London Trip!

This is on the 9 hour flight from Minneapolis to London (we had a layover). Sweet and fun Brittany (John's cousin) flew on the same plane with us but we were 5 rows behind her. It was so fun traveling with her.

Airplane selfie! Couldn't help ourselves!

After flying for like 10 or 11 hours and the almost  2 hour "tube" ride we made it to John's sister's house. It's beautiful. And we are so grateful they let us stay there!

John and I were in heaven with his new and only niece. This is when we first met her (we were dying for her to wake up from her nap!) She has the best baby personality. Her eyes are always wide open, taking everything in. She stares at bright colors and patterns. Cute.

John was sooooo enamored.

 John got to carry her in this pouch on our first outing. She loved it!

John was so worried cause he couldn't see his feet very well, and he of course didn't want to trip and fall with her attached to him.

Most of the ground had this beautiful brick design. Probably very old. I loved it.

This is St. Paul's Cathedral. Incredible!

See the big circle? We walked the spiral steps all the way up there. See the small circle in the very middle? We walked even more spiral steps to get all the way up THERE! And that is where the incredible view was.

These pics don't do it justice. I wish I had a better camera! Like Christa's or Sarah's and Brent's.

Here's the view from the top of the cathedral.

The lovely and lonely yellow tree.

 

 

John and Brittany

This is when one of the workers approached me and notified me that cameras were not allowed in the cathedral. Oops! Good thing I had gotten all I wanted

Front of the cathedral. Includes John's nose and a bride and groom. This was an INCREDIBLE building. Inside and Out.

I was admiring this guy's dog and he kept pointing to his change dish. Too bad I didn't have any at this point.

Picasso painting in one of the museums. We weren't supposed to take pictures of it, but the rebel that John is sneaked one for me.

We had an incredible lunch atop one of the museums with an incredible view. Had to snap a pic of this cute couple before we ate. She loves this toy.

 

Brittany and John.

Erica. She wanted a macaroon so bad!

Pizza place that was overflowing that second to last night we were there. Yes, that's John up there by the door.

These are beautiful buildings, full of character and history. But the real beauties were in the heart of down town London. Will show those later.

I just love that EVERY building was hundreds of years old. Even the seemingly insignificant ones.

Yes, Joh is carrying my purse. What a sweetie. It gives me headaches but I still insist on bringing it with me everywhere I go.

We went to a shopping center and there were so many dogs, so of course John loved it. He truly is the dog whisperer. Look how this one just loves him immediately!

Food in London is nothing like anything we have in the U.S. It's so fresh. We had an incredible brownie at this place. I'll never forget the taste! Every food item there is pretty much better than anything in the U.S.

Black potatoes

We were so lost by the time we got to the supermarkets so on the way home we caught a taxi. They weren't too expensive, either.

Brittany and Adrienne

We got to watch our new niece. John couldn't take his eyes off of her. He tried everything to make her laugh.

He found she was fascinated with his hair so he would bend his head down over and over again to get her to touch it and laugh. So cute!

 

She has bright red hair.  True to the photo.

The night before the wedding we had a rehearsal dinner. This is at the town hall before dinner.

 

At the rehearsal dinner we went to a restaurant that was underneath a train. The food was excellent  Glad we were there to support her.

There were like 7 courses  and it was so good!

The morning of the wedding we got to watch our niece. I taught John how to swaddle her and hold her super close, and make little "sh, sh, sh" sounds to help her fall asleep. And of course a little bouncing helps. Worked like a charm. Look how sweet he is with her. I love this picture.

After attempting to get her to finish up her nap after she was so rudely awakened by the delivery guy's continuous door bell ringing, it was finally time to get ready for the wedding. Erica got her all ready.

 

Side note: The delivery men in London don't stop and one ring. If you don't answer, they ring over and over and over again. If that isn't enough he goes to your window, looks in and knocks on the window.  I discovered this when I couldn't get the door open!

