scrappy and trying to pick a fight with Mike because he’s small. He left once he realised that Mike is very nearly impossible to rile up, and that he was with two much larger guys.

Also, not my style to brag about this sort of thing, but it’s so funny that I need to document it. A guy tried to pick me up at the bar using an insanely funny pickup line. If I were single, I probably would have bought him a drink for the awesomeness of it.

Bar Guy: Hey…have you seen my friend?

Me: I dunno… what does he look like?

BG: Well, he has purple hair..

Me: Haven’t noticed any purple-haired guys, sorry.

BG: Are you sure? He has really big teeth (holding his fingers up to his mouth and dangling them down to mock large teeth)

Me: No…sorry dude!

BG: Are you suuuure? He has the enormous wings of a bat (holding his arms out)

Me: (finally getting it) Ooooh.. that guy? The one with 5 legs?

BG: Yeah! Him!

Me: I saw him masturbating in the ladies’ washroom. He has 2 cocks, right? (gesturing masturbating 2 cocks, one coming out of each hip)

We ended it friendly, but with him knowing I was unavailable.

Soon after, Lozzy was feeling a wee bit tired from an overconsumption of alcohol, so we headed home. The girls wisely went to bed, but the boys stayed up. Apparently, Michael passed out on the couch, and Mike and Foz had a bit of fun.

They gave him freckles and horrible tattoos.

Then made him his very own fort using all the furniture in the living room.

Apparently he slept through all of this. They did a test run with one of the couches to see if they could put him outside, but didn’t feel they could get it out without dropping him, unfortunately.

Mike was off on Sunday and wanted a lazy day, which I was a little disappointed about as I’d been home all of Saturday. Understandable though – we were in Austria last weekend, and this weekend we’re off to Amsterdam, so yesterday was the only day in about 3 weeks he could sit around in pajamas and surf the internet. I made a beef roast in the crock pot and read a lot, and that was our weekend. What did everyone else get up to?

Anyway, we met Danny when we went back to Vancouver to visit, and he is awesome, so we were delighted to get a Facebook message from him to say that he was coming home for Christmas, and would anyone be up for a drink. We met up wtih Danny and a bunch of his super cool and nice London friends (who we are now attempting to hijack – heh) at a nearby pub.

Mike is happy to drink beer and talk to people – pretty much his favorite thing!

Danny and his buddy/ex-coworker Matt are happy to listen intently to Mike.

Maybe because his table pounds are funny? I don’t even know what’s happening here.

Dog in the pub – AWESOME!

Abby and Adam. They are actors and thinking of making a go of it in Vancouver. We gave them the low-down. I really liked Abby and hope we can hang out with them again.

Danny was sadly feeling kind of poorly and had to peace out and go home to sleep around 10. He was staying with Abby and Adam, so they left as well. Everyone else had already left – so Matt, Mike, and I shut down that pub, then went down the street and shut another one down. Good times. Matt was also really cool – very smart, positive, hardworking guy. I hope to see more of him as well.

We ended up going to bed late and sleeping in until around 9am. We’d already decided that today was a good day for an adventure, and decided to take the SLRs to Battersea Park. Nothing exciting going on there – just a chance for a LONG walk (like, 3 hours of walking, all said and done) and some camera practice.

On the walk there, Mike showed a brick pillar who’s boss!

And I got arty with a padlocked empty lot.

I think that this road needs to be in a racing game!

Finally at the park! I love gnarly-looking trees.

Mike bonds with nature

And does his best to (very unattractively) mimic a face-like rock.

Not much going on at the park, so we walked around a little more, then did the long walk home, stopping at Caffe Nero for tea/coffee and to share an Oatmeal cookie. Not much to see on the way home except for Super Mario-esque stars under a bridge.

We were cold and starving by the time we got home, so we had some delicious leftover Shepherd’s Pie (reminder to self…post that recipe!). Now Mike is going through his pictures, and I am going to sign off and lay in bed and read a book Katy recommended to me. Taco Salad for dinner, then hopefully some of the roommates will be home to hang out with before we all have to go to bed for work tomorrow. Hope everyone else is enjoying their long weekend!

Art show hosted by squatters in am abandoned bar in soho. I’m not a hipster. Why am I here???

Pretty sure I was there for the same reason I end up anywhere weird/random – Mike or I saw it advertised and thought it sounded more fun than sitting at home and watching re-runs of Always Sunny.

