The Last Week in England

We spent the last week in England at my Dads! 
I was worried that the house would be a disaster, I know that my MIL hasn't
taken care of her house so I was expecting the same from Dad. I was shocked to see how clean
and well taken care of the house was!

Dads living room

kitchen from the dinning room

I was also surprised at how well my Dad was!  He cooked for us every evening, nice homemade meals!  Even Hannah, who can be fussy, ate everything!  Besides being deaf Dad seemed very healthy!  Better than me!
I can really see where David gets his teasing from.  My youngest brother found one of my old dolls!  It's a bit scary!  I left it downstairs but when I went to the toilet in the middle of the night it was sitting outside my bedroom.  My brother had left it there, exactly the same kind of thing that David would do!!!

My other brother came to visit with his family. I finally got to meet my niece!  That was a nice day, it felt good to be with my family.  Hubby had no brothers or sisters so there are no uncles or aunts, and of course no cousins on his side of the family. Sometimes it feels a bit lonely without having any real extended family around.  So being with my Dad, brothers, sister-in-law and niece was really good!

the family together, just my older boys missing

Dad with Christopher and Hannah

Of course I went shopping almost every day!  We went to the art gallery in my town and the museum in the next city!  There were other places we wanted to go but no time! 
All in all we had a go time in the UK.
Mikey and David went a month after we did. In between the two trips was the terror attack in London.  So of course I was worried but the boys had a good time!

David and my brother

Dad and Mikey

Back in England.......continued

During our stay in London we went to the British Museum.  Even though we spent a good 4 hours wandering around we didn't get to see everything!  I was really impressed (there again I am easily impressed).  I miss good museums! We have them in Japan but they are expensive and of course in Japanese!  We ate lunch in one of the cafes there, I was shocked at the size of the portions. I don't remember the portions being so big!  But it was nice!

my lunch was steak and mushroom pie, kids had pizza

Happy but totally exhausted!

The last day in London we wandered around Oxford Street!  It was okay but not the great shopping experience I thought it would be!
That evening we saw "The Phantom of the Opera".  Hannah's treat!  She was so excited that she was shaking!  We had to pick up the tickets that I had ordered on line. My plan was to go about an hour before the performance started, we turned up almost 3 hours early, Hannah couldn't wait!  While waiting we had a look round Piccadilly Circus.  Strange place!  One shop that caught out attention was the 'Kingdom of Sweets', the whole shop sold nothing but snacks, candies and chocolates! 
We ate dinner at a Lebanese restaurant! 
The show was very good.  I like musicals but have only seen them in Japan, so this was a real treat for me as well!  All in all worth the money!

in the hotel room before the theatre

where the phantom of the opera is playing

outside the theatre

dinner

Hannah with the tickets

That was our time in London!
I enjoyed myself more than I thought I would!  I refused to worry about things during this time!
I spend so much time worrying about life that I never really enjoy myself but for those few days I turned off that part of my brain and just relaxed with the kids!  Well worth it!
Maybe one more post on England then back to day to day life!!!!