Leeds, Day Two

After a comfortable night in the hotel, we headed out for the Christmas Market in the Leeds city centre. A light dusting of snow fell over night, but I didn't think it was a big deal.

 

I had Hailey wear her tennis shoes because we would be walking quite a bit, and her boots are a little bit big. When she wears these tennis shoes, her pants just barely brush the ground behind her heel. (Are you sensing a mother of the year award coming to me here?)

No wonder they can pick out Americans so easily. And don't ask about my boots.

They are headed for the incinerator as soon as I can find something to replace them.

Well, the light dusting of snow was enough to generate a significant amount of slush on the sidewalks, so by the time we reached the Market, Hailey's jeans up to her knees were soaked, and I didn't notice that her shoes were completely soaked as well until she started crying that her feet hurt. Jeff took her shoes off and carried her around with her poor frozen feet, tucked inside of his coat--no small feat since she's not exactly a short child for her age.

 No wonder she's not as excited as usual about her gigantic

German pretzel. She probably couldn't feel her feet.

Fortunately the Christmas Market was smaller than we expected, and we had seen all we needed to see, so we headed over to the mall across the street to find some dry pants for Hailey. H&M offered some inexpensive corduroy pants and Hello Kitty knee-hi socks, but I wasn't really excited to buy new shoes, so we were pretty classy and letting her walk around with just socks on. I felt pretty trashy, but no one really seemed to notice. We were browsing through a pound store (dollar store equivalent) and found a pair of canvas shoes. They were pretty ugly, but they were cheap and would cover her feet until we could make it back to the hotel.

 Trying to have a happy smile, despite the trauma of the morning.

The full glory of her replacement clothing.

On our way home, we stopped at this indoor skiing/movie theater/outlet mall that had a booth with doctor fish. Jeff and I experienced this in Japan this past Spring, and we thought Hailey might enjoy trying it as well.