London: Buckingham Palace, Ben Franklin's House, Trafalgar Square, British Museum

Here we are in London. Let me tell you how crazy the bus/tube system is. We're always asking if this is the right bus to so and so. I feel like such a tourist. Anyway, here's some pics of the things we saw today.

Wellington Arch (we walk through here to get to Buckingham Palace)

We got here just in time to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Can you believe that I was able to weasel my way up to the fence. Jake and my mom couldn't believe it! I was able to get some great pictures and video. I was on the side but that works for me.

Buckingham Palace

The backside of the palace marching band

They came so close to the fence, it was great. The person in the black is a female, cool, huh?

Look how close he is. I love it!!!

The queen's guards

This was at St. James' Palace just down from Buckingham. There were two guards here. This one looks so young.

We're walking away from the palace toward these arches.

Of course, I had to visit the last standing house that Benjamin Franklin lived in. It was pretty cool. We did a little tour. I got all the info for my students for years to come.

Here I am sitting in one of the rooms holding a feather pen.

Just love the phone booths. Can you tell that Jake and I are in each one?

We went on to Trafalgar Square where they had these huge lions. It was too tall for me and my mom to climb up on, but leave it to Jake to take a running leap.

Jake and I

This was an old police watch booth that they had in the olden times. It's now more or less a storage closet.

We then moved on to the British Museum. It was free admission and had tons of things to see inside. We didn't get to see everything, but tried to get the best stuff first. They had a bunch of mummies, Egypt stuff, the Rosetta Stone, and some Samurai weapons stuff.

Mom and Jake behind one of the burial tombs

The inside of that tomb

Mummy

Look what I spotted on the back of one of the mummies burial places, wheat, yes it lasted for thousands years in the Egyptian tombs, yea for food storage

Nice picture of a dessicated body that they found fully intact from the Egyptian times

Day 1 & 2

Hello everyone!! Luckily we have internet access here in London at our hotel, and Jake just happened to bring his Laptop. So I'll try to post as we go, but I don't think I'll be able to on the cruise, we'll see. Anyway, this is our Day 1 & 2, because it basically took us that long to get here. The flight was not good, I mean it wasn't bad except that it was about an hour late leaving Texas, some auto-pilot malfunction that was stuck in test mode and had to get reprogrammed and then trying to sleep on that thing was a joke!! We landed in London at about noon which is 8 hours later than Arizona....which would be....4am your time. We decided to just stay awake and then take sleeping pills London nighttime so we wouldn't have any jet lag. I think it worked. Anyway, here's some pics of what we did.

My mom, me and Jake waiting in the Phoenix airport

In London, our hotel, Peckham Lodge, I was scared but very pleased, we even have our own bathroom and don't have to share with neighbors. We were so stinkin' tired lugging our luggage around on the tube, train and bus and trying to figure out the systems. Craziness I tell you!! We freshened up at the hotel and then went out to Harrods. It's a very famous shopping mall of sorts, but VERY expensive. You just basically look and maybe buy something to eat or little trinkets.

Here's Harrods on the outside

We saw this interesting child's dress. It looked like a bunch of tutu's put together in a dress form. Anyone want to guess how much this was????

Sorry, a little sideways...It was 799.00 Pounds which is like $1200. Pocket change people, pocket change.

This is one of the ceilings going up the escalator. Harrods had like 5 or 6 floors.

These look like nice men's jackets right, well they could also save your life. How you ask? They are bullet proof, yup, bullet proof. Not very cool for Arizona weather, so I passed it up.

They even had a shrine of sorts for Princess Diana and her guy friend who were killed. They even had her ring in the center of that pyramid thingy. Very pretty. If you click on the picture you'll get a better picture of the ring.

In the food part there was a cute old guy cutting up fresh fish. There were a ton of fish on display in the front of him.

Jake and I standing in front of some fishy statue in Harrods. We went back to our hotel for the evening to sleep. Can you believe that it's still light outside at like after 9pm? Crazy, I tell you. I can't complain...the weather here is usually cloudy and rainy. I think we brought the sun with us. Great day for pictures. It's going to be that way for the next few days, which is great because we'll be here for those days and then leave. Pictures are no fun in the rain, so I'll take the sun. Besides, it's only like low 70's here. Great huh? Well...I'll write again soon about what we did on day 3 here in London. Bye for now.

WARNING!!!!!!!!!

Warning!!! I'm not trying to make anyone jealous, but I'm going to be posting a whole load of pics when we get back in about 3 weeks. We are leaving in like ummm....2 1/2 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's our schedule because I just know you all want to know this...... just teasing. Here comes the bragging part.....I'm sorry, I'm just soooooo stinkin' excited!!!!!! This trip has been my dream since like 8th or 9th grade and now it's coming true.

5/29- flying to London, England
5/30- arrive in London, England
5/31- London sites
6/1- Jake's bday and more London sites
6/2- more London, Winsor/Bath/Stonehenge
6/3- travel to Dover, England, get on cruise ship
6/4- at sea
6/5- Copenhagen, Denmark
6/6- Berlin, Germany
6/7- at sea
6/8- Tallin, Estonia
6/9- St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
6/10- St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
6/11- Helsinki, Finland
6/12- Stockholm, Sweden
6/13- at sea
6/14- at sea
6/15- return to Dover, England, fly out to Edinburgh, Scotland
6/16- Edinburgh, Scotland sites
6/17- Stonehaven, Scotland, visit my castle "Dunnottar"
6/18- fly back to London, England, do more sites
6/19- Happy 10th Anniversary!!!, fly home to Arizona (sniff, sniff)

Schooooool's out for summer!!!

As the song goes......by Alice Cooper, I think......"Schooooool's out for summer!!!" After I checked out with the Principal on Friday, Jake and I left for New Mexico to visit my sister Vanessa and her family. Jake brought his dirtbike motor and he and Stephan worked on it together, while Vanessa, Grant, Zoe and I played.

Jake and Stephan working on the motor

Vanessa and I

Grant and Zoe jumping on the trampoline

I loved this one with Zoe's mouth open and Grant in the air

Aunt Seesa, as they call me, jumping with the crazies. Oh wait, I'm the crazy!!

Showing them a few tricks like falling flat on my tummy

I use to do this with my sisters when we were growing up, fun times

Great shot of me bouncing Zoe. I look like I'm hanging on the net.

Veggies are Coming!!!

Our garden is really starting to go to town. I can't wait to start eating all those yummy veggies.

tomatoes

more tomatoes

zucchini, there are so many little babies in there
sorry, somehow the picture is sideways

Here's the first zucchini I picked, yummy, yummy

onions

More onions, isn't that weird...I've never seen a flower grow at the top of an onion before

The whole garden at a glance

By the back fence, Jake planted some sunflowers with my sad, dying sweet peas

Another New Haircut

So I got my hair cut really short several weeks ago, but it just didn't have the angle I was looking for. We gradually cut it shorter so I could get use to it. So... my friend Valerie cut it up again, and I love it!! It's great for the weather too. Whew!!! Thank goodness you can't see my grey hairs. I'm waiting like 2 more weeks to color it, so it will look nice for our European trip. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 1/2 more weeks until we leave. YAHOOOOOO!!!