Finished!

Well, this is officially the last blog post for Our London Year. We had a great time living in one of the most amazing cities in the world. We experienced grad school, a different culture, the fabulous Hyde Park Ward, the National Health Service (free baby!), dissertation writing, working at the Globe, meeting and working with published & accomplished professors, a winter with only 6 hours of sunlight per day (blah), Jude Law, meeting our beautiful new baby, and playing tour guide to visiting family and friends. London was OUR city - we lived there and knew it well. And we'll be back... one day.

Saying goodbye to Abbey Road

Since getting home there has been a lot of adjusting, but also the comfort of falling back into a familiar routine with our home, neighborhood, and friends and family.

We ripped up our old kitchen floor and put down slate tile as soon as we got home

Ben started law school at the U, Heather is getting used to the stay-at-home mom thing, and Abbey is doing great - she's more than 3 months old now! Our basement, which we finished just hours before we left for London last September, is a fun place to hang out (and a great place for Abbey to take a bath).

Actually, she really does like baths, just not the "drying off" part.

Abbey meeting two of her cousins and Aunt Angela.



Ben & his brother Alex revel in the coolness of Wimbledon tennis balls



We got to see the Stahles before they moved to D.C.,
and sported new haircuts


And see Sharla and Jason get married

We've also been lucky to have lots of baby showers for Abbey from Ben's family, Heather's family, friends, and ward members. Abbey has about 4 times as many clothes as her parents put together. Here is a small sample:

We also finished our final Month-in-a-Minute video - taking Abbey to see her namesake, Abbey Road Studios, and our last walk by the River Thames before leaving London. If you want to watch it, click here: Last Day in London.

Also, a few people have asked, so, if any of you have some time on your hands and are curious, here's a PDF file of our dissertations. Ben's is about Hollywood's relationship with Shakespeare. Heather's is about the role of teachers as substitute parents. If you want to download/read them, click here: Ben's MA Dissertation. Heather's MA Dissertation.

Well, that's it! Thanks for following our life in London. We had a great time sharing it with you. We're grateful that we had the opportunity, and so much support from all of you.

Ben, Heather, and Abbey

Long time, no post!

This is not the last post to our blog. This is the post to say that there will be a last post to our London blog. As soon as we get the time to do a decent one, that is. So busy! It's these little things like a newborn and law school and an international move and a family wedding that just keep getting in the way... Oh well. We are alive and well, and will do a decent last post.

American Woman

Passports for Mom, Dad, and Abbey

Since Abbey was born in the UK, we needed to report her birth to the US Embassy and get her a passport before she could fly home. We bravely made her appointment for Pioneer Day, July 24, when she was just 8 days old.

The US Embassy in London near Hyde Park

We were worried because she's so new, and mom is still recovering, but it could not have gone smoother. What a blessing! She slept the ENTIRE time, from when we left the flat, to during lunch, to the 3-hour wait at the Embassy (why did we make an appointment months ago if you just wait in line DMV-style?), and then the ride home. She won a million good kid points that we will let her redeem when she is a teenager for a later curfew or something. And she can also join the club of people who hate their passport picture - it looks nothing like her!

Abbey was so good we even had time for "tea" and scones!

Here is a mix of pictures from "jaunts" we've taken her on since she was born, around the block or up to the High Street, including a famous London black cab ride. Ben sports a "new tired dad" beard, and tries out both the sling and the baby bjorn. Abbey loves both of them!

She was quite pleased with herself after a long but successful day.

Introducing...

Abbey Heather Lawrence was born via c-section on July 16, 2009 at 12:07 pm. She was 8 lbs. 10 oz. and 21" long. We are delighted to have her join our family!

Thank you to everyone for your love and support. Without further ado, here she is:

With dad, a few minutes old, in the "operating theatre"

With mom, a few minutes after that in recovery.

1 day old in her first outfit!

