London Trip, Part 3

We woke up on Monday morning to see the famous London rain drizzle.  We threw on our rain coats and headed out; nothing was going to stop us from enjoying our day!  We headed back over to Westminster Abbey so we could explore the inside.  Again, you can't take pictures, but it was wonderful!

The kids were excited to learn they could go on a scavenger hunt throughout the abbey.  Lily and Parker paired up as did Mia and Macey.  They had a lot of fun walking through and learning all sorts of interesting facts to answer the questions.  The best part came at the end of the exploration; they were all rewarded with large gold chocolate coins that they thoroughly enjoyed!

 After eating lunch, we headed over to the Museum of Natural History.  It's a massive museum, but we attempted to tackle a lot of it!

 After spending the afternoon at the museum, we decided to head back home; the kids were fading really fast.  Jill volunteered to stay home with them, so Brian, Ryan and I could go over to Harrods which was a lot of fun.  This is a huge store!  I ended up logging over 18,500 steps this day!

 We stopped by the Diana and Dodi memorial which is nice.  My favorite part of this store though is the chocolate area.  Look how fantastic these little chocolate flowers look!  I made a little variety pack with some other ones that were so delicious.

 Yet another great day!

London Trip, Part 2

We woke up on Sunday morning to wish Lily a happy 9th birthday!  I cannot believe she's 9!  Knowing we would be in London, we asked what she wanted to do to celebrate.  Her response was to see the crown jewels and ride the London Eye, so that was our plan for the day after enjoying some fresh muffins from Sainsburys.

 Of course, you have to take the tube just about everywhere.

 It was an amazingly beautiful day, and we were so thankful for this.  We were all looking forward to touring the Tower of London.  It's hard to see in the picture on the right, but Flat Arthur joined us via cell phone for his first appearance. The school was having a competition to see where Flat Arthur would turn up over the break, so he joined us several times on the trip.

 Everyone liked seeing the guards outside the crown jewels area.  And no, he didn't smile even at our adorable kids!  You can't take any pictures inside the crown jewels area, so I don't have any pictures; they were beautiful though!  We all enjoyed learning more about the Tower and the history that happened here.

 You know we're going to visit the gift shop.  Mia had fun pretending to be both a princess and a knight (and sword fighting Brian).  She decided she wanted her trip souvenir to an awesome knight costume from here.  Lily also wanted her trip souvenir to be from the Tower, and she chose a sweet little princess doll; she named her Queen Elizabeth.

 When we left the Tower, we headed down to the River to see the Tower Bridge and snap a few pictures.

 So thankful for this family!

 After we finished everything at the Tower, we headed over to Westminster to ride the London Eye.  Since it was a lovely day, we were able to enjoy some great views of the city.  This is a great way to get your bearings of what's where.

 The kids were inseparable for pretty much the whole trip.  They have such a sweet friendship.  I was so thankful to be back in London with Ryan!

 After the 30 minute ride on the Eye, we walked across the bridge to see Big Ben, Parliament and the outside of Westminster Abbey.  We then had a bite for dinner at a local pub, and then we started back to the flat.

 After getting the kids to bed, the grown ups enjoyed hanging out in the living room and catching up.  We are so thankful for this family, and it was great to spend time together.

London Trip, Part 1

We decided a few months ago to take advantage of what we see as a once-in-a-lifetime travel opportunity.  Some of our very dear friends, the Hendersons, are taking some time off and traveling with their kids.  We hated the idea that we wouldn't see them for months!  So when they told us they would be in London over the girls' Fall Break, we jumped at the chance to join them.  The timing was perfect.  They arrived at the flat we rented together on Friday night.  The girls and I flew out that evening after school and arrived on Saturday morning.  Ryan's trip to North Africa finished on Friday night, so he arrived on Saturday afternoon.  We were thrilled to have the 8 of us together again!

The girls couldn't wait for the big flight.

 After dinner, they tried to get a little rest.  At most they got 4 hours, but it wasn't easy.

 We arrived!  We decided a little caffeine would probably be a good thing to keep us going for a little while.  After landing at Heathrow, we took the Express to the Paddington station.  From there we took a couple of different trains to the South Kensington station where we were staying.  Brian and the kids met us there and walked us to the flat which was only about 5 minutes away; it was great to be back in London!

 We headed out to lunch to walk, get sunlight and stay awake.  It was great to catch up and hear about their adventures thus far.  After lunch, Brian went back to the flat to meet Ryan while Jill and I took the kids to the park to play for a bit.

