Hello all! We’ve made it to London safely, met up with with Mom McMains, and are waiting for the rest of the extended family to show up! London’s overwhelming…more to come once we’re settled a bit more.

Today we traveled from San Antonio to London by way of Atlanta. This was the first time several of the kids had been on a plane, so the fear and nerves quickly gave way to novel excitement, which kept the young ones entertained for the first leg of our flight. The trip to Atlanta took about two hours, the trip from their to London about eight. Unfortunately, none of us did a particularly good job sleeping on the plane, the effects of which we felt rather strongly the next day.

We arrived about 6:00am GMT, loitered around the terminal for a few minutes until Mom McMains arrived, and then made our way through customs, etc. (The big bit of drama at this point was that of our three checked bags, exactly none of them had made it to the airport.) We loaded into the Gatwick Express — our first genuine English rail trip! The kids weren’t as immediately impressed with the mode of travel as I’d hoped, but enjoyed peering out the window, seeing some farmland, factories, other trains, and lots of row houses. We took a few short naps, went to a nearby park, the notable feature of which was one of the longest slides I’ve ever laid eyes on, met up with Dad McMains, Lana, and Meara a few hours later, rummaged through the stuff that Gordon had kindly left us in the fridge, and rustled up some dinner.

By the end of our meal, I was fading quickly due to the fact that I hadn’t napped earlier nor slept on the plane, and ended up drifting off in my chair a few times, much to the amusement of the assembled audience. I later moved to the couch in front of Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, nearly all of which I missed, to continue my snooze.

Abigail’s passport arrived on schedule yesterday, so we’re all going to England together today. We’ll be leaving the house in about an hour, and should arrive in London at about 6:00am tomorrow morning (what would be midnight for our biological set-to-San-Marcos clocks).

Kathy has done a tremendous job getting the kids ready and packed, and Christina and Linda, her visiting mom, have been an enormous help with various organizational, cooking, and chauffering chores. Thanks tremendously, ladies!

Our next update should be from London!

We’re engulfed in a pile of stressful last minute stuff as we finalize our preparations to leave for England this Saturday. Most interesting bits:

• We still don’t have Abigail’s passport. The Passport Agency said that Kathy hadn’t signed one of the documents, but didn’t bother to tell us until several days after everybody else’s passports had been delivered. Kathy signed and FedExed the document back as soon as she got it, and the Passport Agency signed for it on Monday, where it has evidently sat in their mail room since. Today they finally decided to process it, but only after extorting another $60 for expedited service, even though we’re now outside of the six week window we were supposed to allow for their regular service. (We submitted Abigail’s application on May 27.) We should have it tomorrow if all goes well, at which point we’ll rest secure in the knowledge that the State Department is protecting the world from virulent eight-year-old-girl terror cells.
• Saskatchewan, our injured dove, seems fairly happy munching birdseed in the cage we’ve set aside for him. Unfortunately, his wing doesn’t seem to be improving. There’s an animal rescue organization in Austin that one of our friends tipped us off to, but there’s no way we’re going to have a chance to deliver the critter up there before we leave. Anybody want to act as a bird chauffer?
• Our front door was falling off the house, and several other outside doors had cracks that went all the way through — not the most energy efficient portal in 100 degree Texas summers. Kathy put her amazing bargain-shopping skills to use, and found some lovely doors with nice big glass elements, priced amazingly cheaply, at the Habitat for Humanity store in Austin. Our friend RJ came up from San Antonio yesterday to give us a hand installing them, and was amazed to see once he pulled off all the trim that the front door frame had only been secured with a single nail. “All I can figure is that somebody had put it in place temporarily, stabilized it with the nail, and forgot about it.” Thanks to Kathy and RJ’s efforts, the new doors are now in place, secured with many more nails than their predecessors, and look great. (The back door has such a big pane of glass in it that I keep walking into the living room and thinking someone’s left the door standing open.)

After all this, I’m rather looking forward to being on the plane, and not being able to do a dang thing about my to-do list for eight hours straight. We’ll be dragging an iBook along on the journey, so I’ll be updating the weblog whenever we have connectivity and can squeeze in the time.

Many thanks to Christina, Lori, and the other folks who have been extremely helpful as we’re getting these last things squared away!

