Last week our friend Alice was in London for a day on a flight stopover, so she stayed over with us. We had a super visit and it was nice to see someone from back home! One of the first things we did was go to another museum ("another museum!!" you say, "do they ever do anything else!?!?!" The short answer is: yes, but there are alot of museums here, and I tend to like them, so...brace yourselves, people, the end is not yet in sight). Anyway, the one we went to with Alice was the Victoria and Albert Museum, which we went to expecting that it would be about Victoria and Albert--that, for instance, it might contain Albert's dressing gown, or Victoria's journals, or family photographs, or things like that. This was especially exciting for both me and Alice, since we went to see The Young Victoria when it was out in theatres last year so we both felt very attached to both V and A. Alas, we were sadly mistaken. It turns out that this museum was one that Victoria built sort of in memory of Albert---though frankly I am beginning to get the feeling that she built many, many things in memory of Albert and that half the buildings in London are probably connected to him in one way or another, haha--and it is filled with pretty much a wide assortment of random historical things. So still interesting, just not quite what we expected.

Anyway, as we were leaving the museum Alice took a picture of the three of us together, our first family pic in a long while! It turned out quite nice I think. I love the look on Emrys' face, Trav and I are both actually smiling for the camera and Em is all "yeah, I'm so over this, let's roll" with the most bored expression ever. Too funny.

I had decided, from looking at my trusty city map, that the river was not very far away and so that instead of immediately taking the Tube back to our place, we should mosey down to the river and then walk along it for awhile. I even had rose-tinted hopes of walking all the way home, enjoying the scenic views of the river, etc. etc. I will make the long story a short one and just say that my skills of estimating distances are SADLY LACKING, and that we made it about an hour before realizing that we were not NOWHERE NEAR ANYTHING, let alone home, so we gave up and found the nearest tube station. HOWEVER, our wandering was not for naught, because as we wandered we stumbled across the HOME OF ROBERT FALCON SCOTT!!! (N.B. Some of you will probably know this already, but for those who don't: alot of the houses in London that have some historical significance--like, someone famous was born there, or lived there, or the first anesthetized surgery was performed there, etc. etc.--are marked with blue plaques, so that tourists can see as they walk around.) A couple of you--mostly you, Mom, and maybe Heidi or Sarah?--may remember that Robert Falcon Scott movie from, like, 1960, that we got from the North Battleford library and which I watched, uh, quite a number of times. Even now, it gets me, to be quite honest. What a story. Anyway, when we found this I pretty much lost my mind. I was freaking out, let me tell you. It was like Disneyland for the 12-year-old me. Anyway, once I had calmed down a little, Alice took this picture:

(This is also the new winter coat I bought. Not as awesome as the long one that Mom now has--the best winter coat EVER!--but it will do the trick, and is also somewhat waterproof, which is important over here.)

And to finish off, on a rather different note: some hilarious pictures of Emrys wearing one of Travis' tshirts. I do not know why I find these so funny, but I do. Hopefully you will also find them amusing.
He looks like a little grey angel, bringing tidings of great joy.
Cute little dude!
All for now! Love, Becky.

First things first: Em is starting to adjust to the idea of being on his tummy, and can now (when he feels like it at least!) hold his head up! Behold...

On your mark...

Get set...

Go!

Mission accomplished!

Why hello there little bud!

Today we went to the Museum of London, which is, as you may have cleverly deduced, about London from pre-Roman times to the present day. I did some extra work yesterday so that I could justify taking the afternoon off today, since things like museums tend to be much busier on the weekends so it's nice to go during the week while it's quieter. Anyway, we enjoyed the museum alot. Trav said it was probably his favorite of the ones we have been to so far. They had alot of interactive displays rather than just having everything behind glass and labeled with tiny numbers...for instance they had videos, touchscreen panels you could interact with, replicas of different artefacts for people to handle and try out, headphones set up to listen to things, etc.

This is Travis trying out a replica of Roman weights.

