Update

Sorry for the looong absences of blogging, but we've all been keeping ourselves quite occupied. Last weekend was quite busy. We spent Friday on a looong walk, then got a lift to the London temple from some friends in our ward. It was so nice to spend the evening in the temple, away from bustling cities and cigarette smoke and crass teenagers (we love Canterbury, but we're so glad we live in quiet Chilham). It was also nice to have some time to chat with our new ward friends. We've felt so welcomed by them, and there are some really sweet young families. Our driver for the evening was, in fact, the wonderful guy who let us sleep in his garden way back when. Remember those days?
The next day was Sarah's birthday! The big 2-7! We caught a morning train to London and headed for the London Dungeons (only fitting the day before Halloween). The beginning of the tour was a little more historical, then they gave us the option of leaving if we were scared, or continuing on to the Tombs portion. This portion was, well, HORRIFYING! I had flash-backs of the haunted house put on in the Lone Pine Elementary library, when Mom had to tell everyone to go easy on me. Let's just say, there were limbs hanging from the ceiling and wacking us in the face and zombies screaming in our ears (we're back to London now, not the school library) and clowns with automatic guns. Horrible. Disgusting. I closed my eyes the whole time. We had a blast. But it was horrible. But we had fun. No really, it was horrible.

What better way to celebrate surviving the chainsaw room than by eating some raw meat? We had worked up our appetites, so it was off to YoSushi for some lunch. Yummy.

We "chube"d it to Covent Gardens then, and wandered through the markets. We all bought too many scarves (except J-man who bought a Superman belt buckle). How could we resist when they were only 3 pounds per? And soooo pretty... Scarf post to come.

After eating some killer waffles--really, and I don't like bought waffles--we strolled the streets to Kensington Gardens. On the way we found the London Chapel. We went in and looked around. It was very cool to wander off the streets of London and right into a ward activity replete with laughing children running everywhere and nursing mothers--so, Mormons.

After paying homage to Peter, we made our way back to the Charing Cross station, where we ate dinner at Pizza Express, which was excellent. Then it was home to Chilham and our wonderful beds.

Sunday we went to church, then our Bishop (who used to be a tour guide in Canterbury) led some of us on a little walk through the city ending at the cathedral. We hadn't even walked on the cathedral grounds up to this point if you can believe it. It was so beautiful inside. We stayed for an Evensong service. Great boys' choir and lovely acoustics.

Then home. Hard to believe it was Halloween. Apart from a few people dressed up on the train, we would never have noticed. But a great weekend.

To complete Sarah's birthday festivities, Annie made the cake to kill all cakes on Tuesday night (in between boxing lesson). We all had a piece and nearly died it was so rich. Some friends invited us for dinner the next day and we brought the other half of the cake. Everyone had a piece. When we got home, somehow we still had in our possession a quarter of the dang thing. Lest you think it wasn't a good cake, let me assure you--it was fantastic. Just richer than Bill Gates in a butter bath. It was a blooody battle, but Sarah and I finally finished it off today.