The smallest member of the Royal Guard!

Tea with the Queen

I kid, I kid.  Nothing of the sort happened when we toured Buckingham Palace our final day in London.  We had tried to take a tour on another day but the lines were ridiculously long.  We figured our best option was booking ahead and the only day available was our last day, which we found very fitting.

While we didn't actually get to have tea with the Queen, we did have tea on the Queen, meaning we didn't pay a cent for it.  This is because the crazy airport type security that we went through when entering the palace decided that giving our stroller a little push and then a pull through the x-ray machine was a great idea.  Not so much.  They broke our stroller.  Thank goodness it was on the last day!  Thankfully the people at the palace were super helpful and kind.  They did all the leg work and figured out how to have our stroller repaired.  We should be receiving a new seat for Reed to cruise around in very shortly.

This is by far the best palace/castle that we saw while living in the UK, as you might expect.  It is very beautiful on the inside and certainly fit for a queen!  I highly recommend touring it if you are ever in London in August or September, which is the only time that it is open for tours.  Of course they don't allow pictures inside, so you'll just have to take our word for it that it was awesome, but we did take a few pictures on the back side of the palace that is rarely seen.  We also got to check out Kate's wedding dress.  The display kind of reminds me of the scene from Beetlejuice where they are bringing back the dead couple with their wedding clothes.  It is a little odd, but the dress is beautiful!

Watching the guys marching one last time.

Doing his own marching before we went inside the palace.

And more marching.

Daddy and Reed

Mommy and Reed at the back of the palace.

A shot of the exterior which is rarely seen.

Reed and his new hat that he could not stop laughing about.  He loves it!

And another shot.  It is very, very pretty from this side.

It's time for a recap!!!

Wow, can’t believe it is time for a London recap blog.  We have certainly enjoyed our 6 months here.  We have been able to do and see so very many things and we are so thankful for this opportunity.  So, let’s get to it…..

We arrived in London.  Felt a little out of place.  Ate lunch and then we presumably slept for 3 days, lol.  Reed got sick.  We had to make our first trip to the emergency room with him.  Turns out he had a virus, which he would be unfortunate enough to pick up another one later in our trip.  We searched and found a place to live in London.  Phew.  We played at playgrounds and went to Harrod’s, the National History Museum for the dinosaurs and the Science Museum for the water table.  We shopped and shopped, with buying little to nothing, on Oxford Street, Regent Street, Kings Road and High Street Kensington.  We learned new verses of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and joined a weekly Monkey Music class.  We saw the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace too many times.  You should see our kid march.  We toured the Tower of London, my favorite attraction in London, and ventured to Borough Market, Chris’s favorite attraction, full of yummy cheeses and a pig’s head.  We walked across the London Bridge, saw the beautiful Tower Bridge, checked out the quaint Neal’s Yard, tried to force Reed to sit with the lion statues at Trafalgar Square, saw the clock tower that houses Big Ben and listened to Big Ben ringing on the hour, and saw the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.  We took in the exhibits at The British Museum, which includes the Rosetta Stone and many mummies.  We strolled our still somewhat sick toddler down Portobello Road for the famous Saturday market and saw sights from one of my favorite movies, Notting Hill.  Lauren came to visit, yay for company!!  Chris and Lauren rode the London Eye.  We went to Paris, saw the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, toured the Louvre, went on a water cruise in the Seine and shopped on Champs de Elysees.  I got sick…..and so did Reed again……..and so did Chris a week later.  Fun times.  We walked by the former residence of Benjamin Franklin.  We toured Windsor Castle, which houses a dollhouse with running toilets!  We toured Westminster Abbey just a week or two before the wedding.  Stonehenge and Bath!  We toured the Cotswolds, probably our favorite area outside of London.  It is so beautiful!  We were here for all the Royal Wedding craziness and I even got to see the couple on the way to the church and on the way back, very cool!  Reed and I attended the premiere of Water for Elephants where I got to see Reese and Robert up close (I’ve still yet to see the movie).  We’ve picnicked in Hyde Park, which has been the sight of much golf playing and football throwing for Reed and Chris.  We toured Oxford and Oxford University as well as William Shakespeare’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon.  We visited with the Crowell Family in their neck of the woods.  My parents and brother came to visit.  We toured around London.  We went to Sandwich, nothing to see there and then we went to Scotland.  The boys played lots and lots of golf and we enjoyed the sights, which included Palace at Holyroodhouse, St. Andrews Golf Course, Edinburgh Castle and the ruins of the St. Andrews Cathedral as well as many others.  Chris and I had a date night and we went to see In the Forest Dark and Deep starring Matthew Fox.  He dissed me outside.  No celebrity craziness for me anymore.  Reed and I rode the London Eye with my mom, saw a makeshift Mickey Mouse that Reed would have nothing to do with and even took in the Changing of the Guard again.  We went to Ireland.  Oh, how we love Ireland.  We drove most of the southern half of the country.  We saw the Blarney Castle, drove the entirety of the Ring of Kerry, visited the Cliffs of Moher and saw both Galway and Dublin.  We will be back.  We took a mini-trip home to visit family and meet sweet babies.  We visited Hampton Court Palace and learned about King Henry VIII’s love for all things food.  “The ladies” came to visit and we had a blast showing them around London.  Reed and I had our first “proper” tea with them at The Wolseley.  We all, including “the ladies”, strutted our stuff across Abbey Road like The Beatles.  The Carlocks came to London.  Chris and Teal attended the British Open, his first ever time at a pro golf event, in Sandwich.  We visited Borough Market again.  Headed a little way out of town to see Kew Gardens.  We straddled the Prime Meridian Line, 0˚.  We toured St. Paul’s Cathedral where Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married.  It is stunning.  We went to the Museum of London and the gift shop at the Transport Museum of London (I am terrible at finding souvenirs, ugh.).  We visited Hampstead Heath.  We started Couch Potato to 5K.  We are going to miss running in Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens.  We toured the replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.  We lunched in Neal’s Yard.  We toured Kensington Palace.  And last, but certainly not least, we toured the home of the Queen of England, Buckingham Palace.  What a great way to end our trip! 