If you’re my mom, Squatters is the name of a legitimate incorporated business who pay good money on rent or a mortgage to use what used to be a Walkabout bar in Soho to host an art show. If you’re anyone else, squatters are exactly what it sounds like…people making use of an abandoned building for free. It’s legal here.

Anyway, when we got there, it was pretty dead.

But at least the booze (which I wasn’t drinking since I’m back to counting calories and being a boring nondrinking buzzkill) was cheap!

Mike and I got picturey with our Christmas toys.

And then I decided that the hipster event needed hipstamatic photos. Because I’m artsy, yo.

The roof.

Empty chairs.

Photographer Mike.

After a little while, a show started. First up, Beans on Toast, playing silly folky songs about love and such.

Followed by an awesome older gentleman who did kind of a limericky, fast story poem, rap thing that was amazing and funny.

The audience is rapt.

By then, we were starting to get a little bored and hipstered out. Kissy face!

And then we went out for another drink (beer for Mike, water for me), and then we went home and went to bed!

Emmy and I had an email conversation about this book, and the general consensus is that it was a much harder book to connect with, especially in the beginning. The main characters are twin girls, Julia and Valentina, mirror twins who are exceptionally close to each other – so far as to still be dressing alike at age 21 (although that is more by the will of the twin with the stronger personality) who inherit an apartment and a pile of money from their aunt, who is their mother’s estranged twin sister. I don’t really feel like rehashing the plot for everyone, just suffice to say that it’s a ghost story with a few interesting twists, most of them good, one of them convoluted and unnecessary to the story.

Anyway, I was also delighted to find out that setting for this book is in London, and mentioned several locations I’d never even heard of, much less visited, so Mike and I decided to go on an adventure and check them out.

First up, Postman’s Park. On the way there, we passed a section of the original London Wall. This picture was taken through a piece of glass that had what historians think the wall originally looked like drawn, so that if you lined yourself up right, it superimposed itself over the existing pieces of wall. Very cool idea!

After a bit of getting lost, we finally found it!

In Postman’s Park, there is a wall of stone plaques honoring those who lost their lives saving another person. I found one of the tablets mentioned in the book!

As well as the one they added in 2009 after a 78-year hiatus.

Mike found some sort of stone chalice and decided to pretend to drink from it.

Mike also was ITCHING to play with the DSLR, so I handed it over to him and took the remainder of my pictures on my iPhone. It worked out well – we each got to play with a new (or new to us) toy, and I didn’t have to carry around the heavy camera anymore. He started off by taking some pictures of me.

I don’t even know what this face is supposed to be.

I was looking at a tree here.

Anyway, Postman’s Park was small and there wasn’t much else to see, so we took off to a coffee shop to warm up for a bit, then hopped on the tube to our next book location of interest, Highgate Cemetery. We popped out of Highgate tube station and walked around for a bit.

Random church, taken on my iPhone using the HDR app.

Swains Lane is also mentioned in the book. I looked all around for a proper London street sign that said Swains Lane, but didn’t find one, so this will have to do.

After walking for FOREVER, we finally found the cemetery, luckily in good time for the next guided tour.

It was really nice, actually. If it wasn’t for all of the tombstones, it would basically just be a really big, peaceful park with lots of foliage and squirrels and whatnot. I guess that’s true of any cemetery, but it was really nice and not at all spooky.

There were also a lot of mausoleums, which I guess were kind of a big thing in Victorian times. They also factor in importantly in the book, so I took a picture. I didn’t take very many pictures in the cemetery. I kind of forgot to because it was super cold.

Anyway, after we finished the tour, we found a pub for lunch and to warm up, then headed home where we are huddled under blankets staying warm. Cold day, but still fun and interesting!

Mike gets off later than everyone else, so we decided to meet for drinks beforehand. Andrew got his Christmas gift from Laura early – an iPhone 4, which he shamelessly flaunted in front of me, knowing that I want one very, very badly. What a dick!

Anyway, here are Laura and Andrew, who heroically put up with my cameraness and Dobbyness, possibly out of a deeprooted sympathy for my lack of date and lack of maturity.

And here is me and my drinks date, Dobby. HARRY POTTER SPOILER AHEAD. In the 7th book, Dobby dies. Mike worked on the first half of the second movie, and may end up assigned to the second half if the company he works for gets it. I have informed him, in no uncertain terms, that if I ever find out he had ANYTHING to do with Dobby’s death scene, the wedding is off. I think that is completely REASONABLE and SANE.

