One Dae at a Time: London for us, LA for the boys!

We've been looking forward to this week for a while! I've been so excited to get back to London. That city is the whole reason this blog has existed the last 10 years! I started posting during my BYU study abroad in 2009, and this was my first time back to my favorite big city.

Last Friday we woke up and drove down to LA. I had been getting random stuff done all week to get us and our boys and our house ready to go so we could take off first thing that day.

We made it to Shelley's house and ate lunch with her family, and got the boys a little settled. Then Shelley drove us to Burbank and Michael and I got on our afternoon flight to visit Rachel in London! And the Cannon crew so kindly watched our boys during that week. We were so grateful to them for that huge help!

London days:

Saturday:

We landed at 1:30pm London time. We both slept just a little on the red eye flight and mostly watched movies. Between both plane rides we watched Bohemian Rhapsody, The Green Book, Free Solo, Instant Family, and Mary Poppins. We took the tube to Rachel's house and made it there around 3:00. Then we biked around Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, and the BYU London Centre. It was so much fun to be back in that area! Then dinner at Rachel and Spencer's and catching up with them and sweet Eli.

Sunday:

We rented a car and took off with Rachel and Spencer and Eli for a weekend in the Cotswolds. First stop was Highclere Castle (think Downton Abbey) and they had a ton of fun Easter festivities going on that day. From there we drove to Stonehenge, then explored Castle Combe. We then drove to Lacock to spend the night. Michael and I went for a walk to explore the village, and then out to a pub for our anniversary dinner and had some classic English meals: fish and chips and Sunday roast. Then we ate cheesecake with Rachel and Spencer in the courtyard of our Inn.

Monday:

We woke up and had a traditional English breakfast at our Inn, then explored the town and the abbey there. Some Harry Potter scenes were filmed in both the town and the abbey, so it was fun to visit those spots and take in the cute old scenes. From there we drove to Blenheim Palace (birthplace of Winston Churchill) and explored the rooms and gardens there. Then we drove to Oxford and took a walk through the beautiful buildings. We kept getting to places juuuust after they closed but it was still so fun to see the city and colleges. Then we ate pizza on our way home to London. Spencer was so nice to drive us around that weekend, that left side of the road deal would have been a mental trip!

Tuesday:

First full day in London! I was so excited to just walk around and get back on the tube. London is such an easy and fun city. I love it so much! That day we did the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Borough Market, walked along the Thames, saw Shakespeare's Globe, the Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge, then Westminster Abbey for Evensong. Then games and dinner at Rachel's. It was so fun to have full days of exploring and then family time together at night.

Wednesday:

We started the morning with Rick Steves' London City walk, while Rachel was super kind to head to Leicester Square to pick us up day-of tickets for Les Miserables for a good deal. She met up with us at St. Paul's Cathedral to give us our tickets -- we were so impressed she tracked us down so well! Then we did Rick Steves' tour of St. Paul's, and had fun catching the view from the top. The lift was not working, so it was quite the climb but well worth it! Pregnancy didn't slow us down tooo much on the trip, but it did a little at times. From there we grabbed some sourdough pizza for lunch, finished the Rick Steves' city tour, then headed to Piccadilly Circus for our play. We went to the afternoon Les Miserables and it was beautiful. That play is emotionally draining but just remarkable. I'm so glad we went. From there we met Rachel and Spencer and Eli at Harrod's and explored -- such unfathomable prices and things to spend money on! We were blown away at the caviar and beef prices, furniture, and just everything. I saw an adorable lace baby blessing dress for 2,000 pounds. Good thing we're having a boy! :)

Thursday:

Michael and I went with Rachel and Eli to see the MI6 headquarters. From there Michael and I went to the British Museum, then the British Library (more Rick Steves tours at both), then walked by the St. Pancras hotel, then to platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross, then to the National Gallery for some highlights. From there we grabbed a sandwich and hot chocolate for our walk to Buckingham Palace, where we met up with Rachel and Eli, and Stephan and Cathryn. It was so fun that our trips overlapped for one day! We walked with them by Buckingham Palace, through Hyde Park, by the Princess Diana memorial, the Peter Pan statue, Kensington Palace, then to meet Spencer at Dishoom for Indian food. It was so delicious and just such fun company. I still just think it's so funny we were all in London at the same time together for just a bit. On our way home we grabbed sticky toffee pudding at a pub, explored a grocery store to bring home some European chocolate to the fam, and then home to catch up some more. We went to bed so late so that our trip wouldn't end!

