Angie and the kids have arrived just in time for the Christmas holidays! We picked them up at the airport on Saturday and have been on the go ever since. We took them on a tour of our town and Avery's school. Avery enjoys being the "tour guide". We walked into town for an early dinner then headed back so they could get some much needed rest. They are adjusting well to the time difference.
On Sunday, we went into central London to visit Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park.
It's like a big carnival. The kids talked us into riding a few rides. They were only allowed to ride a few since each ride cost 4 pounds. Then we toured the Magical Ice Kingdom which was basically a large freezer with very cool sculptures made out of ice and snow. We also shopped at some Christmas markets. It was fun but VERY crowded at Hyde Park. We went by Buckingham Palace which is close by. We stood at the gate but we didn't get invited in. The Queen's not there. She's at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Maybe, next time! Lastly, we rode the London Eye. The view of the city was beautiful with all the lights.
 |
| Big Ben |
 |
| The London Eye |
On Christmas Eve we went ice skating at Hampton Court. Nobody completely executed a triple toe lutz, though Adisyn must have tried. She fell quite hard at the end of the session and hit her eye. Now she has a cool black eye and a great story to tell! The weather has not been good. In fact, it has rained almost all day, every day since they arrived. But hey, without the rain they would not have truly experienced London!
 |
| Ice Skating at Hampton Court |
On Christmas day we were up early to see what Santa left for the kids. Bruce said there is little doubt Santa has early dementia. He did not leave Bruce anything and thus clearly has lost his sense of good versus bad! We did our best to make the traditional meal. We had turkey, dressing, rice dressing, corn, green beans, sweet potatoes. and bread. It was actually very good. Later in the day we watched the NY Knickerbockers and the LA Lakers play, not so English!
On Boxing day (for those of you in the US, this is the day after Christmas), we made a day trip to Bath. We stopped at Stonehenge and that was way cool. The rock formation is estimated to be 5000 years old. The craftsmanship and engineering to set it in place and stack the stones was unbelievable. From there we went to visit the Roman Baths (closed unfortunately), but we went inside the church (Abbey). It was 500 years old and beautiful. A US Senator, William Bingham, was buried under the church in the late 1800's. He was the founder of the first bank in the US (The Bank of Pennsylvania) and was a close confidant of George Washington. Lastly we visited a couple more local historic sites (The Royal Crescent and Pulteney Bridge) before making the journey back home. Great days thus far!!
Even with all the rain, we've been lucky enough to miss most of it when we've been out. Hope to see some sun real soon! Tomorrow is the Muggle Tour in London and the weather does not look real promising but its been said the tour is super fun even if you're not a Harry Potter fan.
We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and have a blessed New Year.
 |
| The Bath Abbey |
 |
| Pulteney Bridge |
 |
| Stonehenge |
No comments:
Post a Comment