Me, standing beside a stone shield from I think the 1300s--it shows the Royal Arms (I assume like, the standard of the King or something, though I don't exactly know). Anyway, you can see both fleurs-de-lis and the three lions of England because the king at the time (Edward III) claimed the thrones of both France and England.

Three hilaaaaarious drinking mugs from, hmm, about 1500 I think? Look at the little faces! and the little hands! I loved these.

A child's knitted shirt and mitt (!!) from about 1500.

On our way home: riding up on of the escalators on the tube! You can also see in this one the snazzy new carseat bag we got for Em. It is lined and super warm. I am a bit jealous of him now when we go out and he gets to lay there all cozy in his bag, relaxing. :)

Like this.

The museum was really close to St. Paul's Cathedral. This is walking back to the tube station.

St. Paul's! You can climb up inside it right up to just about the top of the dome. Which I will DEFINITELY BE DOING at some point (some of you may remember that I really, really love climbing historical monuments, haha).

St. Paul's is in particular quite famous for surviving the Blitz (against all odds--alot of the area right around it was hit very hard during the bombings). There is a really famous picture taken in I think December of 1940, on one of the worst nights of bombing that the city experienced, of the dome rising out of the smoke from the fires. Some of you may have seen it. It became a really iconic picture of the Blitz.

Found it. Here it is.

I'll try to write more often--sorry guys. xx Becky

some random pictures

Me and Emrys chilling at McDonald's...please notice the great bunnyhug from his Auntie Rach!

Mr. Serious...

Why hello there! Just hanging im my bumbo.

What's that you say? Aren't I cute? Why yes, I quite agree.

Hunnybunny trying to crawl...he thrashes his legs around but has not yet figured out the whole moving forward thing.

Mr. Snob, looking down his nose at you...

He loves his jolly!!

Em and his widow's peak say hello. Please note that he finally has eyebrows!! Thank goodness.

Just for Ed...

Had to take a picture of this outfit...all in denim! He is a little Mini Me for Edwin. :) If only I'd remembered to also put on his John Deere socks...

Today we went to the Imperial War Museum! I had gone once before, but I hardly need to tell you that I will never EVER get sick of going to this particular museum. It's so interesting and has a really good variety of different displays and artifacts to look at. Just off the top of my head: WWI; WWII; Between the Wars; Outbreak (stuff on the first few days of WWII); the Blitz experience; the Children's War (about child evacuees durings WWII); Secret War (about spies throughout British history); Submarines; the Merchant Navy; the Holocaust. A couple of those are temporary exhibits but most are permanent. As you can tell it focuses pretty heavily on this century and especially on WWII. It is SO COOL. Definitely one of the top places that you MUST take Joe, Mom, if you guys come to visit. I think you would like it alot too, but he would go NUTS.

One of the cool things there today that I hadn't noticed before, was that they have part of the fuselage of a WWII British bomber plane open to the public--you can 'walk through' it and part of it is cut away so that you can see all the inner workings of it, etc. VERY cool. I forget what the type of plane was called; I think it started with an H (I know, I know, Joe will be very disappointed in me). It was INSANELY cramped inside. Like, I'd read about how tight the conditions were inside bombers, but this was far beyond what I had imagined. I had to watch my head or I would have hit it on the ceiling, and I am not a tall person. One of the seats where someone would sit (I don't know if it would have been the pilot, I think so, but possibly a reconnaissance person or something?) had been left inside so you could see, and it was seriously the tiniest little space you've ever seen. Definitely gave me a whole new perspective on what it would have been like.

