Flying to London and Fireflies

On Sunday afternoon, Rachel, Miriam, Grandpa, and Darla piled into Grandpa's car to head to the airport. Andrew was their chauffeur. 

They made it to London without a hitch...except for the fact that their accommodations fell through. 

When we went to the beach in May, we arrived at the house Grandpa had rented and...we couldn't get in because although they'd sent us a code for the gate into the community they had neglected to send us a code to the front door. They responded—quite apologetically—relatively quickly.

Similarly, Grandpa's hosts neglected to give him a code to the door and have been unresponsive. They knew heading to London that they didn't yet have a code to the door and that their hosts were unreachable, but the company they rented through assured them that they'd have accommodation. 

When they arrived in London they still hadn't heard from their hosts, so they were put up in a hotel. And then they were moved to another hotel. And now I think they're in an official little vacation rental (finally). They've had to relocate their things so many times!

But they're having fun!

Here they are with Paddington (their first hotel was very near Paddington Station, as far as we could tell from stalking their location): 

Here they are taking pictures of the paparazzi dogs in Norfolk Square Garden:

And here's a requisite phone booth picture:

Here they are at the London Eye:

And, of course, Big Ben:

They've had Italian pizza and tikka masala, visited the British Musuem, and went to evensong at Westminster Abbey. And I get pictures of everything because Darla is there! 

We haven't done much over here. I've had six hours of meetings in the past two days. That feels like a lot...probably because five of those hours happened today. And I still have more hours of meetings ahead of me this week. Plus reading and writing and revising...

It's going to be a busy summer! 

At least we have nice cool evenings for firefly walks!

Zoë released the fireflies (since she'd been the one to suggest a firefly walk and she was the one who found the jar and...she was having a bit of a Little Red Hen moment). When she went to come inside she discovered a little hitchhiker crawling up her arm. 

She made sure it flew away to safety before she came inside:

They don't have fireflies in London!