Big blues! She has John's eyes!

 

 

We made it to the wedding and this is the first picture I took. First things first.

And she's out like a light. He loved holding her. Everything she did was cute in his eyes. And mine.

 

John was the ring bearer (which he was more than happy to do. Mostly because he was afraid she was going to ask him to give a speech).

After the ceremony there was a drinking social and then we got together for a beautiful dinner.

Jimmy, Elise, Clementine and Rowan

John and Piers .We really enjoyed sitting next to him and chatting with him. There were 3 courses and they were about an hour long, each!

I was so happy to be there with John and he loved being there for his sister. He loves her so much. And I think she was pretty proud to have him there too.

These are some interesting little shops we found in the area Alexis lives in

London Buddhist Center

Went to this café a couple times for breakfast. Called the Larder. Incredible food!

This is an almond Croissant. It tastes 100x better than anything in the U.S. Most everything in the U.S. is extremely sweet and covered in sugar. Most desserts in London are slightly sweet. More subtle. makes you appreciate the sweetness more.

I got duck egg omelet, broccoli, cous cous salad and spinach salad. And all of their bottles of water (most) are sparkling water. Which doesn't taste like water to me and John. We drank a lot more water than everyone else there, haha. There was a lot of herbal tea, though, which I loved.

Our last night with her.

Monday morning we decided to go do some major site seeing.  First stop was the tower of London. We wanted to do the Clink and British museum too, but didn't have time, unfortunately. John was really excited to see the Clink, but not as excited as he was to go to the Arsenal futbol game that evening (thanks to his new brother in law).

This is the Tower of London.

Tower of London is nearly 1,000 years old!

Every building in London (especially down town) is better than a the best, most beautiful buildings in the U.S. England is so much older than the U.S. so there's so much more history and therefore character!

My IPhone pictures make everything look so far away. Hate it.

Tower of London entrance. It was so cold, rainy and windy that day. John and I did not dress appropriately because all the days prior were warm.

Beautiful architecture. Old and modern.

London Bridge. It's not falling down, like the song says. FYI.

John IS happy to be there. He is just VERY cold.

I spent a little too much at this souvenir shop...

Actual armor.

This isn't a real horse but he seems very pleased with the fact that I'm taking a pic of him

John seemed fascinated with the armor and weapons museum. Didn't expect that.

This gun had thousands of diamonds in it.

Dragon. His claws were made out of guns. Very creative.

Tower of London. It was so big, we couldn't get through all of it. Wish we had more time. We got to see the crown jewels in there. There was probably 100's of millions of dollars worth of diamonds and jewels in there. Queen of England's crown was in there. Also- one of the world's largest diamonds. It's was huge! And beautiful. Couldn't take pics in there. Wouldn't have been able to get away with it either, unfortunately.

We need a selfie stick. John laughed when I told him that. I think he wouldn't be caught dead with a selfie stick. Don't worry, I will talk him into it.

 

We decided to take a bus tour. There was just way too much to see in such a short period of time.

Tour guide says they don't have many McDonald's cause the Queen doesn't like it.

There is also a designated store for the Queen to purchase her underwear that we passed by.

We saw lots of Ferrari's and Lambourginis. The heart of down town London is nothing like any place I've ever seen or been to. Miles and miles of incredible architecture and historic buildings. Beautiful!

The London Eye. I wanted to go on this! Didn't have time. And I believe John has ridden it already.

 

 

We also got a glimpse of the Buckingham palace. Wish we would have gotten off the bus to see more but we just didn't have time!

 

When it came time, we ventured back to the house (after stopping for some gross hot chocolate from Starbucks). John left for his game 2 hours early so he made sure he got there in time.

 

He loved the game! So glad he was able to get him a ticket.

 

We got home Tuesday evening to a horrible snow storm! We never would have made it without our new 4-Runner. John was so glad to have it! Didn't want to say it out loud, but I told him so!