Late July 2016

Greetings from London! We arrived safely and our driver got us straight to our hotel. Even though it was 8pm it only felt like the afternoon so we walked around to explore London a bit and finally had dinner at about 10pm. Late nights and late mornings were part of our first week here while we adjusted to the time change. Our Marriott hotel was great - a central location in Mayfair, walking distance to everything. And we loved the concierge lounge where they served breakfast in the morning, tea-time just after noon, happy hour before dinner and evening snacks and drinks after dinner. With so much to explore we were walking miles each day, not something the kids were thrilled about. We decided they would earn £1 for every mile walked. This was a great motivator for them and a chance for them to collect some of their own British Pounds.

Here we are on our second day in London, trying to see everything! Big Ben! Buckingham Palace! Trafalgar Square!

As we were walking towards Whole Foods Market one day we discovered a toy store called Hamley's. This is no ordinary toy store, its got to be one of the world's largest! Six full floors of toys, everything you can imagine. And the employees are scattered throughout the store demonstrating some of the toys so you can see them and try them. What an amazing place. When we reached the Lego floor we were amazed at all the life-size replicas made from Legos. The Crown Jewels! A Palace Guard! Queen Elizabeth with her dog! A Star Wars fighter jet! This is now the kid's favorite place to go in London.

We were able to find a park in the city for some play time. This park has a sign at the entrance: "Grown-ups must be accompanied by a child to enter." Love it!

Our day at the Tower of London was great. So much history here! We had a rare glimpse of Tower Bridge with the draw bridge up as we went by.

Early July 2016

July was a time of packing up and getting ready for our time in the UK. We shipped 7 crates of belongings off to London by boat, hoping they survive the journey and we receive them safely sometime in the fall. We sold both of our cars after deciding not to try to ship over our American gas-guzzling cars. Fortunately we had time for a few fun things before heading over to Europe. Here are the kids with Grandma who lives close to us in Utah, we sure will miss her. 

Our local cub scout leader was kind enough to let Rachel and Carson test out their bottle rockets in his back yard since they won't be around for the bottle rocket event in August. Those bottle rockets sure can fly!

We stopped in New England to visit family for a week before heading over to the UK. And it was a great way to break up the flight, easier to do two 5-hour flights then one 10-hour flight. We made it up to the North Maine woods to visit Grammy and Grampy at camp. Even though it was only for a few days, we had great weather, great fishing, and some much-needed R&R.

This year the kids tested out the kayak on their own! They did great and are starting to get the hang of it.

The LL Bean stop is mandatory as you drive between Maine and Boston.

This year we made a slight detour to Marlborough to see my cousin Dave Champeau's new restaurant, Kindles Pizzeria. What an amazing place! He imported an authentic wood fired oven from Italy and he fuels his fire with real wood. The result is the most amazing pizza you have ever tasted. Rachel is our pizza eater and she absolutely loved the wood fired pizza. Carson is a pasta boy so he tried the pasta and thought it was the best he had ever eaten (and he has eaten a LOT of pasta). The next time we are near Boston we will be back! Great job Dave!!

We also spent a day with Grandad but since Pine Lodge was occupied we had a day in Marblehead. It was fun to walk around Fort Sewall with the kids, a place our Grandma used to take us when we were kids.

We also stopped at the Peabody Essex Museum where we found some fun kids activities.

We had difficulty deciding what to do with our cat, Gracie, while we went off to the UK. We thought about taking her with us, but the airplanes and hotels would have made things difficult. Since Pete and Jen were thinking about getting a cat friend for Pretzel, we decided to take Gracie to their house. Here are the cats together, they could pass for sisters and are getting along very well. We miss Gracie but take comfort knowing that she is happy and having fun with her new sister. Thanks Pete & Jen!!