Independence Day 2015

Happy Fourth of July from London! Although it is strange to be so far from the US on Independence Day, we still got to do plenty of "American" stuff over the weekend. 

In case you aren't aware, weather in London is weird. It was 95 degrees on Wednesday, and today when I woke up it was foggy and 58 degrees. Luckily, one of those hot days fell on a weekend, so we got to take our little guy to the kiddie pool at a local park.

I also got to help out at the absolutely massive Fourth of July party at Winfield House, the Ambassador's residence. I spent the first half of the event checking people in at the front gate, but I still got to enjoy the party.

In fact, I made it into the party just in time for Duran Duran's one-hour set. It was pretty awesome. As many of you already know, I am a huge James Bond fan, so when they played "A View to a Kill" as their opener, I was pretty pumped.

The next day was the Embassy family event, which means we all got to go to Winfield House together. Here we are in our Fourth of July finery.

The Duke got to have some ice cream, too, which is always fun. Not pictured: the Duke getting brain freeze for the first time in his life. Not so fun.

Dueling baked goods! Sarah made a chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake for the family event (no word yet on whether she won), and I made an American flag tres leches cake for a BBQ over the weekend. All in all, not a bad Independence Day!

Setting the House in Order

Greetings from our fully-furnished apartment (whoops, I mean flat) here in London. Our HHE (Household Effects) arrived a few weeks ago, which means we have basically been spending all our free time putting our house in order by going to IKEA, building IKEA stuff, hanging pictures, hanging pot racks, exchanging furniture, installing air conditioning units in the bedrooms, and so on. To be honest, it's a bit exhausting, be we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, and our house is finally coming together.

The main room of the house is surprisingly large and open, which means we were able to kind-of separate it into two rooms: the dining room and the living room.

I was skeptical of Sarah's plan to create a giant photo collage with a TV in the middle, but once again, she pulled it off.

I still love the view from this kitchen window. Our apartment is west-facing, however, which means that this time of year the kitchen will superheat to 8000 degrees unless you keep the blinds closed. Bummer.

Just enough counter space to hold all of our weird kitchen gadgets. In case you're wondering, that mysterious black box is the transformer provided by the Embassy that powers all of our US appliances. Yay!

I'm especially happy with the Duke of Kensington's bedroom, which came out really well. Although it is a bit small, I feel like we really maximized the space in there. And unlike in his room in Juarez, we actually managed to hang some pictures on the wall (along with a sombrero).

We still have one or two more projects left on our list, but we're almost there. Big thanks to my interior designer/chief operating officer for putting the whole vision together. I'm just here to swing the hammer once in a while.