Planes, Trains and Automobiles

The London Eye




Buckingham Palace


Big Ben


Harrod's in the background


Kensington Palace (State Apartments)


We made it back from our trip to London and are back into the swing of things, once again. We all made the trip safely. I've figured out that I really despise flying. Matt and I had an engine backfire incident back a few years ago, and I thought for sure we were going down. Every since that flight, I've been petrified! I'm going to have to be drugged next time... oh wait. I have kids to tend to. Well, I guess I'll figure it out. I also learned that Jordyn will need to be drugged along with me. lol

Back to London. I'm not going to go into great detail. Honestly, I'm getting a little blogged out. We started our trip the first day in a car, onto a plane, then a train, onto a subway, toured on a bus and ended the trip in a taxi. I guess we were lacking the boat. We got to see all the famous sights - Big Ben, the London Eye (though we didn't ride it because the lines were horrific), Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Harrods & Hamley's, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abby and more. Landen and Matt went to the London Dungeon one morning, while the two little ones and I played at the Princess Diana Memorial Park. Other than that, we stuck together. We thought the city as a whole, reminded us a lot of New York City.

I had always heard the food was very bland, but we really didn't experience that. However, we really stuck to Americanized restaurants. Landen was set he was going to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe, so that was one meal. One night we got fish and chips at a local place by our hotel and it was really good. For lunch, we picked stuff up along the way so we didn't really sit down to eat. We ended our trip at the Rainforest Cafe, which Jordyn didn't care too much for. She was petrified of the gorilla we were sat next too. I'm talking gripping my neck so hard and crying that a manager came over and asked if we were ok. I told her she didn't like the monkey (she wouldn't let me pull her away long enough to get into the high chair), so they asked if we would like to move to another table. They found one that was nice and secluded so she couldn't see any of the jungle friends around us. After that, she was fine. Whew! Halloween should be fun.

The driving on the opposite side of the road wasn't as strange as I thought it would be. Now, if we had actually been driving ourselves, maybe it would have been. The only thing that was hard about that was looking the correct way when we were trying to cross the street. I almost killed Jordyn, Landen and I one time for looking the wrong way. We also learned that they walk on the left side of stairs, etc.... we always found ourselves on the right side as hard as we tried to go left. I didn't think the driving was near as crazy as it is in Paris.

Let me see ... some of our blunders included:

1) Jordyn peed on me in the subway. Just as we got into town and were on our last leg to the hotel, she told me she needed to potty. I assured her it was ok because she had a pull up on and mommy couldn't find a potty. She was in my lap... suddenly my leg felt warm. I look down and evidently her pull up was NOT properly covering the needed place and there I sat in pee. Fun. She didn't have any other "accident" the rest of the trip and even slept through 2 nights dry!

2) We got ready to buy something and discovered we had left our money at the hotel.

3) We bought the kids a toy at Hamley's toy store. Hayden chose a boomerang, which he promptly opened and played with in our hotel room. The window was cracked, I mean maybe a couple of inches. Yep. The boomerang went out the window onto another rooftop. There was no getting to it. Of course, we made it back to the store to buy another one.

4) We tried to go to Westminster Abbey Cathedral where the coronations occur and Princess Diana's funeral was held. We got there and had just missed the last entrance time at 1:30. It didn't open again until Monday so I didn't get to see inside, to my disappointment.

5) The morning we left we were going to catch the subway, only to find out it was closed so early in the morning. According to the brochure, it was ok but we were further down the line than the brochures, or something. Anyway, we took a last minute taxi and still made our plane.

I'll probably think of more to share later. At least this is a start. I'll add a few more pictures, as well.


Westminster Abbey Cathedral

Our Hotel

Mind the Gap!!!!!