And that’s it folks, our time in London in a nutshell.  It has certainly been a once in a lifetime experience that we wouldn’t trade for anything.  We hope our kid will remember at least some of it (I’m betting on the marching part), but we will carry this experience with us forever.  We are so glad that we had this opportunity, but we can’t wait to get home to our house and our family and friends.  It has been good, but it’s time to go and we couldn’t be happier!!!  Love you all!  See you on the other side of the Atlantic!

Another day, another palace.

Also on the itinerary for the weekend was a little trip to Neal's Yard to have lunch.  This little spot is situated in the midst of buildings between two streets.  It is a very cute little spot, so we knew we wanted to have lunch there before we left.  It was a nice day to sit outside and enjoy munching on some yummy food and taking in the London atmosphere that we will miss.

The living art wall at The National Gallery, very cool!

And, we made a little pit stop at the Horse Guards so that Reed could check out the "horsies".  He was not happy when we had to leave.

On Sunday, we toured Kensington Palace.  Since the palace is currently under construction, I presume preparing for the 2012 Olympics, they have transformed the palace into what you could call an art project.  There were seven different princesses represented in the palace with a different theme for each room related to something about her.  Diana was even represented, which I was a little surprised by.  How could they not put her in there though?  We, unfortunately didn't catch a glimpse of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge who are planning to live at Kensington Palace when they are in London.  Unfortunately, my pictures are just too dark too share, and frankly, I don't even know what they represent.  I was being a pretty bad tourist on this day (I may have said this before.  I guess I am becoming worse as our impending departure nears.).

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Another must see before we returned to the States was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  We took the opportunity to go there for a tour last weekend.  While it isn't on the exact site where the Globe actually sat, it is so very cool to imagine the plays of Shakespeare being put on in a theatre such as the one we toured.  The most interesting thing we heard on the tour was that the audience members who could afford seats would often eat an orange and then put the peel under their nose to mask the smell coming from the groundlings.  I think not going to see one of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe Theatre might be a big regret we have from this trip.  I guess we'll put it on our to-do list for if we ever come back to London.

  

A portion of the exterior of the Globe.

The stage.

The interior.  I never knew that it had an open top.  Very cool!

Looking back toward the Globe while walking across the Thames.

Surprise!

This little family will be setting foot in the US almost a week early!  We are super pumped to be coming home a little early.  We will be home a week from tomorrow, August 15th, woohoo!! 

