The Other Side of the Pond-Our Trip to England Part 2

Hundreds of Funerals and Another Wedding

I woke up the next day (Tuesday) after sleeping a glorious 10.5 hours!  I can't remember the last time that happened.  We headed out to a downpour and lots of cold wind.  Not ideal weather conditions, but it's hard to be mad at a country with these iconic emblems;

What I love is that these are still all over town even though nobody uses them anymore.  "Pay phone? What's a payphone, mom?"

Our Double Decker Bus Ride!  Hyde Park in the background

First big stop of the day was Westminster Abbey. 

Woah.  Who knew you could fit so many famous dead people in one building!  This place is the Who's Who of English history.  A majority of the kings and queens of England and many of their relatives and descendants, Sir Isaac Newton, George Fredric Handel, William Wilberforce, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Alfred Lloyd Tennyson and Rudyard Kipling are just some of the people buried there!  And if you were famous, and the English liked you enough but you weren't buried there, you got a plaque with your name on it as well.  Think C.S. Lewis.  AND, most of the monarchs in England were crowned here too. The coronation chair is pretty amazing.  It's been used since 1066!!!

Here's the current Queen Elizabeth on her coronation day in the chair.

To show you some pictures of the inside we will have to look at the most recent royal wedding that happened there!

Just a stone's throw away from the Abbey is Westminster Palace, home of Parliament and another iconic figure.

Big Ben!

The Eye of London, Not Your Grandmother's Ferris Wheel

It took Rock months to convince me to go on the Eye of London, a giant ride into the sky over the Thames River that allows you to see all of London.  I am not a fan of ferris wheels if you'll remember from our trip to Disneyland.  I hate the swinging.  HATE it.  But he finally convinced me that this one was not going to swing.  And I'm so glad he did.  Not only did it not swing, but it gave us a wonderful awe inspiring view of London we could not have gotten otherwise. It goes so slow it takes half an hour to get around.  It was a nice break from the wind and the cold too.

Westminster Abbey is the two white towers to the right of Big Ben

Buckingham Palace back in the trees

Stay tuned for the rest of Tuesday-Part 3

The Other Side of the Pond-Our trip to England Part 1

In Which I am Reminded How Much I Hate Terrorists.  

We left Sunday morning on our thirteen hour trip to England.  To make getting around Europe easier on ourselves with all the subway rides to and from the airports we decided to only do carry on luggage.  No checked bags.  This meant that if I followed the rules instituted after 9/11 I could not take my favorite soap which is exactly 1.2 oz. over the approved limit for carry on luggage.  Late Saturday night I squeezed some of my favorite soap into a baggy knowing what a mess it would be to handle in the shower but refusing to be totally thwarted by terrorists,  However, ALL that plastic bag work and worry was pointless because Boise Airport Security, such as it is, hardly glanced at my perfectly packed quart size ziplocked bags of liquids and I probably could have taken my stupid bottle of soap anyway.  No one would have arrested me for trying to blow up a plane. Such is life. The upside is that Boise Airport Security, such as it is, only takes about 10 minutes.  So I will not complain too much about my soap when there are security lines like this in the world....

When we checked in online the day before our flight we found that we had a relatively empty plane and could change our seats to get an empty seat in between us.  Unfortunately they don't list where the bathrooms are on those nifty little maps at check in and changing our seats put us right next to the bathroom.  :-(  There was a constant stream of people next to our seats the entire flight.  People going in, door closing click, and out, loud flush, click, door opening-bright light in your face, click, flush, bright light, click, flush etc.  We both tried to sleep, but it's really hard when you have all the occupants of the plane as company. And some of those people went to the bathroom over and over and over!! I know it's a long flight, Joe, (we knew some of them by name) but do you really have to pee every hour?

The other thing they do not show on their nifty online plane maps is where the babies on the plane will be.  I think that should become a standard bit of information for all travelers.  I think United Airlines should hire some super smart computer guys to make their maps do that.  Maybe I could get Rock to do it in his spare time.  Anyway, we also ended up sitting right next to an adorable little family with children.  Well, their baby was adorable until she started to cry just as I finally fell asleep-twice.  Needless to say, we hardly slept on the flight over, but the good news is we have made lots of new friends!  Joe, you can use our bathroom any time you are in Boise!

Thirteen hours is a loooong time.  My brain was more sore than my body by the time we were done. It is worth noting here that we actually flew over both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in one flight! That's what happens when you fly from San Francisco, an airport right next to the ocean, to London.   But we arrived in London alive if not really awake.  Here's a picture of the massive plane we were on:

It had two stories!!

And here are a few pictures that told me I was not in Kansas anymore- all before leaving the airport!

First, pregnant lady bathrooms. Our first stop after that long of a trip was the bathroom.  Watching every single person on the plane use the bathroom made me a little leary of using it much myself, so I'd been saving up and needed to go!  

THIS is the sign in England for the women's restroom.  I almost didn't go in because I'm not pregnant and since this is obviously a sign for a pregnant lady bathroom I didn't think they would let me.

Next, we got to use the Queen of England's very own personal terminal!!

I felt honored.

In England they have Negative floors!  Who knew!!!

We rode the tube/subway to our hotel and took a quick nap to get us through till bedtime London time.  We woke up and just like that it was Monday.

In Which We Are Reminded That Wellington Was a Stud

Our first day in London was Memorial Day.  Appropriately enough, one of our first stops was this war monument honoring the pilots who died in WWII.  

This wall explains the statue

Turns out we would see a LOT of monuments honoring dead war heroes. Wellington especially.  He was everywhere!  The English totally loved this guy.  Here are just a few:

The Wellington Arch 

This statue of the Greek stud, Achilles, in honor of Wellington

And, at his burial place at St. Paul's Cathedral, there is a huge monument to Wellington.  Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take pictures inside St. Paul's.  

Before we got to St. Paul's we walked through beautiful Hyde Park

The Hyde Park Rose Garden

These roses were a totally different kind of fragrant than our roses in the States.  Beautiful!

Found this unusual guy waddling around the park.  He was only one of many very different kinds of birds in the UK.

We also saw these amazing trees!

 Inside the above tree

Three Funerals and a Wedding; St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral is a beautiful Catholic Church in London where funerals were held for three important British leaders.  Our good friend, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Nelson, also a famous leader from the Napoleonic wars, and Winston Churchill.  It is also where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married.  And just because I was always fascinated by Princess Diana, let's pause now to show a picture of their fairy tale wedding at St. Pauls.  

And....one more from inside....

And now on to the pictures we actually took.

First glimpse of the cathedral

While inside the cathedral,  we listened to a beautiful madrigal choir sing.  

In Which a Shrew is Tamed and London Bridge Lets me Down

From St. Paul's we walked over the very cool Millenium Bridge...

to the Globe Theater, where Shakespeare's plays were once, and are now again performed.  

We watched a fantastic and funny Taming of the Shrew.  They made Kate and Petruchio about as awful as could be.  Crude, crass and perfect for each other.  I was so tired by then, having been awake for well over 24 hours that I am embarrassed to say I slept through a few scenes near the end.  But Rock, the resident Shakespearean was able to stay awake and enjoy the whole thing. I felt much like I did the day we got into conference in the tabernacle after "sleeping" on the sidewalk all night in line. I was so tired I slept through half of conference!

The last thing we did that day was to walk out on London Bridge.  Can I just say this was a let down of large proportions.  This was the most exciting thing I could find to take a picture of because the modern day bridge itself is exceptionally boring as bridges go.

  

This is what the bridge USED to look like, back when it was an exciting bridge to look at.  Well sort of exciting anyway.

Fortunately, the Tower Bridge did not let me down.  My picture will not do it justice, so here is a better one:

After London Bridge let us down, we took our weary selves back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.  We had a fabulous day full of grand sights but it was wonderful to finally close our eyes.

Stay tuned for Day 2 of our trip...

  

Hansel and Gretel

Liberty's spring dance recital was a performance of Hansel and Gretel.  Here is the video of her dance with a little intro to her part.

And here's the bow.

Our twinkle toes loved dance this year.  She made several friends too!

Always dancing...even on the sidewalk. (this is a life size tracing of herself)

April Adventures

In April I went to my annual homeschool mom's retreat up in the mountains. It was beautiful and relaxing.  We enjoyed the cabin scenery,

The Hot Springs,

And the zip line!

Before I left, Liberty asked me what Mommy's do at a retreat. THIS is what Mommy's do at a retreat! 

I taught a class at the retreat about how to read a classic.  I prepped for a month, put all my visual aids and all my notes in a bag by the door and then drove all the way to Idaho City before I realized I'd left the bag by the door.  Luckily another mom came up late and I was still able to teach the class I'd worked so hard to prepare for!  Definitely among the ditzier things I've done.

Cade's adventures last month included creating a Rube Goldberg machine for school and preparing for his spring piano recital.  Both were awesome!  

First, Rube Goldberg:

Now, the recital:

The video got cut off at the beginning, so you'll have to imagine how it starts.

With two kids in sports this spring, practices and games makes every night an adventure.  

Cade is doing baseball again.

And Levi is doing soccer.

And as a parting gift, the Pouting Pink Pig.

  

Scar Face Forever

Happily you have not heard from or about Scar Face in a long while, for which I am very grateful. I think his last exploit was shooting himself with an epi pen.  But Levi is determined to never live that name down and he has had a new batch of run ins with sharp objects and hard things.

Over the past few months he has added two new scars to his forehead which brings the total up to four, I believe.  Nothing too major, just scratches bad enough to leave their mark once the scab went away. Then a few weeks ago, after finally finishing my wing back chairs, I left a bag of upholstery supplies sitting on the stairs to take up later.  I forgot that I had left several of these nails in the bag.

They are a little over an inch in length

Levi's body has a way of finding any and all sharp things that should not come in contact with one's body and he stepped on the bag and......the nails.  Three nice puncture wounds in the foot.  Sigh.  I did feel horrible for being the cause of that one, but honestly, I think his foot would have found them even if I'd put them up high.

Then a few weeks later while at a birthday party he ran smack into their closed sliding glass door.  I thought that kind of thing only happened on tv.  But no.  Levi head + hard thing = contact.  I told the lady she could feel good about her cleaning job at least.  It was so clean he thought it wasn't even there!  And just in case you are wondering, we have had his eye sight checked.

And last week he came in the house whimpering after running smack into a large garbage can on his bike with... you guessed it, his forehead.

We only have eight years to cure him of this before he gets behind the wheel of a car.  I don't think that will be enough time.

Little Miracles

We had a little miracle the week of spring break.  Most of you would not consider it a miracle.  No one's life was miraculously saved (though I do have a new blog post to write about recent Levi accidents).  But it was a miracle nonetheless.

We had Family Home Evening that week all together.  Again, to you, that would seem like nothing out of the ordinary, but this is a risk we don't often take anymore, preferring to split up the kids and do two separate FHE's because when all our kids are together, they fight.  It is inevitable.  We have tried everything to fix that, but we finally decided to accept reality.  Since no one can learn or bond in that kind of setting, we split them up and it has helped a lot.  But last week we decided to do something special together for spring break and play Ticket to Ride, a very long, somewhat complicated board game.  And... "wonder of wonders, miracle miracle" there was no fighting.  The entire night.  We played for over two hours and everyone was happy, considerate and showed good sportsmanship.  We ate popcorn.  No one complained about getting less than someone else.  We stopped the game at one point to watch a big thunderstorm.  We pulled up all the blinds and sat in the dark together counting the seconds from lightning to thunder.  No one pushed or shoved to get a better look out the window. The older ones calmed the fears of the younger.  And then we went back to playing our game.  No one cried, there were no accusations of cheating.  It was perfect.  This is what it could be like??!

Every once in a while we get a moment like this in our family.  It doesn't happen a whole lot because of the different personalities and issues we have, but it did two weeks ago and I had to write this one down.  I consider it a blessing from Heavenly Father.  A tender mercy for which I am very very grateful.  It almost makes up for the days like yesterday when we spend all weekend listening to our church leaders telling us to be nice to each other and then our kids spend the two hours following conference fighting over who should have to clean up the gigantic mess they made while listening to our church leaders tell us to be nice to each other.
Thank you, Elder Holland, for preparing me for the inevitable.

Awards and Such

Reagan has a talent for writing.  I have been telling him this for years, but a teacher at school finally convinced him.  She thought his poetry was good enough to enter into a writing contest.  So he entered the following poem into the Idaho Scholastic Arts and Writing competition a few months ago.

Over the river,
Ripples to bring;
While dancing in lilies,
It seems to sing.

Whistles down canyons,
Howls in caves;
Then falls to the sea,
And makes the waves.

Floats 'cross the mountains,
Shoots through the plains;
The violin plays,
No note it gains.

How 'tis like a song
Whipping through trees;
They go where they
The notes of the breeze.

He won an Honorable Mention!  Once we got to the awards ceremony, we realized it was more like 3rd place.  We're super proud of him!

     

Cade participated in the National History Day competition last month.  He made a documentary about Apollo 13 for his project and won a 4th place ribbon for it at the two district competition!  It took months of work and he did it almost completely on his own.  Rock and I were happily surprised at how good it was for a first time documentarian.  You can watch his 10 minute documentary here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbKKoGjp688

Levi was in his first Pinewood Derby this month.  Like his brothers before him he made his first car into his favorite animal, the fox.  Meet "Fast Fox".  
         

He won exactly one race, which is all a mother can hope for.  That way there are no tears when he doesn't win fastest overall.  
           

And not to be out done by her brothers, Liberty lost her first tooth a few weeks ago, beating all her brothers for youngest tooth loser.

She ended up "losing" her lost tooth and was so distraught the tooth fairy might not be able to come that she took desperate measures.

She did indeed find her tooth and earned some shiny quarters for it.  No sooner had she collected on that tooth than she got another loose tooth. So the tooth fairy will be making another visit real soon I think.