The Museum of Natural History

Today we probably went to the best museum in the world! We did our school work in the morning then went to the park and saw the friends who rented us the first house. We asked them about good museums and they said that we should go to the Pitt Rivers Museum which is right at the back of the Natural History Museum and the Story Museum. We caught the bus to the Museum. When we got inside we saw that is was really amazing. There were giant skeletons of almost every animal, models of animals, live bee hives and much, much, more. We spent at least two and a half hours there. When we got home we played with our friends for ages as it was one of our friends last day in England before they move back to France. We went to bed really late.

         Fluorescent minerals exhibit

         A 10,000,000 year old mineral

              Tyrannosaurus rex

            More animal skeletons 

                     Elephants 

The Simple Case of a Tooth Ache

I've been having this tooth ache so we went to the dentist in England. He said that I needed a cap over my tooth and it would look like I have a silver tooth. I felt very excited. The next day we went back to the dentist and it was very painful and I had to have a needle in my gum. I was a bit scared. I couldn't eat anything for the next three hours except for icecream. So we ate icecream as soon as we got home from our local shopping centre. Then I realised that the tooth hurt a lot when I ate so I couldn't eat solid foods. Dad bought me soup for dinner. 

Me after the operation

My silver tooth

Athens, Naples, and Finally Oxford

I know it sounds a bit confusing but that's actually where we went today! It started off like a normal day. We woke up, drove to Tel Aviv and our flight got delayed twice! We finally got on the plane

and after about an hour, they said that a little boy is very sick and we have to land in Athens. We landed then took off again and then the pilot said we had to stop at Naples because it was the end of work for the staff so they had to swap staff. They also said that an old lady was sick so we had to get some more paramedics on board. After an hour we took off again and FINALLY landed in London got our car and drove home. We were all so tired because it was meant to be a five hour flight and it was ten hours. Also because it was two in the morning.

                       Athens

                         Naples 

                  Naples Airport 

                  Finally home

Day Three in Haifa

Day three

We get up and have breakfast then go on a tour of the Arc which are the buildings at top of the of the monument gardens and Mount Carmel. After the tour we hired the coolest car ever which had seven seats, food trays in two of the three middle seats and windows that open and close by them selves. In the evening we had dinner with some friends then went to see another talk with one of the friends who we had dinner with.

             

       Seat of Universal House of Justice and the Arc

  

             Monument Gardens

Inside the Seat of the Universal House of Justice

           

        

                    Terraces 

Haifa

Sorry I haven't been doing posts but there isn't much time! This is what we have been doing. 

Day One 

We got up at six am and drove to Luton where we will fly into on the way back and left the car there. Next we caught the train to the airport and flew into Tel Aviv. We caught the train to Haifa. 

Day Two

Spent the day at the Shrines and had lunch at the bottom at the terraces. In the  evening we went to a pilgrim talk. It was very funny. He told us that his kids changed his prayer list once to names of movie stars and football players and he didn't realise until he was in the Shrines. 

Day Three

Went for lunch at a disgusting McDonald's restraunt and had cold, soggy chips and burgers with just meat and bread. Everywhere was shut because it was Jewish holiday. We got on the bus to Bahji to see the mansion of Bahji, the gardens and the Shrine. The paintings on the top of the Mansion were done by our Great Great Uncle. For dinner we went to a Lebanese restaurant and Dad's Arabic skills came in handy. Then we got Arabic sweets for dessert. 

PS. To see full description of the shrines see older post " the gardens you will never understand" from part one.

                  The Shrine

                     The talk 

                      

                       Lunch

      

               The Mansion at Bahji

             The Arabic sweet shop 

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It's my birthday! We started the day by waking up at four in the morning and opening presents. Then we boarded the train to London. We arrived at paddington station and caught the underground to regents park where we had a picnic with scones with jam and cream, cupcakes, sandwiches, shortbread and brownies. Then Jason, Chenoa and I went for a walk around and went on the children's boating pond then to a amazing playground. We said goodbye to Chenoa, Pepina and Christin and spent the rest of the day at the house of illustration which has the original illustrations of Quentin Blake. For dinner we went to a burger place by the Thames. We arrived home and went straight to bed!

             Picnic in the park

              House of illustration 

                    Boating lake 

                    Dinner

Parks and Punting

This is what we have been doing over the last two days.

