UK trip - London

At the Albuquerque airport ready for our trip!

                 

                     

Liam was sooo excited to go on the airplane. Every time we had a layover he begged nonstop to get back on the plane.

                    

                Who wouldn't want to be on a plane? Lollipops (to help ears pop), movies, snacks...

It was sooooo nice to have Joy with us to help with the kids.

The layover in Atlanta felt really long when we just wanted to get there.

                                

Peter actually scratched a cut onto his forehead so he could be like Harry Potter, so Joy had the great idea of drawing it on instead.

This is the Borough Market:

We let the boys pick a treat out at the market and they all picked a big lollipop.

We all got a lunch that looked good to us and ate it in picnic area.

Mel was so funny - he had a thing where he would interview random people about their lives. Here he is interviewing two young men from Israel.

Waiting for a boat down the Thames.

One of the days one thing led to another and we ended up after multiple detours, transportation issues and tons of walking (including on a tunnel under the Thames) at Greenwich. It was too late to do any museums there, but it ended up being one of our favorite places. It was definitely a tender mercy that we ended up there when we had no plans to!

Our Airbnb had a club pool. The boys swam almost every night when we got home.

The boys got good at rolling up the pool cover themselves.

Liam playing with cars at our Airbnb.

After walking around Greenwich, Lamoni and Joy stayed and found the Golden Chippy, which Lamoni had been dying to eat at. Then they went back into London to get nighttime pictures.

The boys had their own beds in each of our Airbnbs in UK, but they always ended up in the same bed together.

Showing us his "happy" face

Walking around Hyde Park

Here's a playground at Hyde park

One of the big highlights of our London trip was visiting Warner Brother Studios, where the Harry Potter movies were filmed. We could've spent all day there. 

Here's the bus that picked us up from the last train stop (which ended up being a bus stop because of all the construction that was going on the weekend we were there).

In the Great Hall

The potions classroom. The cauldrons were stirring themselves.

The sword of Godric Gryffindor

We learned how special effects and illusions were used in the film.

We spent a lot of time at the Hogwarts Express. There were no lines! Liam went through the train about 10 times.

Making howlers

Diagon Alley

Treasure in Gringotts

Gringotts Bank

Not sure why I don't have Benjamin's picture on here, but we got to go on a broom ride and see how it was done in the movies. Liam LOVED it.

The boys brought some money and saved it til we got to the Harry Potter gift shop. They pooled their money together and got the Gryffindor sword and a snitch.

This picture doesn't do the castle justice. It was indescribable.

Joy and Benjamin were buddies through the whole thing which was fitting since they've been reading Harry Potter for the past few years.

We didn't get back from Warner Brothers til about midnight, so Liam *finally* figured out how to sleep in the stroller.

This is the sword Peter bought, and on our way off the train Peter stuck the sword in a man's face and glared at him. When I asked him about it he said, "he had been laughing at me." Don't cross Peter!

This is out of order, but we took 2 taxi vans an hour from the London airport to our Airbnb. We landed at 8 a.m. and everyone stayed awake the whole day!

We went straight into the city after unpacking and saw the sites we've been talking about all year. We also went on the London Eye. I'm not sure why those pictures aren't on here, but I'll add them if I remember.

We went on lots of double decker tour busses. Liam has been obsessed with them since.

They took advantage of any minute they could run free.

At the Tower of London

Trying out the weapons.

Peter was constantly saying, "That's my sword. No THAT'S my sword!"

Tower of London gift shop. The boys were so good about saving their money for what they really wanted instead of getting everything they *thought* they wanted.

Peter had started scratching his forehead to make a scar like Harry Potter! :-/ So we stopped him and drew one on instead. He's so sad he has blonde hair and Harry Potter has brown hair.

Tour of Westminster

Eating fish and chips

Walking along the Thames River

Lots and lots of tours

Liam got so attached to double decker busses. Every time he saw one he would scream to go on it. And there are a lot of them...

After we unloaded at our Airbnb we headed right into London and went onto the London Eye. It was the perfect preview to our trip. It is now 4 months later and Liam still talks about the London Eye every day - and he even slept through most of it. 

Here is Benjamin when we went to London when he was only 2 months old. He wanted to recreate the photos.

There were a couple very cold days!

We found a delicious pizza restaurant after one cold long day and they gave us the whole upstairs to ourselves. It was so cozy and enjoyable.

Faith and Jason's exchange student, Marie, and her sister, flew in from Germany to spend a couple of days with us in London.

Ack! The shard is pokey!

Mid-afternoon nap on a hop-on hop-off bus.

So many escalators and elevators and stairs with the trains and tubes.

We got to walk under the Thames river!

We told Peter he couldn't run around the tube, so this is his compromise.

We got a 9 passenger Ford van to drive around the UK when we left London.

Lamoni said driving was one of his favorite parts of our trip was driving on the wrong side of the road on the wrong side of the street.