Dobby enjoys a sip of diet coke. You can see Andrew with his new love, the iPhone 4 in the background.

Andrew and Dobby, in a bro pic.

This one totally reminds me of a picture Mike took of me on St.Patty’s day a few years back. That was actually a pretty crazy night, and in exacly 4 months, I can tell you about it. (Remind me on March 18th, 2011. It’ll make sense why then)

Anyway, by then, it was time to head to the restaurant for our reservation. I didn’t take many pictures after that because we got into the WINE and I also got very busy shovelling delicious Indian food into my mouth as quickly as possible. It was so delicious that it actually BLEW ANDREW’S FACE OFF! Or he’s in The Ring. Not sure which.

Anyway, I ate about a million calories, of which I will burn off a small percentage at the gym tonight with a nice run, then head home and figure out dinner and crash. Hard. I am exhausted, yo!

Stevi decided she wanted to play a rugby game with an English team while she was here, and through the power of friends and internet and I don’t even know what else, managed to find a team to play with on Sunday, which means she needed to go to their practice last night and wasn’t with us for most of the night, sadly.

We took Tim to Soho. The original plan was to hang out at The Toucan because Mike walks by it every day on his way to and from work. I picked up Tim at home, since I got off first and escorted him, since he doesn’t have a British phone and doesn’t really know SoHo. I think Mike summed up the Toucan with the following text:

Toucan smells like rotting dog cock

Decided to meet at another pub nearby called the Nellie Dean. Nellie Dean is rad, but always crowded, so we had to take our drinks outside. You can tell Mike and Tim are brothers in this picture because they both are holding beer. That’s about the only similarity – they really don’t look much alike. Maybe one of them is the mailman’s kid? Who knows.

Anyway, after that, we walked down to The Golden Lion and sat around chatting and drinking until Stevi was done at rugby practice. Then we met her at Leicester Square and took off to Ultimate Burger for a late dinner. I ordered the hypocrit, which is something I totally invented. It’s a vegetarian burger of any kind topped with cheese and bacon. I like it because the spices in veggie burgers and usually nicer, and bacon is delicious.

Time was originally going to head out this morning, but decided to stay another night and leave in the am. Not sure what we’re getting up to tonight, but I am sure it will involve BEER and TALKING and A CAMERA, so it should be good. Also, Stevi will be around for tonight, so I will have someone to talk to when Mike and Tim decide to bro out and talk about things like how to drop a guy in a fight and which beer tastes the yummiest and whatever other stupid things boys talk about.

Tomorrow Tim and Stevi leave super early, so we’ll be all alone again. I think the plan is to check out the Imperial War Museum, which is WAR STUFF and not CASTLES, so it’s a bit of a Mike activity, but should still be interesting and fun. Yay for weekends!

Above is a lovely pub called The Dog House that Mike and I went to on Tuesday. It’s a little different in that it’s a pub, but the food is good. It’s a bit more Canadian style – they put things like sauce and lettuce on the burgers, and the salads could do more than just barely fill a dixie cup. Heartily approve. We haven’t really been up to much – just been working and hanging out. I mean, I could tell you all about the burger I had for dinner tonight, but a burger in fries in London is still just a burger and fries. Also, most of our dates look like this. We kind of love our smart phones a wee bit too much.

Tim and Stevi are flying back to London tonight, arriving super late, and we’ll be doing something with Tim tomorrow night (Stevi has a rugby thing she’s doing). I’ve put Tim in charge of finding us something to do. I am sure he’ll find something cool.

The big news in London is that last Sunday’s X Factor was rigged. It was pretty much all anyone was talking about at work this morning, and it even caused a little bit of a (friendlyish?) shouting match for a few minutes. People take their X Factor seriously here. I still stand by my original assessment. Treyc wasn’t as interesting of an artist, and her name was spelled stupidly. She deserved to go.

Oh! I’ve been super good about the work outs this week. I ran on Saturday, did a gym work out yesterday night, and went for a swim at lunch today. I unfortunately was sharing the slow lane with a gentleman who didn’t really understand how it worked and kept trying to swim straight down the middle. He’d also swim super fast, get to the end, then be huffing and puffing when I got there and wave me through. Then, when I was halfway down, he’d pass me at his frantic pace again, only to repeat the whole thing at the other end of the lane. I can’t even guess what he was trying to do, other than annoy me, but I’m still glad I got the work out in. I love the way I feel when I exercise regularly.