Let’s take a look at some of the fun times our hero had with his cousins and other family members in England back in August.
Check out those trampolining skills!
Random scenes:
The littlest one there is Elodie, his young cousin, whom he met for the first time this trip. But they quickly became best friends. Here they are together; I think Nyan is teaching her how to dance:
A few more photos:
And finally, more play time with Elodie. Except this time it’s mostly Nyan making a ‘sandwich’ out of pillows. (Anything green represented ‘salad,’ a.k.a. lettuce for the sandwich.) Elodie, meanwhile, is more interested in just wearing Nyan’s Star Wars hat.
As we’ve been showing recently, Nyan took Mommy and Daddy to England in August for a few weeks of fun with friends and family. There were castles, late night dance marathons, museum visits…. but Nyan’s days (and nights) were also filled with smaller moments that were no less fun and silly and perhaps even photogenic. Here, we capture some of them.
Like this precious moment. Some random dance, followed by some drawing, followed by…well, just watch.
Or that time he decided he wanted to be locked in the car’s boot (or trunk, as they call it in America). Does this count as bad parenting? Nah.
A few random photos from these random days:
One morning Nyan decided he was a bee:
That was about the same time he did a display of what he calls “sky soaring”:
More pictures:
And finally, we saved the best for last. Nyan telling a story about aliens, a plane that’s bigger than the universe, and a rather unique take on economics:
We’ve got much more from the UK trip still to share. Stay tuned…
England’s got lots of old castles. And we managed to get Nyan to explore a couple of them this summer.
First up: Colchester Castle, in Mommy’s hometown of Colchester. Its keep is said to be the largest ever built in Britain, and the largest surviving keep across all of Europe. It’s some 900 years old, but built on the foundation of a Roman temple that stood on the site about 2,000 years ago. Apparently you can see that foundation at certain parts of the castle.
But Nyan was far more interested in the historical displays inside – specifically the knights. There are various displays with old helmets that visitors can try on. And there’s a gift shop where you can buy plastic helmets and wooden daggers – both of which we bought, and both of which became integral parts of Nyan’s Halloween costume this year, as it happens.
We also visited the impressive Norwich Castle, in the impressive city of Norwich, an hour and a bit up the road from Colchester. We took the train up, and on arrival, Nyan had to spend a little time checking out how they were getting the train ready for its return trip:
Norwich was a bustling city that day, with a peaceful river running through the middle of it. Before we hit the castle, we strolled around the city center, found some fish n chips for lunch, and checked out a church (though not the famed Norwich Cathedral itself, as it was a bit of a walk away and someone was more interested in checking out Norwich’s toy stores than seeing a cathedral).
The castle itself was massive, and is home to numerous exhibition areas, all of them quite well done. We toured the crypts and the upper levels, but spent most of our time at a display on the first floor, where a guy wearing medieval-style clothes was putting on a lengthy (we’re talking an hour and a half) lecture and demo of the armor and weapons that knights would use. Afterwards, he took extra time to let Nyan try on some armor, hold a bow and arrow, and the like. (Elsewhere in the castle was a crafts area where children could draw their own paper shields; Nyan did that, choosing to decorate his with a ferocious looking ant, and later held up that shield with his real sword and helmet.)
So did Nyan enjoy his day at the castle? Yeah – and far from being tired after the long day of exploring, he was actually quite energized, as you can see from this final video, taken on the way home afterwards. Full of energy and dancing as he strolled down the sidewalk.
One of the highlights of our trip to England in August was getting to catch up with family and friends. For Nyan, that meant getting to hang with Elizabeth – a.k.a. Bunky – and Adam.
Elizabeth was quite small when we moved away from England, but she and Nyan took to each other on this trip like they’d been BFF forever. Possibly because their two Mommies have been BFF forever. In any case, Bunky live in a centuries-old house on a big plot of land in rural Essex County, with lots of room to run around outside and play. So they did.
Bunky’s Daddy Chris tried to teach Nyan how to kick a ball. Er, still got a ways to go, I’m afraid:
Some lovely mommies posing with their lovely babies:
On another day at Bunky’s place, Adam and Daniel came by. More fun and hilarity ensued.
And on yet another day, Daddy and Nyan met Bunky, Sharon and Sharon’s mom at a nature reserve outside of Colchester for pond dipping — where you pull water out of a pond and check to see what creepy crawlies live in the water — and running around outside.
As you can see, we had pretty good weather nearly every day of our visit. Good weather, good friends, good times!
Long-time readers know that Nyan used to live in London, in a lovely and leafy area on the edge of the city called Wanstead. We returned to the UK this August for the first time since leaving more than two years ago, so we made sure to pop by the old ‘hood for some reminiscing, catching up with friends, and playing at the old playground.
We of course had to check out our former homes on Overton Drive and Fitzgerald Road, as well as his first school, Little Bears on Seagry Road:
We hung out with our friends Scott and Anya, checked out the scenery, ate at some of our old faves.
Nyan didn’t seem to remember everything about Wanstead, but he was certainly happy to be there, even if he was just skipping along and running through the grass.
All in all, a nice way to spend a (cloudy, of course) Sunday afternoon. After that it was a Tube ride into the city to take Nyan on his first-ever visit to the famed British Museum.
He did very well at the museum — was fascinated by the samurai warriors, some of the statues, and especially the Egyptian mummies. He also enjoyed just sprawling on the marble floor of the main entrance hall and drawing in his book.
We visited London on another (sunnier) day, along with Mommy and Phwa Phwa. Mostly checking out the olde tyme splendor of the City and the area near St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Exchange.
On yet another sunny day (we did have pretty good weather the whole time we were in England), we visited the old market town of Saffron Walden. Had a pub lunch, wandered the streets, found a Nyan-sized house. All good.
One of the highlights of our recent trip around the world — six and a half weeks, split evenly between the UK and the US — was a family get together outside of London. Nyan got to hang with Phwa Phwa and his aunties, uncles and cousins, including here with Poppy at a country pub:
At the actual get-together itself, the dress was formal, and I dare say Nyan fills out fancy dress just fine. Check him out posing with his cousins and with Mommy and Daddy:
And strutting around like he owns the place:
And giving kisses to cousin Elodie:
The highlight, though, was absolutely what happened at night. There was a dance floor and a DJ, and let’s just say that our young man absolutely wiped the floor with everybody else. Dude was out of control. Off the chain. On fire. Etc. Here’s a million videos of the boy and his moves:
The jacket came off pretty soon, of course.
Eventually the shirt came off and this dancing fool was down to his vest:
He started to run out of steam eventually:
Definitely getting tired, though he found a last burst of energy:
Still, he outlasted many of the adults and it was nearly midnight before he finally passed out. What a night!
July was chock full of birthday activities, as we’ve seen. But there was more to the month than just that. Check out this assortment of pics. (Note: no, he’s not wearing glasses these days – only fake ones (i.e. frames with no lenses) that the optician let him have…)
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