Ok, Windows users, I’ve reencoded Laser Boy & Dog Girl vs. The Tooth Fairy for your viewing pleasure. While I was at it, I fixed the aspect ratio so that our children are no longer squished into oddly emaciated versions of themselves.

So, if you missed it the first time, you can grab the kids Magnum Opus right here.

The kids and I decided on Sunday night that we were going to make a movie. It started out as an Indiana Jones thing, but for lack of props morphed into something else entirely. After about 3 hours of filming and 5 hours of post-production work, we have more-or-less finished our premiere production:

Enjoy, and be sure to send fan mail to the actors.

Update: It would appear that the Windows version of Quicktime doesn’t yet support the codec I used to encode this. Sorry, Windows guys. I’ll see if I can’t get an updated file online before we split town this weekend.

Update 2: This should now work for Windows users as well.

Christina wrote up a very nice post on a little mini-adventure our family had last night. (Lions and lightning and fire, oh my!) Thanks for the look at the experience through another set of eyes, Christina!

Also, when I got home from work on Tuesday, I found a mourning dove with a broken wing hopping around our backyard. It was apparently fairly traumatized, as it wasn’t making particularly enthusiastic attempts to get away from me, only hopping slowly in the other direction when I’d get within 5 feet or so.

I grabbed a laundry basket and, after chasing it under an overturned canoe, was able to catch it, bring it inside, and give it some food and water. Later than evening, we cleaned out a cage we had around and moved it from the laundry basket into the more suitable home. The kids were very excited, and decided to christen it “Saskatchewan”, though none of them actually knew what the word meant.

Saskatchewan has gradually been getting stronger, and is considerably more fiesty now than when he arrived. We tried to devise a sling for the wing, but it kept slipping off, and we finally gave up. We hope to be able to let him go again in a week or two. (I am reluctant to bring him to the vet and spend money on an animal that has good odds of becoming kitty chow in our neighborhood anyway.)

My cousin Mary is very involved with student exchange programs up in Massachusetts where she lives. The organization she works with is trying hard to find some suitable host families for a passel of soviet honors students who are coming over to the states. With seven people already under our roof, we’re not ready to add more people here, but perhaps some of you folks might be.

Here’s Mary’s message:

I have just been told we are getting more scholarship students from the former Soviet Republics – know any other families who might be good candidates for hosting? Pacific Intercultural Exchange has people all over the country, so that’s why I ask for advice…We are desperate to place a bunch of kids within the next 3 weeks.

If you’re interested, you can reply to this message or email Mary directly at armstrong [dot] mary [at] comcast [dot] net.

I’m posting this message to act as a clearinghouse for info on the bombing in London. I’ll be updating it as I find out anything new.

• Chris and Becky were in Rugby at the time of the bombing, having left London the previous day. I don’t believe any of Becky’s extended family was affected.
• I’ve got an email in to the family with whom we’re supposed to be exchanging houses to verify that they’re all right. Update: they’re fine too, aside from traffic hassles
• Some helpful links: The Guardian’s Weblog; A Flickr Photo Pool; a Wikipedia article.

Message from Chris:

Seanno,

Thanks for the APB and concern. All OK. We were in London yesterday and on the Tube less than 12 hrs before this… Sobering…

It make my stomach tighten a little bit to think of my family being there soon. Sickness within to think of anything happening in a place where people wouldn’t be were it not for me… Kinda fighting back tears several times today…

Love,
Chris

and one from the family in England with whom we’ll be swapping houses:

Everything is fine, terrible traffic hassle but we get over it. I have been working in Southampton for the last 3 days (about 80 miles south) and J telephoned me to tell me everyone is ok. What do you do? you cannot let it change your life, as to do so is to give in…We are used to it with teh IRA in teh 80s and we get over it quickly, we are a chilled out people.

Thanks for the email

Barry writes an interesting piece on why vocalists are oft maligned, specifically among Jazz players, but also among the music community at large. While you’re there, he’s got a good bit on Independence Day: “…wherever you are on this globe, raise a toast to those remarkable people who daringly called some things self-evident that are not self-evident at all. We all owe them.” (Also bug him to get an XML feed set up!)