RSS

Monthly Archives: March 2014

Nyan Thomas in Chipping Ongar

30 Mar

What’s a Chipping Ongar, you ask? Well. Chipping Ongar is a small rural town in the middle of nowhere, about half an hour or so to the north of us. The London Underground (a.k.a. the Tube, a.k.a. the subway system) used to run all the way out to this lovely little town, but low ridership meant the end of that; the line now ends closer in to the city proper. But some railway buffs (and there are many on this island) took over the stretch of rail, and on weekends and holidays, they run a pair of trains — one decommissioned commuter line, one classic steam train — back and forth on a 15-minute journey between two old stations.

Our boy loves trains, so we figured, why not take a ride on the Chipping-Ongar Railway? It was a (predictably) good call as it was a fun family day.

Here’s the lad, before the ride:

And here he is on the ride itself:

 

He was very concerned that the train window was dirty (and also wanted to drink Daddy’s coffee):

.

Some photos of the lad on the train (and a bonus shot of Mommy too):

When Nyan wasn’t riding the rails, he was riding Daddy’s shoulders:

 

A few random non-Nyan shots:

 

Oh, and yes, we took a family selfie (which Nyan decided to photo-bomb):

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Besides the train fun, we had a lovely lunch at a local pub called The Cock. Nyan had fun spreading the sugar on the table (to the management, sorry about that, but at least I managed to stop him before he mixed salt into the sugar bowl!) and took a wander around the pub, as you can see here:

 

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 30, 2014 in Photos, Video

 

Tags: ,

The House is Moving!

27 Mar

Last night, a happy Nyan was spinning around the kitchen and being silly, pretending he was a space rocket. So Daddy whipped out his camera and took a quick video:

 

Yes, friends, that’s our boy, getting to know the concept of being dizzy after spinning around. We absolutely love the look of wonderment on his face as he sees the room spin and he declares “The house is moving!”

 

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 27, 2014 in Video

 

Tags:

Nyan Thomas Draws an Elephant

26 Mar

And a duck, and a baby octopus and momma octopus (or ‘opy-us’ as he says):

 

The young man also repairs a space rocket while Skyping with Grandma and Grandpa L., then asks them to turn the camera so he can watch a boat passing by their Florida condo:

 

And finally: the other day, hanging out with Daddy, the phone rang. “Oh! Who’s that?” he asked. “Well, I bet it’s Mommy calling to say she’s coming home. Here, let me walk over and get the…” Before Daddy could get it, though, Nyan raced over, picked up the phone and answered, “Hello Mommy!” It was indeed Mommy, and he proceeded to tell her about his day, while also picking up one of his toy phones and having a two-phoned conversation with her. Then he hung up the phone before Daddy could talk to her.

IMG_2681

 

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 26, 2014 in Video

 

Tags:

After-School Fun

25 Mar

Some photos and videos from the past week or so, giving a glimpse of what our little man gets up to at the end of a long day of learning and playing at school:

Here he is on the walk home, deciding to have a stroll around the outside of the local library, and check out a passing fire engine (which looked, to Daddy’s eyes, like a normal black SUV. I guess Nyan  has better eyesight than Daddy.)

 

Some photos from various walks home, including Nyan helpfully putting away the recycling bins, and posing on the “Grandma Tree,” which is a tree stump that came down in a windstorm last October; a few weeks later, Grandma L. came to visit, and she and Nyan posed for photos on the tree. To this day, every time we pass the tree – which is twice a day, as it’s right on the way to school – he talks about how he stood on the tree with Grandma.

This video shows Nyan playing around in the entryway after arriving at home – pulling bottles out of boots (which are there to help the boots retain their shape) and then declaring, “I’m going away, Daddy. I got to leave,” before putting on various boots and shoes.

 

And he loves to wear that monkey hat, but it can sometimes lead to an unfortunate case of hat hair:

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 25, 2014 in Photos, Video

 

Sunday Afternoon in the Park

18 Mar

Sunday was an absolutely brilliant day, weather-wise – not a cloud in the sky, temps in the low 60s Fahrenheit. What better way to celebrate then to head to the park across the street?

