Where: Princess Diana Memorial Park in Kensington Park, London
When: Today, about 1:30 pm
Who: Now things are getting interesting!

Okay, let's cut to the chase:

We hung out at the park with Jake Gyllenhaal today. Erin, did you hear me? An Oscar-winning Celebrity. And I don't just have a story. I have PROOF, sistah. Proof. Check it.

Thank goodness I had kids to fake pose right under the pirate ship playground where Mr. Gyllenhaal was.

Oh, not good enough? Take that!

And THAT!
It's totally him, baby.
The first tip-off was the hat. I was like, dude, who wears a hat like that to the park with their kid? And now, look at the collar. Dead giveaway. And do you know what? When I got my camera out, he flinched. He was just a little TOO aware of a camera than a normal human would be.

Okay, so anyway, I digress. Let's see. We also visited Kensington Palace, bringing Madeline along with us. This is a statue of Queen Victoria, so we had our own little princesses do a curtsy.
Seeing the Sunken Gardens,

Here's the gates in front of the palace where people still put flowers in memory of Princess Diana.

And here's our own little king in front of William II statue. With a little princess head poking around the side...Tonight, we went out to dinner and a show with our lovely hosts, Shannon and Scott.
We went to Royal Albert Hall, a theater in the round, to see The King and I, starring Daniel Dae Kim, (from Lost) - it was just awesome. Tom, Vickie and Alan joined us as well. Wonderful night!

London Tower:

• The Crown Jewels (sorry, no pictures - the reflection of the bling could very well blind you)
• Yeoman Warder (beefeater) tour guide
• Eli's famous quote of the day: The guide was explaining that "since it is Monday, we will only be executing children...girls, actually...from Belgium...who are about ...nine?... years old...??" The little girl in question exhaled a sigh of relief and said, "I'm eight!" At which point, Eli piped up, pointed right at Lizzie and said loud enough for the crowd of about a hundred to hear, "SHE'S NINE!"

(This is the White Tower where Royalty lived for 500 years) (Tudor-style)



Paying Homage to Harry Potter: The impromptu hail storm!

St. Paul's Cathedral:

• "Feed the birds, tuppins a bag..."
• The Whispering Gallery
• Lisa, you'll be proud that even though I missed our Monday morning gym class, I got a workout climbing almost 400 stairs to the top of the cathedral! :)

Fish & Chips:

• Pass the tartar sauce
• Don't think about the $45 spent on this lunch -it ruins the appetite-
• Or that the children are throwing the "chips" to the pigeons...
  
  

"Paul" - a French Patissere that hires only French chefs. Ooh, la, la!



What's that you say? You say I have posted more pictures of my pastries than of St. Paul's? Hey, if you'd had the lemon tart, you'd post 4 pictures of it too! It's possible I felt something divine in that pastry. What an experience!

Globe Theater:

• "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo!"
• The juxtaposition of Shakespeare's Globe Theater next to the Tate Modern Museum of Art is so typical in London
• In our family re-enactment, Eli looks more like he's putting a hex on Lizzie. Those Montagues!

The British Library:
(This picture is from just outside)

Truly, the highlight of the day for me was the Treasures section of the British Library. You can keep your jewels and sceptres, Tower of London - the British Library is where the real treasures are.

• Handel's original Messiah Score in his own writing, opened to the page of "The Trumpet Shall Sound"
• Schubert's "An Die Musik" also in his own hand
• The First Gutenberg Bible printed in 1457
• An excerpt from Jane Austen's Persuasion in her own hand, with her writing table
• Leonardo da Vinci's original sketches
  
  Again, we weren't allowed to take any photography inside. Ah, but it was awe-inspiring. The mood was almost reverent in this section. These were treasures indeed.
  

Morning:

LDS Church is the same wherever you go in the world - we went to our meetings this morning at the Hyde Park Chapel, and felt right at home! It was also cool that my great (x3) grandpa, Orson Hyde, was commemorated on a placque inside the building as one of a group of seven LDS missionaries that first came to the U.K. back in 1837.

