Europe Trip: Part Two

Early Wednesday morning, we took the train to London. After we dropped of our bags at the hotel, we went to Hyde Park and the Orangery for tea. The Orangery is right next door to Kensington Palace (where William and Kate are going to live). Unfortunately we didn't see them.

Our afternoon tea was good, but really small and really pricey. I think we calculated it was 3 dollars a bite. The Orangery is also really close to the BYU London Centre, so after our tea, we walked there so that I could take a little trip down memory lane.

The caretaker let us in and we were able explore a bit because the spring group hadn't arrived yet. I got to see my old room. It was so fun to be back there. The London study abroad program was definitely my favorite thing that I did during college. Afterward, we went back to the hotel and got settled in. Our hotel was in a pretty great location, right next to the London Eye and Big Ben.

Here is the view out our window at night...pretty magical.

I called Jeremy over to the window that night to ask if he could see Peter Pan flying around Big Ben. I think he wondered what they put in my tea at the Orangery...On Thursday morning, we went to the Tower of London. Here we are on the way to the tower.

I think the Tower is my favorite place in London, there is so much history there.

When we first got there, we went on a Beefeater tour. The Beefeaters are the ceremonial guards at the Tower of London. 

They give you a really colorful tour of the highlights of the tower. They take you to the place where Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey were beheaded, the "traitor's gate," where Queen Elizabeth and so many others entered the tower. My favorite thing that our beefeater said was, "After this tour, you all need to go visit the crown jewels. Ladies, take a look at the jewels, then take a look at your left hand, then take a look at the man standing next to you, then punch him. You deserve better."

Jeremy and I reenacted this. The crown jewels were amazing. It was hard to believe they are real. Here is a picture of Carter and Jeremy with tower bridge.

In the background, you can see a cage of ravens in the courtyard. The legend is, that if the ravens ever leave the tower, England's monarchy will fall, so they keep six ravens there at all times, plus two spares. One of the most interesting exhibits that they had going on while were were there was one about all of the animals that were kept at the Tower of London. It used to be really fashionable for kings to give each other gifts of exotic animals. Whenever a monarch received an animal, they would bring it to the tower. At one time, they had lions, baboons, an elephant, and a polar bear.

They tied a rope to the polar bear and let it go fishing in the Thames river. It made me sad learning about all of the animals that had to live there. Here are a couple of pictures of us at  the Tower. I actually really love the candid one that accidentally got taken, it captures our trip better than most!

That night, Jeremy, Heather, my dad and I went to see The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe.

It is a pretty close replica to the theater that existed during Shakespeare's time. The play was awesome. Caliban's character was great. During the play, he stole one of the "groundling's" beer, drank it, belched, then spit it on the audience. On Friday, we toured Westminster Abbey in the morning.

In the afternoon, Jeremy, Carter and I went to the British museum. 

I love looking at all of the Greek statues. Carter enjoyed them as well.

That night we met up with the rest of the family at Harrods for dinner. They seriously have EVERYTHING there. Jeremy told me he would give me five dollars to act like I was going to breastfeed Carter on one of the 25,000 Fendi couches. It was a pretty tempting offer, but in the end I decided against it...even though I did end up nursing Carter in some pretty odd places by the end of the trip. The toy department at Harrods was really fun. They have a little nursery of baby dolls. 

As I was holding Carter near the dolls, a women walked by, did a double take, and then said, "Oh look, a real one!" In the chocolate department at Harrods, I got some salted caramels and a chocolate macaron. They were divine. Jeremy got some chocolate covered pistachios.

On Saturday, all of us took the train out to Hampton Court, the palace of King Henry VIII. It was really fascinating to learn more about King Henry and all of his wives.

The next morning, we had to take a little time out to do laundry. Jeremy loaded up all of the dirty clothes into the bottom of the stroller and walked to the laundromat. Since the beginning of the trip, Jeremy had stopped shaving, and by this time, he had some pretty good scruff going. The combination of the beard and stroller made him look extremely homeless. This was one of my favorite moments from the trip.

When he tried to come back in the hotel, the doormen asked him, "Sir, can we help you with something?" hahaha. Later that day, Jeremy and I went on a walk to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery.

I love this picture of me, Carter, and the random photobomber in the background. You can also really faintly see Big Ben. Here is Jer in Trafalgar Square.

After the National Gallery, we went to Evensong at St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Carter wasn't a huge fan of Evensong, so we hung out outside and sang songs from Mary Poppins until it was over. It was so great to be back in London!

Europe Trip: Part One

Jeremy and I got home from our trip to Europe a few days ago. I think we are all still a little bit jet lagged (especially Carter, he has been wanting to party every morning at 4) but it was worth it, we had such a great time. In the weeks leading up the trip, I was getting pretty nervous about how Carter would do on the flight and on the trip, but he did great. I think he was about as good as a five month old could be. We took a red eye flight to London on April 19th. When we got to the gate, we got a few stink eyes when people saw that we had a baby with us. As we were getting off the plane, a lot of those same people stopped us to tell us how good he was. A couple of people said, "Wow, there was a baby on this flight!?"

 Here is Carter, ready to get on the plane! After we landed in London the next morning, we took a bus from the airport to Exeter, where my sister is studying at the university. Here is Carter, sleeping on the bus.

