London, England

Our first couple of days in England we spent touring London.  We packed a lot in, looking back I am still impressed by how much we were able to do!  I think we did just about everything that was on our wish list!  Sorry about the length of this entry, we took over 500 pictures, and it was so very hard to narrow down.  These are the highlights!

One of our first stops was an english phone booth.  These are very stinky, so I wonder if anyone ever uses them at all anymore.  We liked this one the best because you can see Big Ben in the background.

We like to get ice cream where ever we go.  In England they have a style of cream they call "mr. Whippy".  It was very different then the rich gelato we are used too, but still very good.  The best I can describe is, it is soft serve that is almost like a rich whipped cream.  Very light, creamy and refreshing on a hot day!

 It was neat to see the olympic rings on the Tower Bridge

 We went on a river cruise along the Thames river, it was a great way to end one of our evenings in London!

 walking across the Tower Bridge

We took lots of breaks through out the days.  This stop the girls are putting together a sticker book they had gotten in the Tower Bridge.

 We went to the Winston Churchill war rooms museum.

This was fascinating, all a series of rooms in a bunker built underground, right near Parliament.  It was pretty fascinating to see their system, and also to see they still had their creature comforts...like separate bedrooms for Mr and Mrs. Churchill, private dining rooms and kitchens...fascinating how the aristocracy lives, even during war times.

 Big Ben, next to the House of Parliament.

 Westminster Abbey

No pictures were allowed inside, but we saw some awesome things.  My favortie parts of these old churches are the crypts.  We saw the tomb of Edward the Confessor, Elizabeth I, Mary queen of Scots.

Pretty fascinating!

Big Ben 

Inside the House of Parliment.

We actually sat in on a debate conducted by the House of Lords.

White wigs and all, it was pretty cool to see.

The boys had to wait outside in the hall, I wonder why?

The London Eye

 Inside the Eye.

This was probably one of the more expensive things we did, but we thought it was worth the money.  It gave a great overview of London, and was just generally a cool experience.  I was amazed at how many fit in one compartment, it was much larger then I had envisioned.

 Some 30 statues of the Olympic mascot were placed around London.  We didn't find all of them, but ran into quite a few.  This was one of our favorite...he is dressed up like Big Ben.

 Going under the London Bridge while on our river cruise

 Buckingham Palace

 Buckingham Palace

 Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace

I was amazed at what a ceremony this was.  It lasted well over an hour, with many parades of soldiers, a brass band  concert, and then the final march as the guards left the Palace grounds.

Next we visited St. Pauls cathedral

We got to hike up the dome, and learned that whispering domes make our boys even louder...if that is even possible!

The Tower of London

here is traitors gate, where one of our ancestors, Robert Overton, was imprisoned.  He was probably brought in through Traitors Gate by boat, that is how most prisoners were brought in.

 One of the many "towers" in the tower of London.  This place was huge, you could easily spend the better part of a day touring all the different buildings of the Tower.  We only had little over an hour, so just hit the highlights.

 One of the "highlights" is the White Tower.

This was the main residence of William the Conqueror, and is also built along side the ruins of the old Roman settlement Londonium.

The Crown Jewels are housed in this tower.  Also the medals for the Olympics were kept here until they were awarded.  We weren't able to view the medals...they weren't on display for the public.  But we were able to see the Crown Jewels, which are pretty amazing

This guard was awesome.  The boys were so fascinated with him, that he started marching for them.

 One of our last evenings in London, we walked in Hyde park, and ended up on the border of Kensington Park to see the statue of Peter Pan.

Each night ended in a ride on the London Tube, as we headed to where we parked our car.  The london tube was so vast.  It was mind boggling, but by the end of our London excursions we were traveling it like pros.

We loved our time spent in London.  It was so fun to tour a city and be able to speak and understand the language!  so refreshing!!  

Our Summer Vacation: England and Scotland!

