London -- Thursday

The kids were all excited to hit the Science Museum. Predictably, it was huge, and more than we could see in one visit. They had a great Wallace & Gromit exhibit, all about having big ideas and developing them, that kept us occupied for a long time.

I loved this miniature set of the garden.

My favorite photo that I took in London. A whole row of tags, what could be better?

Check out this clever chandelier made out of Bic pens and paper clips.

We had a late lunch at an Italian restaurant, where Lucas and Eva could get their daily pasta fix. Marc left us at that point to go to a photography exhibit and then to a show. (He was hugely disappointed by The Woman in Black. It was advertised as being scary, but he said there was more suspense in the game he played on his iPod during intermission...)

I took the kids on a nice, long walk to go see some touristy sites which Marc had absolutely no interest in, since he's been to London several times already.

We had to see Big Ben.

We had big plans to visit Westminster Abbey, but sadly it was already closed for the day, so we had to content ourselves with walking around the exterior.

We decided not to go on the London Eye, but it was fun to see it nonetheless.

This reminded me of Kristi. She takes pictures of interesting things on the ground.

**I too am so glad I know the answer to this question!**

We kept passing pubs with hordes of people spilling out onto the street. They didn't seem to be waiting to get in, they already had drinks in hand and were just standing around chatting. An interesting phenomenon that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Finally, we walked to Buckingham Palace. It is closed for the season, so no visits are allowed. No guards around at night, either. Still, Eva was suitably impressed to see a palace and to know that England has a queen.

For dinner, we made a repeat visit to an extremely family-friendly Italian restaurant that Marc had scoped out. The owner and the man I assume to be his father (or maybe it is vice-versa) remembered my kids and were quite taken with Eva. They brought her paper and a pen to draw while she waited for her buttered spaghetti, ditto Lucas. Max had salmon and I had lamb. Max could not have been more thrilled about eating out every day! We ordered desserts: Lucas -- a crêpe with ice cream and chocolate sauce, Eva -- chocolate cake, Max -- tiramisu, me -- profiteroles (small cream puffs filled with ice cream and smothered in chocolate sauce). Oh so good.