We managed to stay up and keep going until about 8PM.  We put the kids to bed (all four were sharing a room, and they were thrilled!).  Lily actually got sick that night, and we're pretty sure it was because her body was so off schedule.  She got a good night's sleep afterwards though, and neither had problems after that.  We were all ready to start enjoying the city the next morning!

Other September Happenings

A few fun things we did in September...

The girls and I started a tradition last year of going to The Swan House for lunch on early release conference day.  It was a gorgeous afternoon, and we all enjoyed our lunch there.  I love my time with these two sweethearts.

 Lily has been saving up her money, and she used it to buy a new Lego Fairies set. She has so much fun putting these sets together!

 The girls were thrilled to have their friend, Eliza, spend the night.  We had planned on going apple picking the next morning, but we got rained out.  Instead, they enjoyed a relaxing morning in their pjs playing games and watching cartoons.

 They were both thrilled to get new boots for Fall.  I couldn't resist snapping them "posing."

 We had a nice visit with Meme one Sunday afternoon.  Love all three of these people!

 Things have been going well at the school this Fall.  Stonehaven had their annual Soccer Classic in mid-September; Mia had a great time playing while Lily preferred to cheer from the side.  Below is a picture of Lily with her bug project.  She has been collecting bugs for months for this; they've been in my freezer.  Needless to say, I'm thrilled this project is turned in!  She loves bugs and studying them in science, and she had a great time putting this together with Ryan.  Also below is a picture of Mia with her friend Lillian.  Her class recently performed "Caps for Sale" in chapel; these two young ladies were the narrators.  I know Mia enjoyed it, and they both did a great job narrating.

 We celebrated Ryan's birthday at the beginning of the month.  We have been doing some renovation work at the house, and everything was finished the day before Labor Day weekend.  We were able to celebrate by having the Wilkinson family over to watch the start of college football season with us in the new entertainment area of the basement.  Ryan having family, friends, football and a cream cheese Publix cake is a sure-fire way to have a great birthday!

Ryan was in North Africa the last week of September, and he had a great trip.  He always enjoys the opportunity to travel there.  We're so proud of him when he's gone, but we're always happy to be back together again!

Fair Fun

The girls have been asking for months when the fair was coming back to town.  They remember going last year and having fun, so they wanted to go again.  Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating.  It was pouring down rain every day which simply makes the fair not fun.  However, one Tuesday afternoon, it had stopped raining so even though I knew it would be incredibly muddy, I decided we would go.  Ryan was in Africa that week, so I after picking the girls up from school, I told them the plan to go; they were so excited!

We got there right as it opened and headed to the ferris wheel.  You can see in the picture that it was still overcast, but we were thankful there was no rain.

 After that we decided to ride the sky buckets.  It would take us all the way across the park, so we could start over there and walk our way back.

 The animals are all on the far side of the park.  The girls made a beeline for the horses.  They always enjoy riding them even if they do just go in a circle.

 The petting zoo was up next.  Mia and I fed some of the goats and sheep; Lily wasn't too sure about that.  They both liked petting the sweet little bunnies though.

 Mia wanted to try a couple of the rides that Lily wasn't interested in.  Since it was unlimited ticket day, I told her to go ahead.  She jumped for almost 10 minutes on the trampoline; there was no line because there was so little crowd.  She tried so hard to get a back flip in but never quite made it.  She also rode the swings which is lots of fun.

We took a little break to eat dinner, and then enjoyed a couple of animal shows.  We caught the end of the American Wolf show which was interesting, then we saw the entire seal show.  It was lots of fun to see them dance, spin, bark and slide around.

 Of course, they would probably say the "make your own slushy" was one of their favorite parts.

 They went on several rides together including the mini ferris wheel and teacups.

 They rode the little roller coaster a couple of times and went through the fun house four times.  They really loved it, especially the moving stairs and tumbling exit.

 We also got caught up watching a human cannonball.  They had never seen anything like that before and were fascinated by him!  After that, a lady climbed 100 feet in the air to perform some aerial tricks; that made us all a little nervous so we had to watch and cheer her on.

Finally, it was time to head out but the girls caught sight of the big sack slide near the exit, and they wanted to try it.  I remember this being one of my very favorite parts of the fair growing up (Mama Lottie and Pawpaw took me every year as a child), so of course I let them give it a try.  They loved it and wrote it three more times.  It was a great way to end our evening.

This was such a fun afternoon and evening together; I'm so glad we were able to do this.  We're all looking forward to next year!