We took way to many pictures on our trip.  It was also a very long trip, almost two weeks, so I will post in shifts.  Here is Day 1, our travel day.  We took the ferry over to Dover, England from Calais, France.  

 Hunter loved the Ferry!!

 It was very windy!

 Please pardon the water spots :)

Our first glimpse of England were the white cliffs of Dover.

What a beautiful welcome to an awesome country!

our first "English" castle

Dover Castle

We were on a bit of a time constraint, trying to maximise our time in England with the days off Matt was given.  So we did the Travel all in ONE day!  Doing it over, I think I would break it up into two days.  It was a very LONG day of traveling when you combine it with the wait time for, and ferry ride. The kids were troopers for their crazy parents though, and all did marvelous!

Legoland Deustchland!!

Matt had the 4th and 5th of July off of work, so late the night of the 4th he got this wild idea in his head that we needed to go to Legoland.  We have been to the San Diego Legoland, and our kids really enjoy it, so it is on our list of things to do here.  It just came a lot sooner then I expected.  I thought we were going to go to the zoo, but Matt woke us all up early and told us we were going to Legoland!

 can you see us?  we are that blob of humanity there under the "A"!

Anya on the first roller coaster she decided was fun.  She rode this one in San Diego, and was super excited to learn they have one here in Germany too!  Go Dragon Coaster!

you never know what you might find inside a shark!

I thought Jack would jump overboard at any given moment.

Anya and Matt tried out this new ride.  It was too scary for Anya when we were in Cali., but she decided to try it here.  She loved it, and said it felt like how she imagined flying on a dragon would feel like.  Matt is lower left, and Anya is right above him to the right.

We always have to have fun in the water area.  Here it was a series of splash and water works areas.

I love Hunter's face here.  It is like he is trying to figure out how they made that!!

Of course, lego mini land is always a hit.  It was fun to see some of the places in Europe we have visited made into mini's.

Neuschwanstein made the cut of course!

As well as the Rialto Bridge in Venice.  We rode a gondola under that bridge!

 Hunter looks like he is up to something!!

 My kids and I!

We had a great day in Legoland!!

Happy belated 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July everybody!  Sorry this is a bit late, I just don't seem to have time to play on the computer.  Everyday this summer we seem to be out on the go.  This year for the 4th we did some pretty cool things.  We first stopped by the P/x to visit our favorite friends the Sweet Tooth Cakery for a sweet and yummy treat.  Then we decided we wanted to do something to remember what a blessing Freedom is, and what it is all about.  There is a Concentration camp not too far from here, one of the first established actually.  It is Flossenburg concentration camp.  So we decided to check it out.

 Here is the entrance to Flossenburg, and what would have been the SS headquarters and offices.

 One of the guard towers, and the fence goes around a tunnel they built which lead to the cremation room.

The hill behind my beautiful smiling children, is the hill of ashes from those who suffered in this camp.

It really brings to mind, how grateful I am for the blessing of freedom, and that my children have not had to know what true horror is.

This Church was built after the American's freed the camp, they added the church on to one of the existing guard towers.

There were two American casualties that occurred in this camp.  Two brave, unknown pilots.

All throughout the camp there were plaques signifying the different nationalities that were in the camp, and how many casualties each nationally suffered.  In then end close to 20,000 people suffered and died in this camp, ranging from jews, prisoners of war, and German's that were deemed traitors and a threat to the Nazi movement.

It was a great learning moment for my kids, for them to see what can happen when your freedom is stripped away.  

 After touring the camp we decided to climb to the castle ruins on the hill above the town.

These were really fantastic, just what I imagined castle ruins would be like!

 My little warriors hiking through the ancient halls...

 It was a fun way to spend the 4th of July, even though we missed being with family desperately and we didn't get a fabulous parade.  We did get home in time to throw some burgers on the grill and have a little family BBQ.  Then we headed on base to meet up with a group of friends and watched the awesome fireworks show the Grafenwohr army base put on for us.   It was a fun night!