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Meadow lends a hand with me today while I'm packing for our Europe trip. Tomorrow we fly Juneau -> Seattle -> Chicago -> London. We'll stay with our friend in Buckinghamshire for 10 days before traveling by plane and train to the Provence region of France where we'll stay for 10 days in an appartment before spending 4 days at a B&B in Paris. In contrast to our last trip to EUR, which involved lots of trains and museums and history and priceless works art, my main goals for this trip are to: 1) relax spending some QT with Meadow and Laura; 2) have some good coffee, food and wine; 3) see a few nifty sites, and 4) not butcher the language too much. So, off we go!

Here's a rundown of the luggage we're taking to Europe. We think we're traveling about as light as possible, although for the return trip Lu isn't sure where she's going to put the shoes and leather coat she has yet to purchase. We've got two checked bags, both of which roll or convert into backpacks. For carry-ons we've got a shoulder bag with Lu and MJ's necessities, a small backpack with MJ's clothes and toys, and a large-ish rolling carry-on that can also be a backpack which holds the laptop, all of MJ's books and food, and our other necessary knick-knacks. And lastly we'll be gate-checking our beloved ultralight Combi stroller.

Special thanks go out to whomever the gentleman is that traded us seats on the flight from Chicago to London. With the nearly-two-year-old on our laps, 9-hours is a pretty long time. Thankfully a kind chap happened to have an empty seat on either side of him, so after the trade MJ got her own and Laura and I got a well-needed respite from the bouncing baby girl on our laps.

We chose an over-night flight thinking Meadow would sleep the whole way, but learned a lesson: we forgot to take into account the time difference. Even though we left at 8PM Chicago time and arrived 9AM London time, this translated into 4PM - 12AM Juneau time. So Meadow’s body wasn't ready for nighty-nighty until about an hour before landing.

Meadow is an exceptionally great traveler and barely fussed the whole flight. Unfortunately, everyone else on the plane was trying to sleep and some of them weren't so appreciative of Meadow's squealing exclamations about Dora and Elmo. (You can definitely tell the difference between a person who has never been a parent and one that has by the way they look at you and your toddler on a long flight).

So we didn’t get much sleep on the plane but nevertheless disembarked Friday morning at Heathrow happy and excited. Customs was pleasant, and they fast-tracked us because of the baby.

Outside the terminal we were greeted like family by Dot and Pop. Zed's folks took immediate care of us, showing us a bit of the English countryside as we drove to their house. MJ immediately warmed to them and in no time was regaling them with stories of her many adventures and singing of the ABCs.

Our tactic to combat the jet lag is to force ourselves to stay up as long as possible, until we get on the right schedule. So we spent Friday drinking tea and eventually napped-out at around 2PM for a few hours, woke up, had dinner, visited some more, and went back to bed late in the evening. Meadow’s clock seems to be the most effected, and she has the least amount of will-power for combating the lag, so (much to Mommy and Daddy’s non-joy) she awoke brightly this Saturday morning at 4AM, ready to take on the world. I got up with her, she had some grapes and cottage cheese, I had some very strong coffee, and we then proceeded to look for birds in the backyard while the sun rose.

We’ve got a loose agenda for the next 9 days here in England: visit a miniature village, get Laura a haircut, go have tea in various groovy spots, and maybe hit a pub or three.

While Mummy went to the hair salon Meadow and I ventured through the Underground and made our way to the London Zoo. We saw all kinds of fun animals including monkeys, gorilla, giraffe, and butterflies... but the highlight for MJ was the pen where she could pet the friendly goats. She also enjoyed petting a nice log.

We also had a grand time zooming through the underpass in the stroller. Weee!

But I think above all, her favorite was the humongous pig!

Bekonscot was built in 1929 and is still alive and thriving today. It's a miniature model village set in the '30s. A tiny time warp. The town includes a number of trains that run year-round, a house on fire with firemen working on it, boats in the water, castles, replica storefronts and community scenes. Needless to say, Meadow was beside herself.

OK I know it's dorky but I couldn't resist attending the Apple Store while here in London. They've got every flavor of Apple device available for hands-on experience (95% of the people in there were checking their personal email with the computers). I managed to escape having only bought a "world traveler's" power-adapter kit. Here's some footage of the innards.

Mmmm yummy. Cumberland sausage, mash potatoes, and onion gravy. A proper English dish. Combined with a fresh cool Guinness makes the perfect lunch!

One of the largest toy stores in London, Hamleys was a fine place to let Meadow run amok. Her newfound favorite things are trains. She loves to say "choo choo" (even though all the trains we've been riding on here in the UK are electric).