Day one:

• Big drama about getting enough bikes to ride to Christ Church meadow 

• Jason, Christin, Olivia, Chenoa and Phoebe ride to the meadow and everyone else catches bus

•Arrive at Christ Church meadow and have picnic

• Meet the locals (bulls) and feed them

• Arrive at home and with the help of friends and a net, catch THREE crayfish!

• Have icecream 

• Eat crayfish for dinner and go to bed 

Day two

•Wake up and catch crayfish 

•Take bus to the river and take two boats for an hour 

• Get ice cream then go home and rest 

• Ride our bikes to port meadow

• Have dinner at a restaurant called 'the perch'

PS. Port meadow is beautiful!!!!!

                 Christ Church College

             Catching cray fish

            Boating on the Thames

                  Port meadow

           

            We all had roast dinner!

  

The perch garden (there are lots of dogs!)

                    Crayfish 

Aussie friends in Oxford

On Thursday Chenoa and Pepina and Ben and Zoe came. We had lunch with them then we went for a walk in town. For dinner we went to a pub called the 'Fishes' and to get there you have to walk through some beautiful woodland at the back of the field. 

The next day we went to do some sightseeing and saw the Bodleian library and Baliol college again. While we were there we also went to the world famous bookshop, Blackwells, and bought some good books. After the bookshop we found a museum called the 'Ashmolean'. It had a whole floor about ancient Egypt. All of the kids did an activity sheet where you had to find out things about the exhibit. We said goodbye to the Clarkes and had pizza, pasta and ice cream for dinner. We all stayed up really late reading! 

           Walking through the woods 

          Dinner at the 'Fishes'

              All of our friends exhausted

Strawberry Picking

Yesterday we went out for lunch with some friends and then visited their new house in a small village near Oxford called Headington. We then moved into our new house and went out to a pub called the 'Punter' for dinner. 

Today we woke up at eight then went to our local supermarket, Waitrose, to shop then drove to the nearby strawberry fields and picked three containers of really red and delicious strawberries and one container of rasberries and for dinner our friends came over for dinner and had the strawberries and rasberries for dessert.

PS. You will have viewed a video which is a tour of our new house

              Rasberry picking

             Strawberry picking 

London

Today we woke up early as usual and then got on the hour and a half train to London. When we got there we had second breakfast at a cafe then went to see Kensington gardens and Hyde park. We went to the Princess Diana memorial playground which was Peter Pan themed and had a giant pirate ship in the middle. We walked a long long way to the serpentine lake and took a boat that you had to peddle to make it go then had fish and chips. After leaving the park we walked to a department store called Harrods and bought delicious cupcakes, pretzels and bread. Harrods also has a giant toy department. We got back to Oxford after a few accidents (including Juliet getting on the wrong train and having to run out and the doors closing on us) and played with our friends for the  rest of the day. We made boats and cubby houses and hid by the river at the park.

                      London 

             Kensington Palace 

                        Swans

                The boat 

                   Harrods 

Royal Botanical Gardens

This is Phoebe. Today we went to the Botanical Gardens. At first we thought it was a boring place until we went to the front desk and got a kids' back pack with all these exciting activities in it. In the back pack was a stop-watch, a thermometer, a compass, a tape measure and a magnifying glass. We stayed for another 2 hours. We then saw a deer. I was the first to see it. We then had to help get it out of the Botanical Gardens. We chased it for a while but then couldn't find it so we thought it must have got out safely across the river. When I saw it I was measuring trees to see which was the thickest and thinnest. The deer was quite small with no horns. We jogged all around the gardens timing ourselves. My jog was 3 minutes and my walk was 6 minutes. We also learnt how to read a map and a compass. 

Then we went home and had strawberries and cream. Our friends come out after school to play and we always play with them and arrange a time after dinner to meet them. 

Us in the garden

Our lunch pack

The vegetable garden at the Botanical Garden

"Oxfordish" Parks

Today we started the day by going to our local supermarket, Waitrose, and bought scones, jam, cream, and oatcakes (little savoury biscuits). We picked up some strawberries, butter and cheese from home then had a picnic in the park near the river. For the rest of the day we went back and forth from the house to the playground (the playroom here has heaps of excellent toys). In the evening Kate cooked more delicious food then we went to see the Bodleian library and the balliol college. When we got back, the kids from our neighborhood where standing outside our house they invited us to play and we played for ages.

           A really cool trolley at Waitrose

                 

                    Bodleian library

 Dining hall at Balliol college (was used to film Harry Potter)

                     

                    Our picnic