Enduring the trauma of the first bath (actually, she liked this part)

Abbey will be getting her first U.S. Passport this week. :)

Harry Potter and the Half-Wet Premiere

Well, the big HP world premiere finally happened yesterday. It was insane. There were far, far more people crowded into Leicester Square than at the James Bond premiere back in October. I seriously underestimated how early people would get there. Although I am definitely a fan, I am not a big enough fan to have waited all day, from 7am until 6pm, as the people at the front row did! This shot from a webcam gives you some idea of the size of the crowd:

This is the best shot I managed the whole day, and it wasn't until after the event was over and some of the crowd had dispersed:

There was no way to get close enough to see any of the actors, but I did see Dan Radcliffe for a few seconds. He was being swiftly escorted by two bodyguard-looking guys and they brushed right past me. I tried for a quick shot, but was thrown off balance by a security guard and almost dropped my camera. Here's what I got:

Nice, huh? Although it would have been cool to see lots of the great older British actors, it was still just fun to be there. There were a lot of screaming/crying girls in red and gold face paint, looking very tired from jet lag. I was surprised, actually, at how many Americans were there. It rained off and on throughout; at one point it was a genuine downpour. There was so much rain, in fact, that the barricade posters were ruined. So, sadly, I don't get to add to my collection of stolen Leicester Square movie posters. Oh well.

As soon as it was over, a huge number of black T-shirted people started dismantling everything, taking down the displays and barricades and ripping up the 'red carpet':

One really funny thing to watch was the groups of teenage girls circling the black T-shirts like vultures, waiting for them to turn their back long enough to run in and steal whatever part of the decorations they could get their hands on. My favorite was a little Indian girl who, with surprising strength for her size, nabbed a huge canvas like this one, with the Gryffindor colors on it:


The irony, of course, is that Heather and I won't actually get to see the film here in England when it comes out next week. I've heard newborns are not the best moviegoers...

Cruel Summer...

I don't think I ever understood the difference between "dry heat" and "humidity heat" before this past week. It was so HOT. The temperature was 80s/90s, but paired with the humidity & pregnancy, it was bad. Luckily, it's supposed to rain on Monday.

We watched some Wimbledon matches on TV, including the one between the Williams sisters. It's strange to think they were playing just a couple neighborhoods over from us. The crowds and the players were dripping with sweat.
On Thursday we had arranged to go to our school's graduation ceremony for dental students (I know, British dentists, I don't get it either) to get pictures in those cool wizard-esque outfits. Ben even wore a tie. There was some miscommunication - the short story is we'll have to wait to post official pictures. For now, check out Ben in the white shirt/tie/shorts/sandals ensemble.
And happy 4th of July! Oddly, they don't really celebrate America's independence here, so instead of a BBQ, fireworks, and the Star Spangled Banner, we had to settle for ordering out for Chinese food. And no baby today, so I guess we'll have to hold out for the other cool date in July - 7/11. Then Ben can take the kid for free birthday slurpees every year.

Waiting...

Since passing 37 weeks, we are at the point where the baby is full-term. The due date (July 14) is still over 2 weeks away, but I don't really feel like leaving the flat to go anywhere. Today we even missed church, mostly because now my feet only fit in flip-flops, and the journey to church is about 45 minutes each way with half of that being walking. This will sound funny, but it is also so HOT here! What happened to that London rain? Oh well.

Washing baby clothes - so much more colorful than our clothes!

Drying baby clothes in the kitchen.

We have gotten nice gifts and baby gear from family at home, and some women in our ward gave us a "borrow" baby shower. Since we can't take a lot home on the plane, they let us borrow things we would need here, like the cute Moses Basket. Also, they got together and bought a gift certificate (in dollar$!) to Target - I love Target. Not sure how they knew, but it was perfect.

