Hello London!

I made it to London. I even figured out the Tube without too much help. I'm still struggling with jet lag, but we're out and about and trying to figure out our way around. The hardest part is the money. In America coins are worth next to nothing but they have coins worth several pounds here. A pound is equivalent to about $1.60. Also, the food...our posh neighborhood is surrounded by restaurants. I want to try everything...but I also need to watch my spending habits.

The London Centre is beautiful. It was built in the 1860's or 70's, so think Queen Victoria and Brigham Young. It is packed into the city of Westminster, close to Kensington Gardens.

This is the servery where we eat meals together, prepared by our amazing cook, Thais. I'm pretty sure she could run her own restaurant and make a fortune. Today we had Chicken Tikka Masala that was to die for.

The front room. I love sitting in here. Besides, it has one of my favorite paintings. The only problem is that I will have to move back to Provo and live in student housing again. I'm getting a little spoiled...

 The view from the front room.

The carvings on all the stairs. There are seven stories... I am on the sixth. That means 66 stairs every time I forget something, which knowing me, will be a lot.

I think mom will have to tell me what this tree out our back window is, but I thought it was cool.

The back deck...if it is ever dry enough to sit on.

Somebody has a rooftop garden next to us. In case you were wondering, everything in London appears to be made of brick. Brick outside, wood inside.

See? A lot of stairs. We petitioned for a slide.

My bunk. That bed is never going to be made by the way, even though it is just a duvet. If you ever want to confuse me, by the way, just hand me foreign bed linens right after I've gotten off a plane and have had less than three hours of sleep. It took me way longer than was necessary.

The front view from our sixth floor bedroom.

The toilets gave us all a good laugh. We poor jet lagged travelers all thought that at least the plumbing would be the same, but nope!

The neighborhood we live in is really posh. Seriously. I mean, Kate and William are pretty much our neighbors. However, it actually used to be owned by a slumlord who let it to AfroCarribean immigrants. Apparently we came on the day we did because they didn't want us here during Carnival. I'm going to guess that it's like the one in Brazil...not Mormon territory.

 Saint Sophia's Cathedral. We didn't have time to go in, but someday we will, and I will find out who Saint Sophia is.

 Pretty houses. There are lot of pretty houses, so there are a lot of pictures. The fronts are usually painted white, or red brick. Often they paint their doors bright colors. Also, geraniums must be very popular here, because everyone has them in pots or by their windows. They don't have individual gardens. Instead, each neighborhood has a private garden that they have the key to. They are gorgeous, or at least they are from the gate...

Kensington Gardens. Hopefully I will get to enjoy them soon.

 All by itself on a wall by a bakery. I don't know the reason, but it's a very charming little detail.

We ate at Nando's for lunch. We were told that the British don't food as spicy, but when I ordered hot, it was actually hot! I want to try a different restaurant every week just to taste a little of everything. Since Thais is such a good cook though, I'll probably just try little things like desserts. 

Everyone seems to have geraniums and these little topiaries. But look how cute!

One of the private gardens. These pictures were taken through the gate.

A not so passive aggressive post-it I found on a bicycle locked to a street sign. 

Outside the Centre.

 A beautifully English pub that I want to try. Pubs are more like cafes than bars, in case you were worried.

The British flag on top of a mall.

This is Porchester Hall. The words got cut off because I was in a hurry. There is a little public library in here. They gave us all our own library cards that work all over this neighborhood. We felt very special, since you usually have to live in a place to use the library.

Everything is great here, and I am making some really good friends. All London needs is some Utah sun and everyone I love to be here with me!

Farewell to Aspen Grove

Yesterday was my last day at Aspen Grove. It was a lot harder to say goodbye than I thought it would be. I was really starting to make friends, but my immune system had other plans for me. However, I am grateful for the chance I had to work with some amazing people and care for some really sweet kids. It was also a wonderful chance to live in the middle of God's creations.

Maybe I'm weird to be taking pictures of dead birds, but you don't get to see them up close very often, and this fellow was very pretty.

