Sunday, September 27, 2009

American History

What better way to teach about American history and our countries flag but with a hands on lesson in cake decorating.
1. First you make Chiffon cake (recipe courtesy of my Mom). My Mom made this cake for my birthday every year since I was a kid, until we moved to CA in 1997). Yes, one of the things I miss about being in CA. And, yes, Mom, kids do eventually appreciate all you do for them.
2. Decorate with red (strawberries), white (whipped cream) and finish off with fifty blueberries for the stars/states, (should be white but blue is still keeping with the colors of the flag).
Best part of lesson was we all got to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Yum!










Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Another Thomas Tradition - Camping & Smores!

What could be better than spending the day in the woods with friends and making smores? Here’s what you need:

· bag of marshmallows
· Hershey's chocolate bars
· graham crackers

Preparation:
Toast marshmallows over a campfire and place them on a graham cracker with a piece of chocolate. Take a second graham cracker and mash it on top to complete the s'mores. Be careful, toasted marshmallows will have very hot centers and can get very messy but smiles and traditions--priceless!




































Thursday, September 17, 2009

Baking bread for Dad!

Roll it and pat it, and mark it with a D
Put it in the oven for Daddy and me


























Monday, September 14, 2009

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Thames Festival

After the Natural History Museum we went to the Thames River Festival where we ate, the girls did some crafts, we enjoyed a Korean Dance show, had ice cream (new Thomas tradition) and the girls made sure that both Tower Bridge and London Bridge were doing OK. Tomorrow we leave for home, it's been a great trip, but it will be nice to be in our own bed.



















































































London Bridge doing ok







































Natural History Museum






































Friday, September 11, 2009

London Zoo

One of the things on our list to do in London was to go to the zoo which turned out to be better than expected. We had great weather; actually we had great weather almost our whole trip except for a bit of rain when we first began our trip.

After we left the zoo, Simon and I were discussing our day and how the zoo was one of the best we had been to and we tried to figure out what was different about this zoo. Some of the things I thought made the day and the zoo special was we weren’t rushing off anywhere or back to anything and could just enjoy where we were.

The zoo had all sorts of animals in different types of settings. There were aardvarks, porcupines, ants crawling outside an enclosure on a rope (didn’t want to get to close to that exhibit, as there was a sign saying these animals bite), giraffes (my personal favorite), gorillas, kangaroos, penguins, (monkeys that you walked among), ( Sarah’s favorite and not exactly mine, though I thought it was pretty cool, I kept thinking one of the monkeys was going to jump on my head while we were walking by), exotic birds which were also not in cages but you walked into their cage and became part of their environment. To end the day we took a boat to Camden for dinner and then the tube home. What a great end to the day!