Boxing Day trip to see family

We saw family today in Southend-by-Sea, which is about 60 miles from where we are. As most of you know, my mom is English and I have some family here, my mom's cousins and their kids. I finally called Mary and Nick and they invited Katherine and I over for Boxing Day lunch. Before I get into that a quick aside:

• Today was Boxing Day. Boxing Day is awesome. It is the day after Christmas and is a national holiday. Shopping opens back up again, and there is some limited public transportation, but everyone else is enjoying a sleep in , round two on Christmas turkey and ham, and of course a drink or two. I love it. I think we may need to bring this tradition back with us to the States. Now back to lunch.
  

It was really really great to catch up with them. Also there was Hillary (their daughter), and Alistair (their son) along with his partner Claire, and their daughter Maya. She was very cute. We unfortunatly neglected to take a single picture. We will remedy that situation next time. We spent an excellent day hanging out, eating, and chatting - as well as seeing some great pictures of my mom's family.

As we chatted with Alistair we realized that we literally live about 4 blocks from him in Maida Vale. The great part is that he is right there, and we will try and get together soon. The sad part is, due to the expanded family, they recently had an offer accepted on the flat and will be moving soon. Another interesting aside - when we moved here I was convinced that we wanted to live in the Maida Vale area but besides knowing it was convenient to Paddington didn't have much to go on. Turns out, both times I came to London and stayed with Alistair, he lived right here in this current neighborhood. So apparently it was decided 10 years ago that this is where we'd be.

Finally, you may be wondering how we got to this place by the sea that is 60 miles from us. We drove! We currently have our friends car, a convertible Mini, while they are on vacation. So for the 3rd time ever I drove on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road. We made it there and back without me ever turning into the wrong lane. The big trick? SatNav - our friends also have a TomTom (with guiding voice Australian Ken) which got us right there. Awesome.