After being cooped up all week, Peter decided to take the boys out on a hike yesterday. Just as he parked and the boys were getting out of the van, Silas--who hadn't gotten out of the van yet--vomited everywhere because he was carsick. Peter told the boys to wander around while he cleaned up the vomit with the only supplies he could find--a pair of scissors from the first aid kit and a water bottle. He used the scissors to cut the water bottle in half so that he could scoop the puke out of the van. Poor Peter. :(

Random "Insult" of the Week

Since there's nothing else to write about this week, I thought I'd record this insult that I overheard while the boys were "goat wrestling." Silas to Gideon: "You little philosopher with green bean toe nails!"

We just finished our two weeks of quarantine following our trip to London. Now we can go out in public--by which I mean go to the grocery store on occasion--while trying to stay six feet away from other humans. The boys are out of school and will be until at least May 1st so we've been trying to do their schoolwork online. It has not been fun. Since the boys can't play with friends or go anywhere, they've been entertaining themselves by "goat wrestling." (It's like regular wrestling. They just call it goat wrestling because it reminds them of the way goats run at each other and butt heads.) They have a great time, but it stresses their mamma out.

Two Other Things I Forgot to Include in My London Trip Post

One of the most notable things about London was its beauty. Random insignificant buildings were as beautiful as any of the more famous buildings and the landscaping and gardens were gorgeous all over the place. The commitment to aesthetics was hilariously exemplified by this sight:

Those were construction fences to keep people out of construction sites. For some reason the construction fences had these columns of fake greenery. While the fake greenery definitely couldn't hide the ugliness of the construction going on, I still appreciated the attempt. ;)

The other thing that I forgot to mention was the embarrassing (but afterwards funny) moment on a city bus when Ambrose loudly said, "Hey brothers, what if we broke this window and started peeing out of it as the bus was driving along!" Peter and I quickly shushed him, but everyone on the bus heard it. I'm not sure why this thought occurred to him or why he thought he should share it, but it was pretty awkward sitting on that bus until we could finally get off at our stop.

London Trip

I found cheap airplane tickets to London last summer (in 2019) and snagged them. Unfortunately, my crystal ball was malfunctioning at the time and it did not foresee the Coronavirus crisis that would correspond with our travel dates. As we were packing for London the night before our trip, President Trump made a live announcement. I listened in shock and disappointment as he declared a travel ban for Europe and I thought that our trip was being cancelled...but then he said that the UK was fine and would not be under the travel ban. Phew! (Until we were already in London and then the UK was included.😄)

The next day, on March 12th, we left our home just before 7am and drove six-ish hours to the Los Angeles airport. On the way we stopped at the largest Chevron in the world. I mention this mostly so that the boys can remember it because for some reason they really loved it. It was raining for a lot of our drive and by the time we got to LA and found the economy parking lot, it was pouring rain. Holding umbrellas while trying to grab suitcases, backpacks, and coats and get five people moving to the bus stop was super awkward and we got pretty wet. Peter also discovered that the shoes he was wearing had a hole in the bottom which let all of the water come straight into his shoe. This was by far the most rain we saw on the entire trip and was also probably the most unpleasant part of our whole trip.

After going through security and waiting around the airport for awhile, our plane finally took off at 4pm LA time. This was the boys' first time on an airplane. Our flight was around 10.5 hours long, but they did great and loved it. Because of the time difference, we arrived in England at 9:30am on Friday morning.

We took the subway and buses to our hotel where we napped for a couple of hours and then went to explore Holland Park which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel. Of all the parks we saw, Holland Park was my favorite. Here are a few pictures from Holland Park.

I can't remember which days we did which things, but we also saw Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The British Museum, Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross Station, The Royal Botanical Garden, the Tower of London, and several parks including St. James Park. We also saw tons of cool buildings and cathedrals and beautiful places just from traveling around London. Here is a random mashup of a few trip pictures.

For the majority of the trip, the only side effect of the Coronavirus was that nothing was crowded...until we went to Piccadilly Circus. Then we definitely felt the effects of the Coronavirus. It was eerily deserted with most of the shops closed.

Chinatown in Piccadilly Circus. Notice that there was no one else in the picture. It was empty. We loved the name of this restaurant/pub.

Outside of a closed Lego store with a Lego Big Ben in Piccadilly Circus

On Wednesday morning I got an email that our flight home Friday had been canceled and that I needed to fill out a form online whereupon someone would contact us to reschedule. We still hadn't heard back from the airline by Thursday afternoon so I called them and spent over an hour on the phone trying to get a new flight home. In the end, they rebooked us on a flight from London to New York and another flight from New York to Los Angeles. From the time that we woke up in London and began packing and traveling to the airport until we arrived in Saint George, it was thirty hours. This is how the boys looked on the drive from LA to Saint George.

Despite the Coronavirus and some long traveling days, it was a really fun trip! We're so glad that we went.

As an interesting side-note, the day that we got home London restaurants, cafes, pubs, etc. were all ordered to close and two days later London went on complete lock down.

Gideon had a choir concert last Monday. It was really fun to watch. I especially enjoyed his choir teacher's enthusiasm and Gideon's lack thereof. He's on the right side, gym-floor row in this video.

Ambrose absolutely loves this bathrobe. It is super soft, so he wears it whenever he wants to feel "cuddly." I didn't know until this week, though, that he had another reason for loving it. He told me, "I literally think I'm cute when I have this on."

This week's highlights:

1) Gideon had a band competition that I got to go watch. They did really well.

2) On Saturday, Peter and the boys had a fun time spelunking in Snow Canyon. Here's a video Peter took. Unfortunately I don't know how to edit it and make it shorter...so stop watching when it gets boring.

3) During the past two weeks, the boys and I have watched two or three episodes of "Chopped" together. (If you haven't seen "Chopped," it's a competitive cooking show.) Apparently a couple of episodes was all it took for the boys to soak in some foodie vocab. Earlier this week I was making a smoothie with Ambrose and asked him if we should throw in some oatmeal. He said "Yes, I think we need to transform this smoothie." Then tonight we were eating some snack foods when Silas came up with a new creation. He spread some cheese ball on a cracker, dripped some Valentina's hot sauce on it, and then topped it with a piece of popcorn to "add some dimension."

After having a family home evening about friends and making good choices, Silas randomly spurt out, "The wisest choice at a bar is a tankard of strong ale!" That boy has read one too many books.

Gideon went to his first Young Men's activity on Tuesday. It was combined with the Young Women and they had a cake decorating competition where each team decorated their cake like a scene from the Book of Mormon. The Deacon's won with this cake of Samuel up on the wall.