Our New House

So much has happened! First off, we found a house, and moved in! Yeah!!!! It is four stories, which makes it a hassle to get to rooms. There is a total of 48 stairs in the house. First off there's the basement. It has the guest bedroom, and our living room. Then there's the ground floor. (not the first floor, because the Brits don't count the ground floor, (our 1floor), so, I guess, to their standards, it's only a three story house. Confusing!!)  The ground floor has our kitchen, kitchen table, and a sitting area. We actually need more furniture, because our sitting room only has one chair. It looks rather sad. Also, the walls are blank white, so we are also in sad need of pictures. Ah well. Then there's the first floor with the master bedroom and study. Lastly, there's the second floor. That where we kids are. It's very lovely. The two girls share a room, while I took the smaller for myself and we all share a bathroom. The bathroom is a bit odd. It has pebbled floor (think of the rock pathways you see but painted) and the shower is tiny, camp tiny!!! Oh well, it's better than no shower! :) So we've been trying to settle into our new house. We  have mostly everything unpacked, and the TV is coming along, and we should have Internet tomorrow. ( I'm blogging in a coffee shop with Makenzie right now!) That's the other thing, Makenzie's here! She flew in two days after we moved in. We've been showing her around London. We visited the British Museum, which was absolutely wonderful. We saw the Rosetta Stone, which was very different from my expectations. I thought it was a little tablet while in reality it's a giant hunk of stone. We saw the Lewis chessmen, thousands of Greek pottery, Egyptian sculptures, on and on it went. It was a giant museum. We barely saw half of it. But, we'll be going back again and again I fear. A draw back to homeschooling in London. We also visited the British Library. It was also wonderful. We saw the Magna Carta, the foundation of Britain's government. We saw Canterbury Tales, Old Bibles, Handel's Messiah, and Shakespeare's plays. We also got to see Whinne-the-Pooh, Wuthering Heights, and Wind in the Willows on a special exhibit. Those were all very interesting to see as Pooh and Wind in the Willows are some of my favorite books. (I mean who can't love Pooh bear?) Then we took a trip down to the Houses of Parliament to hear some debates. I actually really enjoyed it. The inside of Parliament is as gorgeous as the outside, if possible. Statues of knights sat in crevices along the top of the wall. Stained glass widows alowed filtered sunlight in. We first visited the House of Lords where they were having a debate over the transportation of horses, which was rather boring. Several people appeared to be asleep. :) Then we went to the House of Commons which was much more interesting. So interesting I didn't want to leave. it was over the bank scandal. We came in in the middle, so I'm not exactly sure what they were debating, but there was a lot of the opposing people yelling at the other side, called the Government. The opposing side all stood up and held their arm out, which means they wanted to speak, but they were made to sit down by the person in charge, called the Speaker. Whenever she stood everyone else had to sit down and be quiet. People were getting mean and yelling that others were lying, on and on it went. She then told them they were not being good examples to the public and told them she was thankful she was not responsible for their actions. It was all very exciting to see, but we left before it finished, so I don't know who won. This week was also the 4 of  July, our first away from home. It was very sad to be away from the family, and we missed all the celebrations. With the fourth, came Maddy's birthday. I baked Maddy lovely sponge cupcakes and we went to eat at an Indian restaurant called Sitar. We've been there once before, and we loved it. The food is wonderful, and one of the guys is very nice to us. He brought us Indian Mangos which are absolutely beyond delicious. Juice explodes in your mouth and they seem to melt in your mouth. Makenzie said they were rather like a sorbet. Nothing like the stringy wood chip mangos back home. That's really all that has gone on this week. I'll be putting pictures up tomorrow hopefully, because we should have internet by then!!