London

This post will be way better if you read it in a Brittish accent.

So the second weekend we were here we decided to explore a bit. We plugged in London in our Audi's GPS system and started driving. An hour later when we thought we were almost there I saw a sign that said London then pointed left as we followed the road right. I pointed it out and Chris said he plugged it in the the GPS, and we'll stick with that. However, with in 5 minutes, Chris began to recognize the road (how he did that in a foreign country when the freeways look all the same, green rolling hills and lots of sheep, I'll never know) realized we had been driving in completely the wrong direction for the last hour. Since there was nothing we could do, we laughed fed the kids their lunch and turned the car around. After another hour we finally arrived at the nearest tube station (and by tube I mean train, and by nearest I mean to to where we got lost...)

We parked the car, bought tickets and climbed aboard. Maddie and Boston thought it was awesome. They LOVED the train! We had to make a few transfer due to lines being shut down, and as it turned out had we stayed on the original train we would have saved ourselves another hour traveling to London. We finally arrived and came up out of the tube and saw this...

There it is, in all it's glory. Big Ben. I was impressed with how tall it really is! When Boston first saw it he knew exactly what it was, "Mom look!" He exclaimed, "It's Lightning McQueen's Clock! With Holly and Finn McMissile!" 

He was right of course! The only part of Cars 2 I've seen was the part where McMissile and Holly are strapped to the gears in side Big Ben, But I was impressed that he recognized it! 

Big Ben was completely pack with people. We could barely get three feet without getting separated so we decided to get the heck out of there and head across the street to catch our breath and have some lunch while we enjoyed the view of parliment and Westminster Abby. 

Boston loves getting his picture taken lately and refused to eat until I took his picture in front of "Lightning McQueen's big clock" for Noah and Emma. So Noah, Emma, Katie and Charlotte this one is for you! 

Then Maddie, who adores her brother and wants to do everything he does, jumped in front of the camera and shouted "Me!!!! ME!!!" So here she is. And how about a parent of the year award for the chocolate milk in a bottle? I know, I'm every child's dream mother. :) 

My three favorite people in front of a statue of Abraham Lincoln...of all people to have a statue of in central London. I didn't get a picture, but thought it was odd. Who knows. 

Does anybody else think it's semi-ridiculous that I've waited all my life to travel and see things like Big Ben and they get to see them in the first couple years of life? They have no idea how lucky they are. As long as they have mom and dad, a place to run, and chocolate milk life is good. 

Of Course we had to get the stereotypical family picture in front of Big Ben. 

This is the Catholic Cathedral next to Westminster Abby. It's incredible and has been around since 1500 something. Unfortunately we weren't able to go inside, but it was still fun to see. 

I love this picture! Such a beautiful building! It's amazing to me what people used to make with their hands! The detail is incredible! I just wish I could rotate the blasted picture. So You'll have to tilt your head to catch the beauty of it.  

More of the Cathedral

These are the classic phone booth pictures. Boston loves taking pictures with the red phone booths, actually any phone booth. Any time he sees one he will run in to them and tell me to take a picture of him. I'm sure I will have a million of them by them time we get home. 

Buckingham Palace. It's huge. I can hardly believe how gigantic it is! Now that I'm watching Downton Abby (LOVE) it's fun to think of the amount of people it takes to run a place like this. 

The main gate. 

 Trying to catch a view of the guards

 I'll admit, I was really hoping to see the guards in full dress with the red coats and the big, fuzzy black hats. But apparently this is their winter dress. And they definitely weren't still like you see in the movies. Can you blame them though, really? 

 Statue outside the palace. 

 My princess wishing she had a palace of her own. 

 Boston could have cared less about the palace, he just had a blast playing on the fence surrounding it. 

 Last view of the palace. 

 After we left the palace we found this large stretch of leaves along the side of the walkway. This was the highlight of the day for Boston and Maddie. It's amazing, we come all the way to London, see a timeless palace, and they are most impressed by the leaves on the ground. 

 Seriously, it was their absolute favorite part of the day. Sad to say, it was basically all down hill from here. 

 Boston had a fit and demanded that we take a picture of him and Maddie at the main fountain at Trafalgar Square, but Maddie refused and only wanted to play in the water...so that didn't work out. At first he threw a fit but got over it fairly quickly. 

He likes to be the star of the show. I think Trafalgar square was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole day. There were so many people and an amazing museum there. Chris and I would have loved to continue exploring, but the kids had hit their limit and were about 30 minutes past done. So we packed them up, got back on the tube and headed home. They both we completely unconscious within about 10 minutes, but you can't really blame them. We didn't have a stroller and so they had basically walked around London all day and were completely exhausted. 

Chris and I are hoping to go back in a few weeks and go see a couple shows without the kids. We'll see if it happens. Overall, it was a fun day, and we all had a good time. It's so odd to think we're here still since so much of our life is spent in our little apartment, but Slowly but surely we're seeing new things. To be honest I will be sad when it's time to go back home.