Even though it was only our second day in London, it was our fourth night without sleeping, thanks to early flights the first couple of days getting there and jet lag. We were all exhausted. Still, we got ourselves up and going early again because we had train tickets out of Paddington Station to go to Bath.

Of all the days, I was most excited for this day! First, because the kids are crazy about Paddington and I’d heard there was a little memorial to him there. Second, because Bath has the Jane Austen Center!

We found “Paddy Bear”! Eisley LOVED him. After basically zero sleep, I was really ready for some coffee, so we found a Starbucks at the station. Side note, but in England, they don’t have half and half. Isn’t that interesting? I was asking for some cream at the counter and when I turned back around, my dear, dear friend Kaitlin was standing there!!Pretty sure I immediately burst into tears. I guess she had already planned a family trip to London for the same exact dates we were going – isn’t that amazing?? I was SO excited to see her!!Paddington was kind enough to entertain the kids while we waited for our train. 😉The train ride was a lot shorter with Kaitlin, Eitan and Asaf there to visit with. 😉 We got to Bath and it basically drizzled rain on and off the whole time we were there. Pops carried Eisley for a bit. She was in a major Mom-Only mood for most of the trip, so my shoulders were feeling it by the end of the days!!Tiny girl by the giant cathedral doors in Bath. There wasn’t a lot to do in Bath, so we ate lunch and then wandered through the cathedral before heading over to the Jane Austen Center (which, honestly, was the only reason I wanted to go to Bath).Kaitlin is also a HUGE Jane fan!! Note how Eisley is finally asleep? I was timing everything so I could do the museum tour as she was napping. She definitely woke up the SECOND the tour started. She took maybe a twenty minute nap. Oy.

At the end of the tour, you could go through a few different rooms this one had replicas of Jane’s desk where she likely wrote her novels and you could try writing with a quill and ink just like Jane. We had to give it a try! It made me very thankful for my laptop. 😉

Just hanging out with Jane in Bath. No biggie. 😉

Kaitlin and her family had headed back after lunch. We decided to tour the Roman Baths (thus the name of the city) before we left. Not going to lie, we were all VERY tired. Eisley was working on two hours of sleep the night before and a twenty minute nap, when she usually is a twelve to thirteen hours at night and a two hour nap kid. So, morale was plummeting pretty fast.

These are the baths. And yes, the water is really that green. Blegh. Kids, this is why we scrub the bath tub every week.

We started out happy enough. But the audio tour only held a certain small person’s interest for about .008 seconds (or pretty much as long as it took me to take this picture). But she did look awful cute carrying around the radio and her Pride and Prejudice board book that I got her at the Jane Center.

At this point in the tour of the baths, we had lost both the radio and the other people in our family. So, I walked around with her and we posed really fast by the water. Which is when she started yelling, “Ei-ey jump? Ei-ey jump in water bottle?” So, rather than have my daughter jump into the neon green water and turn into some sort of radioactive hulk, I immediately put her into the Ergo.

This went over very well, as you can see. I was so tired that almost everything was starting to be funny. So I fed her pieces of dried mango in between her complaints and we tried to find the non-existent place that would disturb the least number of other tourists while we waited for everyone else to finish their tour, because sound carries VERY well all through the bath houses. 😉

It started pouring rain right when we left the baths, so we found a restaurant, Eisley got more ice cream and we ate our pizza and then ran for the train. And Eisley screamed – screamed – at the top of her lungs the ENTIRE two-hour trip home. I have never seen her so absolutely done with everything and everyone. At one point, I just took her into the little section between the two train cars and we just stood there and she screamed but at least she wasn’t making everyone else crazy on the train.

She fell asleep on the tube from Paddington Station to the house station and she was so tired and so asleep that I changed her diaper, got her into her pajamas and into bed without her ever waking up. We were TI-YERD, like Parker would say. But she actually slept almost the entire night and we both finally got a great night’s sleep. Praise God. We needed it!! Bless her heart – this was really the only day that she had a hard time. All in all, considering how little sleep she had and how crazy the day was, she did really well!