Because I am trying to improve my photography skills, I took the opportunity to take a few photos of our little guy (and a few of us) in Kensington Gardens.  We are certainly going to miss having the park so close, but we are soooo looking forward to getting back to our family, friends and home!!

My boys!

Doing a little marching.  It was a fight to get him to look up.  He is very focused on his feet and where he is walking.

Marching again, with a stick as his gun.

Love this, although I wish he was looking at the camera!

Reed and Daddy!

Slide to the side!

Running, his second favorite thing to do after marching.

A different day but still so cute!

Cheese!

London Sights.

This weekend was another weekend full of London sightseeing adventures.  On Saturday we headed over to St. Paul's Cathedral, where Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married, followed by a trip to the Museum of London and a quick stop in the gift shop at the London Transport Museum.  After our Sunday plans of touring Buckingham Palace were squashed by a crazy long line, we opted to take the tube north to Hampstead Heath for lunch and a little walk through the massive park there.  All in all it was a great but packed weekend.  I am sure that's how the remainder of our weekends will go, but it is worth it if we get home and don't feel like we missed seeing something when we had the chance.

St. Paul's Cathedral

So beautiful inside and out!

And yes, that's about it for pictures from our busy weekend.  I was obviously not being such a good tourist during these outings.

Longitude - 0˚

Being the nerd that I am, I knew that we had to visit Greenwich before heading back to the States.  The reason being is that Greenwich is the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian of the World, each year ends and begins here.  And probably the main reason that anyone comes to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich is to straddle the Prime Meridian Line, therefore having one foot in the Western Hemisphere and another in the Eastern Hemisphere, at Longitude - 0˚.

The top of the Royal Observatory.

Chris in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.

Me and Reed trying it out.  He thought it was hilarious that I was moving his feet apart.  Who knows why?!?

Borough Market and Kew Gardens

With only a few weeks remaining before we head home, we decided to make a list of things we had yet to see that we must check out before we leave and things that we want to repeat.  This weekend included some firsts and a couple of repeats.  On Saturday, we ventured down to Borough Market again to sample cheeses, eat croissants and other yummy foods and stand in the longest line ever for coffee at Monmouth Coffee.  This is probably Chris's favorite place in London!  After we got our fill of the market, we made our way to Kew Gardens.  It is a gigantic piece of land with many, many different kinds of trees and flowers growing there.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the season for some things to be in bloom, but it was a beautiful place.

One of the many greenhouses at Kew Gardens.

A ginormous palm.  Apparently it is one of the largest indoor plants.

Japanese gardens.

California Redwoods in the UK!  Now, we've made it our goal to actually see one in California!

And another greenhouse.  The flowers here were beautiful!

The Carlocks in London!

We had a fabulous time hosting our good friends Teal and Laren Carlock and their son Tripp in London.  Reed and I spent a good bit of time with them sightseeing during the week and Chris was lucky enough to have the weekend and a few days at the start of this week to spend with them.  We were so sad to see them go on Wednesday, but we look forward to eating all the fried food we can manage at the Texas State Fair in October.  Woohoo!!!

Tripp, Laren and Teal in Trafalgar Square.

The Guys at the British Open.  It's too bad they didn't snap a picture during the downpour.  At least it brightened up for them in the afternoon.

And, look at these two cuties sporting their British Open tees that their dads brought back for them.

And the Carlocks at Tower Bridge.

We were absolutely honored that the Carlocks made the long trek to London to visit us while we are living here.  Love you guys!  Looking forward to our Texas visit!

Monkey Meekles!

We were really lucky to discover a fun music class, Monkey Music, held weekly just down the street from our place here in London.  Reed absolutely loved going to "class" each week and he would literally run out the door when I said it was time for Monkey Music.  He calls it "Monkey Meekles" and will only sometimes say "music".  Last Thursday was our very last Monkey Music class due to their summer hiatus and our return to the States.  It was a sad day for me because I know how much he loves it.  I will definitely be on the lookout for a great music class for him to take once we get home!

Giving Monkey a kiss.  Reed is way timid and shy in class and will never go give Monkey a kiss until everyone gives him one and then Miss Jane has to move his way a little.

He's never too shy to do a little dancing though!

Playing the drums, his favorite instrument.

Bubble time!  Can you tell he loves it?!?!

Reed showing up his certificate with Miss Jane.