Afternoon:

Walked around the Tower of London,

Played London Bridges in front of the Tower Bridge,
Don't blame Ivy, she is still recovering from jet-lag...
Kiddies on the Tower Bridge with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background, Evening:

Then, to dinner at Adam's cousin's McKinley's flat...YUM!We met Tom, Vickie and Alan there, as well as Carl, McKinley's boyfriend.

The ride home was on the top front of a double decker bus - what a view!

The "oyster" card gets you onto the Tube as well as all the buses.

Good day.

The Never-Ending Day

6:05 am Friday Morning, Phoenix, AZ:
So Fresh! And Clean! Here's all of us embarking on our first overseas family trip! With hope and promise in our eyes, we set off on our adventure!

The first leg of the trip was from Phoenix to Newark. Eli kept busy with the Nintendo DS - what else?! - and was in heaven that he had no time restraints to interrupt him.


3:00 pm, Newark, NJ:

Miss Independant Ivy was a force to behold on the moving walkway. She seemed to consider it her personal catwalk and strutted her stuff down every time.

8:00 pm Friday, Newark NJ:

After waiting in taxi for nearly two hours, we finally jetted off in the 777 plane. Each seat had its own screen with access to games, movies, tv shows - any type of entertainment that could be had on a screen. What excitement! Oh, and did you know that they still serve hot meals on planes? We got dinner and breakfast! All this included in an outrageously expensive ticket. The trick is to fly internationally - everything's included because they feel so bad that you paid so much to be uncomfortable for so long.

Middle of the Night, Atlantic Ocean:

The kids finally tuckered out. With only a half teaspoon-full of help from Benadryll.

8:00 am, Heathrow Airport, London:

In our own personal London fogs from lack of sleep, we met our driver and loaded up the van. I don't care how prepared you are for English driving, this other-side-of-the-road business is just wacky! It shifts all paradimes of what I knew to be true on the road. {Heaven help us in 5 days when Adam rents a car in Scotland...}

9:00 am, Saturday, St. John's Wood, London
We found the flat of Shannon and Scott Ashton, with whom we'll be staying for several days. They have kids the same ages as our, just opposite genders. The kids became instantly inseperable...

11:30 am, Saturday, London
Freshened up and ready to tour the city!
























Rode the Double-Decker to Picadilly Circus...























Stumbled upon an Air Show at Trafalgar Square in honor of the Queen's Birthday...

Climbed a Friendly Lion...

Lion Grooming...Eli thought he spotted a loose tooth...and the lion seems to have a sun-glare booger...

1:40 pm, London
We forgot our watches; luckily there was a big clock nearby.


Found #10 Downing St. (Hi, Gordon Brown!)

Thanks for the cool photo idea, Shannon!

We toured West Minster Abbey. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. I knew it only for the weddings that took place. But anyone who has ever contributed to the good of England is honored there. wow.


And we posed by Parliament.


4:00 pm, Saturday, London
Came back to the flat. Ate pizza. Gave the kids baths.

8:00 pm, Saturday, London

They're all sleeping soundly, hopefully having now adjusted to a time zone eight hours ahead of Phoenix. They sure were great travellers today. It would have been a challenge for anyone to stay happy without sleep for that long (besides Jack Bauer, of course), but Lizzie, Eli, and Ivy did it, without much complaint. It was one Loooong day, but we made it! We are so lucky. :)

See you on the other side of the Pond!

We're off!

I plan to blog all about our adventures on our big trip to the U.K., so get ready! It's going to be awesome.

Between the laundry and getting wedding shoes, not to mention keeping up with swim team, we've all felt exhausted. Like curling up into a ball and taking a little napsito. Like this:


(Well, almost like this - sorry, you're going to have to turn your computers upside-down - Blogger thinks it's a lot smarter than it is right now and won't allow me to fix this picture!!)

We're so excited to go overseas! With three kids! (Pass the Benadryl, please so they will do more of that on the red eye across the Atlantic...) Yes! Excited!