3 Months Down, 2 Weeks Off, 1 Great City

Hello all...

First we just wanted to say how thankful we are to all of you that keep on reading our blog...makes us feel really special to look at the stats page and see over 2000 views from all over the world. 

Now a quick recap of last week's teaching shenanigans.

Sam's week:
Monday: Year 4 and 5, PPA cover (covering teacher's prep blocks/meetings)
Tuesday: Reception (4/5 year olds)...she got to sit in the reading corner and read with kids all day.
Wednesday: All Boys High School...English.
Thursday: All Boys High School...Art. She watched a whole lot of YouTube videos this day...hockey, soccer, music...you name it. The boys were pretty shocked by what's allowed in hockey.
Friday: Day off...got to start break a day early!

Lisa's week:
Monday: High School Math
Tuesday: High School Math and Geography (after school class...the worst)
Wednesday: All Boys High School...English
Thursday: All Boys High School...Art and a block of French (again, after school class). Actually had a double block of year 11 boys that were really nice, and very talented.  Best group of high school student's I've had by far. Then finished off the day with a double block of year 11s...For the last 45 minutes of this class (that went until 4:00! Sam joined me when she was done) these boys pulled out condoms and had very inappropriate conversations about their "sex lives" which Sam and I have determined were non-existent based on the fact that they were essentially calling themselves small.  We tried to tell them to stop the conversation while they were in school, they didn't listen.  They also didn't clean up the room when they were asked so they ended up being there 15 minutes after class until they smartened up.
Friday: TA at the Muslim Primary school in Year 6.  The year 6s are getting close to their SATs tests (big tests that essentially rank them for high school)...so what did they do all day? Write practice tests.  So fun. 

Our after-hours activities included:
Going to the gym Tuesday and joining an ab workout class (it worked).
Swimming Wednesday.
Gym Thursday.
On Friday, we got an Easter Package from my momma (Momma Jan) which was AWESOME!

Easter Package from the Therrien's

Happy Easter Sam

Happy Easter Lisa

We now have enough Tim Tams...Thank you everyone who sent them!

And had a Girls' Night in.  Apparently this has become our tradition.  It was great...lots of junk food and hilarious stories all evening.

Our bag going to girls night

We may have eaten most of this...oops!

 "Even though some of you are pretty thin, you all have fat hearts, and that’s what matters."

A little Easter treat...never too old for a Kinder Surprise!

So our 2 week break started off amazingly with girls' night Friday. Saturday we did a lot of laundry, cleaned our flat, I went for a 10 km run and found a park not far from us, Sam grocery shopped, then we watched a bunch of movies before bed...we basically used the day to recoup from our week, and to get our flat nice and clean for break.

Sunday we headed up into London with Mary (Brianne's boyfriend Chris flew in from home to visit with her for the 2 week break).  We went to Piccadilly Circus first, had a Cinnabon, then wandered down so Sam and I could get tickets to see The Lion King.

We wandered in that area for a bit (checked out the LuluLemon that recently opened up...prices are the same as home, so therefore double the price from home), then headed to Oxford Circus area.  We ended up at Primark again (worst idea ever) and all ended up with some purchases.  Then we found Boost Juice (pretty much Booster Juice) and got a smoothie for our trip back home.  We ended up deciding to head to Balham to hang out at Mary's and to meet Chris.  We wandered in that area for a bit (it's really cute!) then went to their place.  We hung out, ate food, chatted, watched a movie, then Sam and I headed home.

Monday was an early morning...pretty much our regular weekday morning routine, so that we could catch the train up to Victoria station.  We were heading up to Stonehenge and Bath for the day with Meghan and Marina.

It was about a 2 hour bus ride up to Stonehenge...our tour guide was quite good and gave a very long, but entertaining explanation of the English Royal history.  When we got closer to Stonehenge he also gave us a quick run down on the history of it...apparently no one really knows why it was built or what it was used for.

So we get there and of course it's grey sky, raining, and really windy.  We took the shuttle up from the visitor's center and listened to the first couple blurbs on our personal electronic tour guide things, then gave up because our tour guide had basically summed up each of the 12+ 5 minute long history lessons in his less than 10 minute ramble on the bus.  We took some pictures (was hard with the wind and rain), laughed at the tourists trying to use umbrellas, and took in the amazing site of the rocks in the ground.

Now, I've got to say, it is pretty cool that those rocks got brought from pretty far distances, smoothed out, and lifted into the positions they are (I still vote for aliens did it), but after you walk around once you've pretty much seen all it has to offer. 
We headed back down and wandered through the visitor's center then back to the bus.
We then took the bus the 1.5 hours up to Bath.  It's really pretty country-side, lots of little rock cottages and green hills, lots of livestock.  The area of Bath was really cool to drive through...the valley, lots of big, expensive looking houses here.  Gorgeous views.  There's a cool history about it...I liked when he told us about the window tax. Essential some ruler of the area decided he didn't like windows and taxed people based on the number they had, so lots of people bricked up their windows.  So as we're driving through the area we see a ton of windows that have been filled in with bricks, the best ones are the ones that the window has been painted on the outside of it.  Apparently if you own a house with one of these bricked in windows, your property value is a couple times the amount of one without any.
So we get into Bath and we're all starving, so we decide to get food first.  We wandered for a bit and ended up in a little neighbourhood pub.  It was really cute and the food was hot and good.  When we finished up we headed down and into the Roman Baths.  We got the same electronic tour guide things here. (It's like an old cell phone/walkie-talkie, and there are signs around the place with numbers.  You put the number into the device, press play, and it tells you what you're looking at, bits of history, stories, etc. It's pretty cool).  So we walked through and learned about the Roman Baths and felt the water in the main bath, which was really warm.  It was quite interesting.

After we went into the Bath Abbey...it's a Gothic style abbey and there are 4 things that tell you this: flying buttresses, pinnacles, pointed arches, and tracery in the windows.

Apparently it was hard to understand we wanted the whole Abbey in the picture...this is #11.

We finished our day with a 3 hour bus ride back into London.  It was a long day, but we had a lot of fun.  It was nice to go with Meghan and Marina too, we don't see them enough.

What made the day even better was that my boyfriend Matt booked his flight to London at the end of June!

Tuesday we went to the gym and ended up in a Body Blast class.  It was a great workout, we're both definitely feeling it today.  We then spent the afternoon looking into places in Europe we want to go and getting a rough itinerary for our travels in the summer. We have just over 2 weeks from when we finish work and move out until Sam flies home in August, then another 2 weeks before Matt and I fly home.  We have so much we would like to see and do and just not enough time, so we've been looking up places and flights and are building our trip piece by piece.  It's really exciting!
We finished the day yesterday by going into London's theater district, getting gelato, and then going to the Lion King. It was our Easter present from Momma Sharon.

It was AMAZING! They did such a great job on the costumes and sets, and the singing was phenomenal.  I have always loved the Lion King (Sam had never seen the full thing!) so I was beyond excited about it.  It definitely lived up to it's reputation.

We treated ourselves and each got a set. T-Shirt, canvas bag, poster, and program.

Today we've been looking into our travels more, finding hostels, looking at things to do, as well as planning things for our next couple of weeks. 
We decided to do London things our 2 weeks to save some money, but also to experience the wonderful city we're living in.  We've got lots more cool things planned for the next week and a half, so stay tuned.

Today is also our 3 month anniversary of being in London...it's so amazing, still can't believe we're living here.

We also got great news today...the Parks are coming to London in May for our half-term break!  Should be a good time :)

Break has barely started and we've already done so much...can't wait for the rest of it and our next adventure!

Thanks for reading :)

We out!

Lisa and Sam.