Anyway, I guess I should put up some pictures! On the way to the museum we stopped at a McDonald's for breakfast. You can't tell from this shot that we are actually at McDonald's, but you CAN see the really awesome stroller (AKA pushchair, that is what they call them here!) that we bought for Em last week. It was a little more money than we had wanted to pay, but I think it will totally be worth it; it's a three-wheeler (one bigger wheel in front, two in back) and it handles really really nicely. You can totally push it with one hand and it will go wherever you want it to! This sounds like a rather elementary thing but trust me, I have fought with enough difficult strollers in my life that I appreciate having one that will actually do my bidding. Haha.
This is at the museum...it is the smallest of all the private boats that took part in the Dunkirk evacuation!! It is called (as you can see) the Tamzine. It's part of a special display on right now about the year 1940, since it's the 70th anniversary now of that year and all that happened then (i.e. Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain).
Emrys is less excited than I about the Tamzine. (That's OK...give him time. I have a few years yet to work on him.)
As usual, Travis attempts to sabotage my photographic endeavors.
Apparently a cardgame that was put out during the first few months of WWII, as people adapted to the blackouts. I love the description ("The game to cheer you up! Everybody's playing it!"). I would be very intrigued to know how exactly it was played...
Here I am standing beside the eagle that was taken from on top of the Reichstag building in Berlin when the Russians took that city in 1945. There are bullet holes you can see in its wings from the final battle for Berlin. Seeing this eagle was super exciting for me because when Alice and I were in Berlin last year we went to the Reichstag and it was one of my favorite buildings there.
Me and Emrys chilling in the foyer.
Outside of the museum there are a couple of massive guns set up. They are really, really massive. I can't even explain how big they are. It will perhaps give you some idea when I tell you that these are the shells that they fire (with Travis and Em conveniently posing beside one, for size):
Emrys cleverly climbs the shell...
Matching faces! This picture is HILARIOUS.
The sweater that he is wearing in this picture is one that Alice knit from a WWII wartime pattern! So I thought it was quite fitting that he should wear it for this particular museum trip.

All for now! XO Becky.

Here I sit to write a post but I can't think what's really new this week. That means it's been a good week, though, I guess, since there are no new infections or illnesses to report. :) Emrys is eating like a horse these days. I think he must be getting into another growth spurt. I realized today that in a week and a half he will be four months! He seems to be getting better head/neck control these days. He HATES tummy time, though. In the interests of transparency, I should admit that we have been rather shamefully neglectful of this particular Parental Duty. It's not that we've purposefully never put him on his tummy...mostly we never got in the habit, I suppose, and now it never really occurs to us to do so. When we DO remember, though, he positively loathes it and refuses to be convinced that it is in any way whatsoever a Fun or Exciting Activity. Instead of holding himself up on his elbows or lifting his head to look around (as the child development books helpfully suggest he will do), he lays there with his face planted obstinately in the blanket and refuses to even turn his neck sideways. This generally continues until a) I panic that he is not getting enough air, and turn his neck for him, or b) he becomes enraged and starts screaming, at which point I meekly pick him up and apologize for attempting it in the first place. SO. Tummy time, folks, is not our forte.

Random picture of me and baby.

One thing he DOES seem to like a little better, though, is his jolly jumper! You will recall that a mere week or so ago his neck control was clearly not up to jolly jumper requirements. I put him in it again today, though, and he did MUCH better. He didn't really seem to get the whole "jump" part of the equation, but I assume that will come. For now, he just sort of hung there. But! This is progress. So we will take it, for now.

In his jolly jumper, giving you The Eye.

Look at his neck! Much better.

Doesn't he look old in this one!? I stood him up by the chair and he was totally taking his own weight on his legs--I just have my hands there in case his knees buckled (as they are prone to do).
Things continue to roll along, otherwise. Some of you will know the dramatic tale of how we once upon a time bought a timeshare (= were suckered into it and have basically rued this decision ever since, ahahaha). However it seems that we may at long last get at least some good out of it, as there are quite a few timeshares over here in Europe, and we are in the position now to be able to get to them fairly cheaply. We are looking into using one of our weeks to stay in a resort in Portugal in December. It wouldn't be hot enough to actually use the beach or anything, but it would be warmer than it will be in England at the time, and it would be fun just to get away and relax for a week. So we'll see if that works out.

