Summer - part 2 - July through August

Eating french fries and watching England play Colombia, 3 July. The match ended in a draw with Harry Kane scoring England's only goal. England lived to play several more matches, eventually making it to the quarterfinals. It was a very fun time to be in London. Bobby would agree. He got to watch a lot of football and have a lot of fries and cheeseburgers at Ley Ley's over the summer. Too bad Ley Ley's closed at the end of August to seek a lease in a higher traffic spot.

One way to beat the heat is to get wet. Here is Bobby in the fountains at Granary Square; he's dressed in high-tech sports clothes courtesy of his nainai. Granary Square is part of large urban redevelopment site near King's Cross station, where Victorian industrial buildings, having fallen into disuse, have been refurbished into a modern consumer playground with restaurants and shops. This big building was formerly a store for grain, and from here it could travel by barge (on the Regent's Canal) or by rail. Inside the building now is an art school and a gallery and several restaurants, including the Mumbai-style cafe, Dishoom, where we had lunch this day, 8 July.

And for my birthday, Mum made an Alsatian pizza in honor of my Alsatian roots. I wish every day were my birthday. Alsatian pizza is also called flambe and has creme fraiche as a sauce instead of tomato. Bob's mullet was becoming more pronounced but sadly wouldn't make it through to the end of the month -- Nainai had it cut off when he visited her in Washington, D.C., at the end of the month.

Here's Bob and Baba at the Brew Dog pub in Birmingham after Baba's meetings in the Birmingham office on 19 July. The next morning we would leave for our adventures to Stratford-upon-Avon and then the Cotswolds after exploring just a bit of Birmingham.

By 28 July, we were in Washington, D.C., for the Catalina Wine Mixer, Lincoln Edition. Bobby couldn't get enough hugs from his new little cousin and still asks every day if he can watch videos of Lincoln.

A solitary swinger, on a morning outing to Highbury Fields with Mum, 9 August. The boy loves swinging and laughs and smiles when swinging. The park is much more crowded on weekends.

Mum and Baba stealing away to the local wine and cheese shop, Provisions, for a brief Friday afternoon taste of obscure French wines and cheeses, 17 August. We rarely can engage in activities like this: babies don't have the patience for wine tasting; plus, our baby likes to pick up wine bottles, which is fine at home but may make shop proprietors nervous. While Bob played with his friends in the nursery, I didn't go to the office on this particular Friday; I worked in a nearby coffee shop until we called it quits in favor of the wine shop.

Two days later, we made the next stop in our tiger parenting college visit series. Baba looks a bit lost, at Oxford's Merton College; the Ergo Baby is wrapped around my waist and looks like some sort of avant garde skirt -- this is hard core dad style. It must be a strange experience to study in all of these buildings much more reminiscent of medieval cathedrals rather than the modern corridors we're used to in American and Singaporean schools.

A while later at Magdalen College. Oxford's not too far from London. We caught a mid-morning train (preferring not to rush babes and mums in the mornings, especially on weekends); in Oxford we had a nice Thai lunch, strolled the ancient streets, Bob sleeping in the Ergo Baby part of the time, bought a few books from the Oxford University Press retail store, and caught a late afternoon train back to London.

Bob and his best friend running to Ley Ley's for some cheeseburgers and french fries, 23 August.

Behind Mum and Babe is a hall of the Smithfield Market complex. Smithfield is London's old meat market and is still in use as a meat market. In fact, the market turned 150 years old, and we went to the birthday party, 25 August. Bobby rode his first carousel. We didn't buy any meat, but we did buy some tacos from a food truck.

Old friend Noah visiting London briefly, we had to take this snap advertising Hermann London Real Estate Group (on our can coozies). This particular Tuesday, 28 August, Bobby spent in day care, while this group of super friends did a whirlwind tour of the Tower of London, London Bridge, Borough Market, Buckingham Palace, and Duke's (the famous cocktail bar), while the day before we took a power tour of the British Museum.

Climbing in Highbury Fields, 30 August.