We had a lazy morning in London, packing up and chatting with our hosts (also old family friends who knew me as a baby). Eventually we got on the road and headed South to Lewes, just outside of Brighton. Nick did a great job driving on the left and I did an okay job of not freaking out about every move he made. The weather today was idyllic and the English countryside was beautiful.

Our first stop was to have coffee with friends of friends from Austin. The Hooper family moved from Austin to Lewes 4 years ago with their son. It was fascinating to hear about their experience: why the moved, what has been hard, what has been great, etc.

We walked to the top of the hill in their neighborhood. Millie blew every dandelion she found and filled her shirt pockets with buttercup flowers.

We left their house to visit the center of Lewes. As we were leaving the car, Millie wanted to bring her baby doll but refused to carry it. She had two choices: carry the baby or leave in the car. Neither were satisfactory and this kicked off an epic, epic meltdown. The scene was a quaint, quiet historic town full of retirees, and Millie screaming at the top of her lungs. And I do mean screaming… her move is to scream as loud as she possibly can because she knows it gets a rise out of us. We went back to the car and sat in there for 30 minutes until she was ready to be in public again.

We eventually tried again, and got our well deserved afternoon pint. By now she was in good spirits and processed the incident by drawing it. Her description: me crying in the middle and dad walking on my tears with Judy to the car. The people on the left are strangers saying “what’s wrong with that girl?”

We then drove the last 20 minutes to Brighton, checked into our hotel, and walked along the shore to get dinner. Millie and I rode another carousel (her new favorite thing) and I cracked myself up by telling her to “show dad your middle finger” every time we went around. She had no idea what she was doing.

We walked back on the rocky beach as the sun went down, trying to convince Millie to walk instead of look for cool rocks.