Everything else I can think of to write about seems frightfully boring (for instance: I have signed up for a German class; we went to buy a bedsheet today, because Emrys peed through his diaper onto our (one) sheet; I bought a wok). Oh, we may have found a babysitter, which is very exciting to us (though no doubt less so to those of you back home). We are going to try her out this Wednesday evening. She is a postgrad student who lives in the same residence as us and put up a poster advertising babysitting services. I haven't met her in person yet but I am hopeful she will work out as it would be very nice to have the option of a baby-free evening once in awhile. :)

I will leave you for today with what is surely the most hilarious picture yet. (Johnny: I think this is his face upon realizing that he is, in fact, in England. Hahaha.)

p.s. Will try to take more pictures. It would help if I ever remembered to bring my camera anywhere. (Mom, I am becoming you...)

Hey guys, sorry for the long absence! It's been another long week of sickness over here. Tuesday we went to the doctor because Emrys' ear had been draining (mostly clear) fluid since the Friday before. I spent most of that Friday trying to convince myself that it was just water that had got into his ear when I'd given him a bath Thursday evening. By the time I was ready to admit that the sheer amount of liquid coming out of his ear could surely not be explained by the Bath Water Theory (it took me awhile, folks, I really didn't want to admit he had an ear infection), it was the weekend, and the clinic is closed on the weekend. By Monday Trav and I were both too wretchedly ill to drag ourselves there, so Tuesday it was. (Let me hasten to say, to any panicking grandmothers/great-aunts in the audience, that if he had seemed to be in any pain over it we would have brought him in to emergency, but he seemed quite oblivious to the whole thing, so we figured he could wait a day until his parents could rouse themselves somewhat.)

Anyway. He did, in fact, have an ear infection (surprising exactly no one). Likely his ear drum ruptured, too, which would explain the discharge. We got some antibiotics though and he has been fit as a fiddle for a few days now. Travis and I on the other hand have been crawling through the week basically at death's door. We are both now medicated though so I'm hoping we'll be getting better soon.

On a happier note, pictures! All of baby. I won't apologize for this (since the name of the blog is, after all, rather suggestive of All Baby All The Time), but I would normally try for a little more variety. Honestly, though, this week has consisted pretty much of limping back and forth to the doctor's office (we are up to a grand total of five visits, I think, in the two weeks we have been here) and lying about feebly while trying to keep baby amused. Wah wah. I did do a couple of school things this week--on Wednesday I had sort of a department introduction day, where I met some of the faculty members besides my supervisor and also the other first-year grad students. I only talked to one of them so far but I think we might end up getting along really well. Fingers crossed. The other thing I did this week is go around to a couple of libraries and set up library cards and accounts and that sort of thing. No real studying has occurred yet, alas. (FENDS OFF PANIC WILDLY.) But I still have two weeks before my next meeting with my supervisor, so as long as I can get the ball rolling this next week I should be OK.

Alright, on to the pictures!

This one is from today. Fairly self-explanatory I think. He has become wholly indifferent to his baths, now. Which, granted, is far better than if he hated them, but still. It would be nice if he showed an inkling of emotion from time to time. Or, like, splashed, or something. Oh well, maybe that will come with age.
Mr. Em peeking out from behind Dad.
I love this one, it is so hilarious. He is trying to suck on his fist but doesn't realize that his soother is in the way. TOO FUNNY.
Emrys and Dad, chilling at the computer. He looks like a little bald old man here.
Me and baby ready to go to the doctor and get mom some penicillin. :) It's a horrid shot of me but is his outfit not the cutest!!
Just thinking things over...
Sleeping. He still looks like a tiny baby to me when he's sleeping. (When he's awake, not so much. But when he's asleep he reminds me of when he was a week or two old. Look at me, he is not even four months old yet and already I am succumbing to hysterical nostalgia. Heaven help us.)
Sitting in his bumbo! Still a little shaky but I let him do it for a little bit at a time sometimes.
Hi Grandma Barb!!
All for now. Again, I'm sorry for the long absence! Will try to do better. XO to all.