Here’s Mommy and Nyan, walking along as Daddy takes a video:

We bought Nyan’s red ball (and his green tractor as well) so he could show off his soccer/football skills. Um, let’s just say he’s got some work to do before he makes the national team:

It was our first visit to the playground since winter, and Nyan went right back to his little ‘store’ and offered to ‘cook’ some pasta and tea for Mommy and Daddy.

There was also an ice cream truck parked nearby, and Nyan insisted we buy him a cone. As expected, he showed no interest at all in actually eating it – he didn’t have one bite. Though he did enjoy walking around holding the cone, before finding a pile of old leaves and tossing them up in the air:

 

And here he is, wandering around the playground, trying to decide what to do next:

 

Not a bad way at all to spend a Sunday afternoon.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 18, 2014 in Photos, Video

 

Tags: ,

Back Home

17 Mar

Mommy and Daddy went to Singapore for a week, and left Nyan behind with Phwa Phwa, aunties, uncles and cousins. We picked him up Saturday morning, and by Saturday afternoon things were pretty much back to normal. Here’s our young man, checking out the neighborhood and running around like a madman after a haircut:

Apologies for the shaky video, but he can be tough to keep up with!

Later we had a family dinner; here’s the end of it, where Nyan plays with his toys while enjoying some yogurt for dessert:

Not the most action-packed video ever, but hey.

It’s good to be home and, most importantly, reunited with our little man!

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 17, 2014 in Video

 

Story Time

13 Mar

Here’s a very sleepy boy, having a little bite to eat and listening in rapt attention as Auntie Zuzu reads Cat in the Hat to him.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 13, 2014 in Video

 

Tags:

The Museum of Childhood

11 Mar

Our family outing a couple Sundays back was to the Museum of Childhood. It’s in an old Victorian building not too far from where we live – just a couple stops on the tube – which made for a quick and easy journey. It’s basically devoted to toys, but it’s interesting because most of them are behind glass. So we went with low expectations, fearing lots of kids crying because they couldn’t play with the toys.

Not to worry though, as it turned out. Nyan was pretty fascinated with the displays:

And there were actually enough things for kids to do. Like ride a rocking horse:

And playing with a full-sized robot from Lost in Space:

We had a nice lunch in the museum’s cafe. This restored Nyan’s energy, which led to him… shoveling snow? What? Okay, if that makes you happy, buddy, shovel some snow:

And then… lunch break was over and Nyan was off like a rocket, racing up the ramp to find more toys:

It’s not the kind of place we’d feel much need to return to, I guess, but it was worth going to at least once, for sure. It was nice to be surprised on the upside.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 11, 2014 in Video

 

Tags:

Nyan Being Nyan

09 Mar

Here’s a few photos from the last couple of weeks of our boy being, well, our boy.

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 9, 2014 in Photos

 

Nyan Thomas Drives a Bus

07 Mar

And a boat. And other things. This is from the London Transport Museum, which we visited a few weeks back. Pretty cool place, with lots of old trains, trams, and buses that kids can climb aboard. Not to mention several simulators where kids can pretend to drive. If you know our boy, you’ve already guessed that he absolutely loved it.

Family portraits (check out his sweater; he was dressed for the part that day!):

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Here he is, overlooking the old rail cars, and also checking out a model train that was on display:

This is our hero driving the bus down the road – and forgetting to keep his eye on the road.

And here he is driving the same bus before getting bored and switching to a ferry which he then piloted down the River Thames:

He also got to steer an actual bus:

And a couple still photos of Nyan behind the wheel:

Of course we took the tube (aka subway) to get there. Here’s Nyan on the ride home – complete with his own big yellow bus that he bought at the gift shop. (Bought it himself, in fact – handed the money to the cashier, a fact that he still proudly talks about today, several weeks later.)

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 7, 2014 in Photos, Video

 

Tags:

 
%d bloggers like this: