On Holiday!

You must forgive me for being on blog hiatus, but we have been out of the country. I figured that might be a good excuse. Byron and I have just come home from a 10 day trip to London. We had so much fun. We started by driving to Vegas so that we could drop the boys off with my great sister and brother-in-law who watched them while we were gone. We then boarded our 11 1/2 hour plane ride to London. Now I remembered from the last time I went 14 years ago that I thought it was cold. But then I thought it might have been because I was living in Vegas then and I just wasn't used to the cold weather, surely now that I have faired Utah weather for six years London would not seem as cold. Oh what foolish thoughts I have, it was freezing. We were glad that we had thought to pack long thermals we used them everyday, and most days by the end of the night we were Popsicles. But regardless of the weather we had plenty to do. I had never appreciated how big London is. I pretty spent my entire time feeling turned around and Byron was constantly having to consult our map. Near the end of the trip when I stepped out of a building whatever my instinct was to turn I would go the opposite way. But the Bristish people are so nice that we rarely spent more than a few minutes looking turned around before someone stopped and asked if they could help us. It wasn't hard to look like we were out of town, all you had to do was watch us to see when we crossed the street that we were looking the wrong for oncoming traffic. It's amazing how ingrained those habits are even when they have huge signs on the the road saying "look left". So we decided to break up the city and take it small sections at a time. We started with the Bourough Market. It is a big open market with anything and everything. Including full sized deer hanging to be bought. Next we went to "The Golden Hinde" full replica of the 16th century warship of sir Francis Drake. Pretty much it is a really cool pirate ship. After that we took a tour from a local actor around the full size replica of Shakespeare's theater "The Globe" about 10 years ago they got the funding to rebuild to scale the theater near the same sight that Shakespeare had originally had his. They still do plays there, it was alot of fun. During part of the week Byron's sister Emily and her daughter Claire came and visited us. She has been living in Germany and it was fun to see her again. While she was with us we did a Bus tour of the city and hit the National Gallery. This was a great Gallery where we were able to see artists such as Monet, Titian, Rembrandt, Renoir, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Van Gogh. It is somewhat of a surreal feeling to walk around a Gallery like this and turn a corner and be like wow that is a really famous painting and I'm looking right at it. It was so fun. Through the week we were able to hit such sights as The Churchill Museum, Tower of London and the Royal jewels, the House of Parliament and Big Ben. We went to the British Museum, Covent Garden(an open shopping market), and Harrod's. One night after doing a 2 hour walking tour about Westminster where we learned a lot of the history about the area we ended up at Westminster Abby in time for an Evensong. It was an hour long and is done by the boys choir and an older men's choir joins them. They sing songs and the congregation with the guidance of the priest join in on different parts of the sermon or prayer. It was really amazing to sit in that church and experience that. We had been told that originally the boys choir probably would not perform because they had just performed the night before for the Queen and her husband for their anniversary. So we were lucky to hear them. Byron and I were also lucky to get tickets to a couple of plays. We went and saw Wicked and The Mousetrap. We thought Wicked was amazing, and The Mousetrap entertaining. We felt that we should go to The Mousetrap since it is the longest running play in London. Somewhat of a London landmark. We ended up our time in London by going to St. Paul's Cathedral. I kept singing "Feed the Birds" seeing how that is the church steps that inspired Mary Poppins. It was a beautiful church and Byron and I hiked the 409 steps to the top of the Dome. It had an amazing view of the city, we loved it. At the end of our trip we took a day and went to Bath. This city is famous for the natural hot springs that Romans made into Baths. It turned out to be very cold and we were only there for a day so it was a short trip. Byron and I had so much fun we really enjoyed the accent's and the different words they used. Such as, instead of vacation they use Holiday. We also found the Tube system to be fascinating and an engineering feat. It is like its own little city below the streets of London. It was so well planned and so easy to use. It made a huge difference for getting around. Byron and I enjoyed being able to be alone for such a long period of time and are so grateful that we had the chance to do this trip. Thanks Amber and Mark again for making it possible! But now were home and ready for the Christmas season to start!