Friday:

We left first thing in the morning and it was sad to say goodbye! We loved seeing Rachel and Spencer and Eli so much, and loved seeing where they are living for a couple years. Our flight left early and we had one weird airport experience after another -- I'm pretty sure I was flagged as a terrorist or something that day. Michael had a regular security experience but I was checked so thoroughly and more often than him throughout our day, and my name was on a list to even have all my baggage completely checked through at my gate before boarding our plane. I asked the worker if that list was random and she said, "Some checks are random. Yours is not." And that's all she said about that....?? So, I'm glad I'm not a law breaker or Friday would have had me sweating bullets. Instead, pregnancy just had me sweating bullets. Our flight was half empty on the way home, which was so surprising to us, and made for a much more pleasant experience! It felt like we just paused time to watch movies and eat snacks for hours, and then we made it to LA around 4pm. We were so happy to be back with our boys. We ate dinner with the Cannons and hit the road to Fresno so that Michael could be back to work Saturday.

The Boys in LA:

Shelley and Tony and their kids took such good care of Westin and Bennett, and I was pretty sure they were never going to want to leave. They had an Easter egg hunt, a silly string fight (which they said was actually terrifying for my kids and I think that's so funny), a beach trip, lots of cousin playing time, and delicious food with Shelley. Bennett particularly enjoyed her blueberry muffins (including the paper wrappers on the ones that he snuck) and Westin made her write down the recipe for strawberry pie for me (graham cracker, cream cheese frosting, strawberry slices). :)

I am so grateful for family. We loved visiting family, loved knowing our boys were safe and happy with family, loved coming home to our little family. Travel and family are the best things! We made it back really late Friday night to Fresno and I was making the drive on Dr. Pepper and gratitude while my three boys slept. We had such a wonderful week and I'm so grateful it could come during this particular time. Michael was at work by 6am the next day, and reality comes back strong.

Pictures from London first, then pictures from the boys' time in LA!

Kensington Palace

The London Centre! Oh man, it was so fun to call this place home for four months.
Third floor, left side, bottom bunk!

27 Palace Court in the W2 4LP

Kensington Gardens

Rachel's Easter Bunny Cake!

Highclere Castle

Highclere Grounds

Soaking up the grounds before sampling the Hog Roast and strawberry cake.

Last time I was at Stonehenge we were all freeeeeezing and this time it was so very warm.
I was glad we fit this in for Michael to see, I think it's so cool to see this in person.

Eli just LOVED Michael. So much. He has some sort of uncle magic.

Castle Combe

Graveyard in Castle Combe

View from our Inn window in Lacock.

The Red Lion in Lacock

Sunday Roast and Yorkshire Pudding

Fish & Chips

I loved this view. It was strangely relaxing to hang out by these cows in this cute village and just listen to them rip up grass.

Perfect little village to spend our 7th anniversary.

Traditional English breakfast

Lacock Abbey

Snape's classroom

Courtyard featured in Harry Potter

The room the Mirror of Erised was kept

We technically snuck in an hour before the abbey opened,
but when we were caught they were super nice to us and didn't kick us out. :)

Easter Dinner settings at Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Grounds

We were above average hedge mazers

Oxford

Tower Bridge

The Tower of London's ravens seem pretty ominous. Such a strange place with pretty bizarre history.

Borough Market is my happy place!

This Indian street food was so delicious.
A dosa (rice and lentil crepe) filled with seasoned potatoes and chickpea mixture,
next to fried chickpea noodles over chickpea masala with pomegranate.
So good!

I think these mushrooms looked so awesome.
And some were 85 pounds for a pound... !

Is someone really going to the market to pick up that fish for dinner??

Shakespeare's Globe

Big Ben is getting a four-year facelift, unfortunate timing

Westminster Abbey

The Rick Steves tour route

Views from the top of St. Paul's

Franco Manca chorizo pizza

Best afternoon

Harrods

MI6

Nobody's climbing that fence.

The Rosetta Stone -- I just think it's incredible you can actually see this

St. Pancras hotel

This spot has become quite the tourist destination since I first visited and only the sign was there.
Now there's an official line, professional photographer in Hogwarts robes, and even another person there
to hold up your scarf right before the picture is taken so that it looks like you're running into the wall.
J.K. Rowling has to feel so legit.