Sunday was another rest day: we went to Crystal Palace Park in the morning, and in the afternoon we had a birthday tea to celebrate the family birthday coincidence. Monday was my actual birthday, and now that half term was over, we headed back to the Natural History Museum for a much better look at the dinosaurs and other exhibits. Mini-Elbeno loved every minute of it, and fell asleep on the train on the way home. This meant I had to carry him up about a quarter mile of very steep hill.
Tuesday, my former french teacher came to lunch, up from Exeter, and we had a great few hours talking about old times and catching up. He was kind enough to bring a couple of his books along as a gift.
We did most of our packing on Tuesday night, finishing up on Wednesday morning, and we had an extra piece of baggage to bring back because of mini-Elbeno’s new rocking horse (a gift from the grandparents). The flight went as smoothly as expected, but we accidentally picked up the wrong piece of luggage from the carousel! Luckily we noticed before we left the airport, but since we’d already gone through customs and immigration, we were not allowed back to collect the right bag, and had to wait for the airline to take it through customs and bring it out.
Anyway, we got home around 7.30pm, unpacked and went to bed. Woke up at 1.30am of course because of the jet lag!
Oh my goodness good luck getting back to home-time! I’m sure you have wonderful pictures and I’m glad you all had a wonderful time, esp. miniE. Oh, how I wish I could have seen him tottering around, gazing in awe at the giant dinosaurs above him! Hope MrsE is getting some good rest too – vacations are sometimes harder than staying at home, though of course worth it. ^_^
Glad to have you back in the States, friends. Be gentle settling back into the routine, and take lots of naps!