This was the view from the bridge in the center of camp

 While working in the two year old room my coworker informed me that we had a really large slug today. I assumed she meant the child lying in the doorway moaning "mommydaddymommydaddymommydaddy" and responded, "yes we do…" She had to drag me into the other room to show me this fellow hiding under a crib… I'm just glad we found it before the kids did. 

 My favorite blue flowers were growing just outside my door.

I rescued this guy from a stair. I thought he was pretty cute. Unfortunately not everything we found up there was cute. While playing pretend safari on the kiddie playground I turned around and found some teeth strung along to a bright red heart and trailing intestines. Rat. Apparently something large and furry had been interrupted in the middle of breakfast. I sent the kids in search of a tiger on the other side of the playground. Thankfully, rat guts are not our domain. We chased the kids inside (apparently it was not a friendly tiger). We told them the tiger was still out there while they looked longingly out the window and we waited for custodial. Not exactly your average babysitting job. 

This is Bunny the moth. The picture from my phone isn't very good, but part of the reason it is so fuzzy is the amount of fur on that moth. There are a lot of huge moths taking refuge in the girl's bathroom, some of them cuter than others. This one had antennae so fuzzy that they looked like bunny ears, hence the name.

I saw this pretty spiderweb on a bridge on my way home from work.

For a staff party they took everyone to the Springville Strawberry Days Rodeo. I was a little skeptical, but we had a lot of fun. The part with the cows below was funny. They pin money to the calfs and then let all the little kids in the crowd have a go at them. It was pretty hilarious. We romper leaders could relate to the cows...

Kristina, Me, Siri, and Jenny

Frontier Night performance. For frontier night we wake up the old western village and have a lot of games like tomahawk throwing and stick pulling. They usually have someone volunteer to play the organ in the little church house. However, the organist is very social and wanted a change, so I happily volunteered to take her place.

Working with these sweet kids can be hard some days, but then you get a baby who is just so adorable that they make up for everything else. It is the sweetest feeling when they curl up on top of you and fall asleep as if you were their mommy. One little boy thought I was the best person in the world because I was wearing a hat. He was endlessly entertained by taking my hat off and then hitting me over the head with it in his attempt to replace it. We call these "baby crushes."

Baby Crush #1: look at those eyes.

 This baby crush was my buddy all week. I would get him to sleep by cuddling with him and then go put the next baby to sleep. He always woke up with the most heartbreaking betrayed expression, as if he were saying, "what are you doing with another baby on your lap?!" and I would have to go rescue him.

This little girl was actually kind of hard, but she reminded me so much of myself at that age that I could hardly hold it against her. After all, none of these kids have been to pre-school: asking them to go with strangers for six or seven hours a day is a bit much.

Out walking by the pool. When kids are really distraught we take them out for walks. This little girl would not be distracted. In three hours she never once forgot that we were (pretending on my part) to look for her mom. We put our feet in the pool, dropped pine cones off the bridge, played in the fountain and hand dryers, everything. We spent half an hour looking in all the car windows in the staff parking lot to see if her mom was in any of them although her mom was rock climbing. This sort of makes me feel terrible, but I was running out of ideas.

 You don't get to go outside with the infants much, but it has its perks!

 This big guys was only six months. Yeah. I got my mommy muscles that week. He also sang opera in the crib which was hilarious but terrible at the same time because we were afraid he would wake up the other babies.

Sarah and I doing swing duty.

In the playhouse. These kids are great at playing pretend. We went on a lot of pretend safaris. They would choose an animal, scout around for it, and then we would go pet it. I always had to smile when they all said "hi elephant!" and petted a spot a couple feet in the air. Somebody needs to take these kids to a zoo.

I never got a picture with Christian, although he got a picture with me. He was one of my 2 year old baby crushes. He always ran in and shouted "Hi Ca-me-ow!" He loved to cuddle and caught me by surprise the first time he curled up against me to fall asleep, a tradition that we followed for the rest of the week. He wanted his mom to take a picture of us after the closing show but couldn't find me because I was cleaning up. When I asked to dance with him at the family dance his mom told me that he got really worried that I was lost. What a sweetheart!

The Romper team!

"We came, we Rompered, we conquered!"

Sarah, Hayley,  Faith, Siri, Kiley, me, Caitlyn. Not pictured: Jenny