 In Exeter, we met up with my family, picked up a few groceries and then drove about 45 minutes into the English countryside in Devon. Here is the cute little cottage that we stayed in

 On Sunday, we went to church in Lydford. The church is beautiful, it was built in the 1300s. I think almost everyone in the congregation was over the age of 60, so Carter was kind of a novelty.

 Next to the church is Lydford Castle, built in the 1100s. I guess this was used as a pretty terrible prison during the reign of Henry VIII.

After church, we went for a picnic at the the Mount Edgecumb Folly. It was a gorgeous view out to the ocean. "Follies" are structures that rich English people used to build on their property in the 18th century that were meant to look like Roman ruins. For all you Downton Abbey fans, if you notice, they have follies on the  grounds at Downton...anyway...

 I think one of the more terrifying experiences I have ever had in my life is driving on the roads through the hedgerows in Devon. You can't tell how bad it was from this picture, but this is a two lane road. It was

barely big enough for one car and you couldn't see around the bends in the road at all...and we were driving on the wrong side of the road. As we were driving, we saw a motorcyclist fly around a corner. He saw us, panicked, slammed on the breaks, and skidded onto our side of the road and into the front of our car. I saw him laying over the front of our car, and I thought, "Oh my gosh, I am going to have to give him CPR, I don't know how to take care of him, he doesn't have a uterus!" Luckily when we all jumped out of the car, he popped up and said "cheers" and was fine.
 On Monday, Jeremy, my dad, Heather and I went on a guided hike on Dartmoor. Our guide showed us a bunch of stone circles that are thousands of years old. They know that they have something to do with the seasons, but that's about it. I thought the moor was a little bit creepy...and far too cold. My favorite part about it was the Dartmoor ponies. They just live wild out there. I kept trying to feed them an apple but they were not interested.

 This is one of the stone circles that we saw. After the moor, Jeremy and my mom and Dad hiked Lydford gorge. Heather and I went the next day. The waterfall at the end was really beautiful.

 My favorite thing was all the of lambs that we saw along the way, they were adorable!

On Tuesday, my dad, Heather, Jeremy and I drove to Tintagel, the legendary ruins of King Arthur's Castle. I think Tintagel was probably the most spectacular sight we saw on the whole trip. Jeremy and I took turns carrying Carter in the baby bjorn. As I was carrying him up those stairs, it brought back lots of memories of being pregnant.

 I thought this was the most unusual, impractical place to build a castle, it is literally right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. Jeremy also went down to the beach to explore "Merlin's Cave" which is a cave the runs underneath the castle. You can only get there at low tide.

After exploring the Castle, we had some authentic fish and chips in the village.

Most of the food we had in England was actually pretty good. The English just have an uncanny knack at making things sound really unappetizing. They call apple cider "cloudy apple juice" bacon, "back bacon." thick cream, "clotted cream," and sandwiches, "butties." Yum. Here is a cool sign that we saw outside of a restaurant in Exeter

The next day we took the train back to London. I'll post about London soon!

Visits

This post is a little bit late, but better late than never, right? In February, I flew home to Boise for a week and a half. It was really great to see my family and the dog, even though the dog didn't recognize me after two years (we think he may be getting senile). He warmed up to me after a while.  Carter had a pretty great time napping and playing with his Nana West.

We took him swimming for the first time at the YMCA. He loved it!

While we were in Boise, Carter got to meet two members of the "Quad," Cami and Brooke.

It was also really great to be able to spend some quality girl time, sans baby on my trip. My mom watched Carter and Brooke and I were able to go to the newly rededicated Boise temple together. It looks really gorgeous inside. Halfway through the trip, my mom and I drove to Herriman, Utah to stay with my sister, Noelle. It was great to spend time at their house eating good food and catching up with them. It was really fun for Carter to meet his Aunt Noelle, his Uncle Nic, and his cousins, Luke and Max for the first time.

Max and Carter are exactly five months apart, so I think they'll be great buddies when they get a little bit older. Max was pretty curious about Carter.

All of the cousins with Nana West.

While we were staying at Noelle's,  Carter got to meet another Quad member, Merrilee, for the first time.

We were also able to meet up with my brother in law and sister in law, Brandon and Jessica at Kneaders for some french toast. I will be overjoyed if Kneaders or Cafe Rio ever make it out to PA!

Carter also got to spend a little bit of time with his great grandparents.

As much fun as it was to see everyone, it was good to be home again. I don't know if Jeremy will ever let us go on vacation again for that long without him. I think he really missed Carter...and the grocery and laundry fairy :) A couple of weeks ago, Jeremy's mom flew in for a few days over Easter weekend. It was really fun to have her here. We were able to go see the Titanic artifact exhibit and go out to lunch in Philadelphia. Jeremy and his mom went to Washington DC on Saturday to see the cherry blossoms and the sights in the city.

Unfortunately, there were no cherry blossoms, but I think they had fun anyway! Here are pictures of everyone from Easter

Valentines Day

Happy Valentines Day! We had a fun valentines day at home this year. Jeremy brought home Chick Fil A, ICED by Betsy cupcakes and roses, pretty perfect! 

Jeremy gave me a "day out" for Valentines day. He gave me a gift certificate to take a french pastry making class and a gift certificate to the mall. I gave him a man purse. It's actually a pretty awesome travel bag to take to Europe. Carter gave both of us a dirty diaper :) Carter is getting cuter every day, he is smiling and laughing more and more. He just started wearing size 2 diapers and started wearing 6 month clothes. He has gotten so big so fast! I thought these pictures of him were pretty hilarious