Park, Park, Park & Park

We've spent the last few days in the wilds of Oxfordshire- at the cottage of good friends in Great Tew. As is our usual modis operandi, we toured National Trust properties in the area. And with an early snow one day, we had enough to build C's first snowman.

It's been an exciting week for Dorothy. First, video. Now, American citizenship. We spent the morning at the American Embassy in London registering her birth, applying for a passport and social security number. She secured her UK passport a while back, and her US one should now arrive in the post soon. Here we are outside the Embassy. It is an artfully designed building by Eero Saarinen which looks out across Grosvenor Square and a statue of FDR. Unfortunately, that may be the last time we're in it- the Embassy is moving south of the Thames in the near future.

C asked a question of Bella a few days ago. "Why don't we eat cats, Mummy?" It was in the context of other things that we do eat. And to his little mind, it seemed to be inconsistent.

For the wedding (see previous post), C stayed overnight with some close friends. Georgina and Ed have a cottage in a very small village- near to where the wedding was. They also have three kids- Marianna, Hetta, and Ophelia. This proved a good combination for C's first slumber party.

We attended the wedding last night of Bella's schoolmate Lucy. To accommodate everyone and their schedules, I wore the Baby Bjorn under my tux jacket to the church and then to the pre -dinner drinks. She was very well behaved at church but flagged a bit later. B and I then got a chance to dance unconstrained.

C's Godmother Louisa, who lives with big animals in South Africa, is almost ready to pop. She and Peter have most of the prep work done, and are heading off to the nearest big city- J'berg- for the delivery. As with my college roommate in Washington DC and Ubu around Chicago, we're going to do a foreign exchange program some day, so that all these kids can see a bit of the world.

Over the last few months, I've been gathering bits of genealogy and creating a family tree on Geni. This has allowed me to build out the both sides- the Park and Wigan branches, as well as all the other branches. The link to the right should connect you with the Park branch.

What has become a bit of a family tradition is bath time. I started giving C his bath, and now I handle both C and D. Which allows for Bella to snap pictures like this: This is Dorothy, but the resemblance to Christian at the same age rhymes , but maybe it's just the hat.