a lovely holiday

spoiled rotten, once again!

(notice the banners. it's the queen's jubilee, you know)

ryan and I spent a long weekend in London

he had business meetings, so we went a few days early and played.

we walked and walked and walked.

then we shopped and shopped and shopped.

then we ate and ate and ate.

and along the way we saw a lot of beautiful things.

we saw a royal opera house production at Trafalgar square.

we saw lots of famous british landmarks, like the phone booth.

can you guess what it smelled like inside?

urine.

ryan's face says it all!

we had to be tourists and go on a tour bus.

the double-decker bus.

and we had to go on the thames river cruise.

but NOT the eye of London.

too tall for me!

and we saw the clock tower

and we HEARD big ben.

our river cruise tour guide wanted to be

SURE

we knew that big ben is heard and not seen.

big ben is the name of the bells inside the tower.

glad that's cleared up.

and wouldn't you know it...

ryan's dad was in London too!

he met us for dinner and treated us to Phantom of the Opera.

we sat in the front row 

and had a special end of show concert

by the orchestra in the pit.

we climbed 500 stairs to get to the tippy-top of

st paul's cathedral.

bad idea.

the first 300 stairs were fine.

the 2nd set were tall stairs and made us sweaty.

but the 3rd set were the metal kind you can see through.

and they were spiral.

and they were scary for me.

but we made it. 

and then at the very top,

we could see all of London, but it was so high!

I did not like it one bit!

here we are at Buckingham palace.

I was very bothered to have missed the royal birth by a matter of minutes.

the announcement was made 24 minutes after my plane departed.

I know HRH prince George would have loved his auntie amy!

and for my mom,

the statue of peter pan.

I took a quick walk through Kensington gardens and passed this along my way.

this was one of my favorite trips.

ryan and I had such a fun time being together.

i'm always so grateful for these times we have just being together.

and i'm soooooo thankful for good friends who sacrificed their week to take afton and ella.

we love the gruwells!