Baby shower with the Hyde Park Ward, June 20

To get an idea of when the baby might come, I asked around to my older sister and my mom. Although usually extremely helpful people, they are not helpful when it comes to predicting through family history when a baby might come. Here's what I mean: Ang - two kids, two planned C-sections 7+ days before her due dates. My mom: 1 baby right on the due date (yes, apparently Angela has always been perfect), 1 baby 5 days early, 1 baby 3 weeks late, 1 baby with C-section before the due date. No patterns there. So we'll just have to see.

Something borrowed... the Moses basket and some gifts from home.

Health-wise I have been really blessed. Since we don't have a car here and I've been walking everywhere for a year, my blood pressure is actually down a good 10-15 points from my norm. In general everything is good, just some average pregnancy complaints, and they just kicked in the last few weeks. Ben says I am the best pregnant person ever. But it's pretty easy to be that when he is willing to do practically everything for me that I can't do myself. Husband of the year award goes to... BEN!

Ben's favorite shower favor/decoration - the "nappy" (British for diaper) cake.

Here is a picture of super-pregnant Heather. I don't love it, but people have been asking. This is the night we went to see Hamlet. It was great. But I knew then that it was the last time I could sit through a play being this pregnant. We were smart enough to grab a fan on the way to the show.
One last thing: people are asking if we have chosen a name, and the truth is we are just going to wait until we see (her?). But we have some good ideas...

To be!

Hooray! Ben went to the (very long) ticket line for Hamlet yesterday, and the box office traded him tickets for this Friday night straight across for our tickets. I'll tell Mr. Law you said hi.

Yes, we are in school

We haven't posted a lot about the reason we came here - school. But yes, we are actually studying... especially lately. Ben and I are both working hard to finish the final step for our master's degrees - our dissertations. Here's a little info about them.

Each of us is in a different "school", so we have different topics that we need to cover in our dissertations. We have been attending workshops all year to learn how to put them together. We each have a dissertation supervisor, and we meet with them every time we get a new section of writing finished. We both like our supervisors and they are very helpful to us (though I had to switch mine halfway through because the first one assigned to me wasn't that helpful).

There is a maximum length of about 20,000 words - we are supposed to write up to this amount, but not go over. Page-wise, that's about 60 pages of writing, double-spaced. We also each need at least 50-60 references - books or articles that we have found and read on our own that helped us shape our ideas and writing.

My dissertation due date is the end of August and Ben's is the end of September. Ideally, we would be taking all the time allotted to us to finish, but we have to finish a couple of months early because of our baby's due date. I'm actually glad about that - it will be nice to have the work over and done with. When the writing part is finished, we will be binding the dissertations into a book - like the one in the picture. (Actually, exactly like the one in the picture - I stole that from the website of the company who does the binding. :) )

And our topics? I am writing about the expectations of the roles of teachers and parents and how they can best work together without either one feeling they have to take on too much of the other's tasks. Ben is writing about the connections between the industry of theatre during Shakespeare's time and the Golden Age of Hollywood and the movie industry.

And we only have 4 more weeks to finish them!!! Wish us luck!

Theatre... with an "re"

One of the best things about living in London is going to see shows! With all the "cool old stuff" here, some people don't know that there are dozens of plays, musicals, etc. running here constantly. So before the baby and dissertations are due, we are trying to see lots of shows.
A favorite venue is Shakespeare's Globe, so we caught Romeo and Juliet a couple weeks ago and The Comedy of Errors last week. This week is As You Like It. We usually get the cheap standing tickets, but this season I need a seat!

There are lovely old indoor theatres here. This is a picture of the Palace Theatre where we saw Spamalot last summer. Ethan Hawke is in London doing a couple of plays, so we snagged tickets.

Ethan Hawke, looking dramatic

The final chapter to our tale of playgoing is a sad one. MONTHS ago (before we even knew we were expecting a baby) we got tickets to see Jude Law in Hamlet. To prove the play is full of tragic irony...

Baby's due date: July 14.
Tickets for Hamlet: July 22.

To go or not to go?
Probably best to start looking for a deserving couple to bestow them on.