Day 1: Arrival, Westminster, Big Ben & Parliament

Dad took about 1500 pictures on this trip, so I'll include a small sample (it's so hard to choose!). You can click on the pictures to englarge them. As usual, pictures don't do anything justice, you really have to be there. . .

Flying over London...

Here's how we looked switching between hotels, carrying/rolling our bags, stopping on street corners to look at maps.

These telephone booths are EVERYWHERE, even in the country.

With a member of the queen's royal horse guard. I forget where this is but it was somewhere close to No. 10 Downing street where the Prime Minister, Tony Blair lives. I would include a picture of his house, but it's really not much to look at comparatively. . .

Big Ben and Parliament during the day. . .

. . . and at night.
There's a story behind this picture, this picture is actually about Day 4. Mom and Dad decided
they wanted to ride a double decker bus so we got on one on the other side of Ben, rode it across the bridge, and they insisted we get off at the last second to take this picture. So we rode a bus for about 1/4 of a mile. I'm sure everybody watching us scramble off the bus said, "Look at those silly Americans..."

Westminster Abbey
This building is across a square from Big Ben and is where the coronations happen and where many of the anchient monarchy are buried, like Mary Queen of Scotts and her sister Elizabeth I (remember the movie we watched at the Andersons, girls?). It's beautiful in there but it's almost like a tomb because you're walking around these huge stone caskets with stone figures of the people inside laying on top with their hands folded. Sorta creepy. However, the accoustics are amazing. We heard a choral and organ evensong here.

England, here I come!

I thought I'd take a quick minute to write on my way out the door to get to DC to get on a plane to fly to England. I think this is going to be the biggest adventure my family has yet embarked on and from the frenzy downstairs I daresay this could be very interesting... So I hope you all think of me as I'm over there in the rain walking around looking at very old things (maybe even in the stuff, Carrie ;-). I'm sure at least one of the hotels we stay at will have internet so I'll try to get on and drop you all a note.

A Fishy Day

The week was topped off with a break from packing to the GA Acquarium with Carrie and Ryan. Here's some pictures from the trip mostly from the tank with the whale sharks since that was the most exciting!

It's very exciting to be crammed in a small enclosed tube with lots of people when a whale shark goes over your head and the volume doubles from all the "oooh!'s and ahhh!'s"...

Here's a school of rays, there's a bunch of them in the big tank, it's about the size of a football field.


Here's Carrie (can you find her?) with Ralph... or Norton... we don't know which. Hard to believe these guys are just young sharks. They came from Thailand where a bunch of fishermen were keeping them in a sea pen.

And for a more close up view...

And here's my friend the sea turtle. He winked at me, really he did! Carrie saw it too!

For more pictures and a different perspective check out Carrie's blog.

One last Lookouts game...

The festivities continued with a Lookouts game Tuesday night (which they won amazingly). Ryan was supposed to go with us but unfortunately he got hit in the face with a softball the afternoon before and took a trip to the Emergency room for stitches in the lip.

(For more pictures... funny ones... see Carrie's blog...)

I got tagged...

So I read my sister's blog tonight and now I have to write I have to post six weird facts/insights/etc about myself for other people to read. If you are a person that was tagged looking at this, then do the same on your blog!

1. This time two weeks from now I will be in England TOO. WOW!
2. I do NOT want to be cremated (apparently I'm the only one in my family who doesn't want to be). Who wants to go visit the river where your mother's ashes are, or the cliff your father blew off of...
3. I save things, lots of sentimental things. But last night I threw a lot of them away... because I'm MOVING!
4. I will only use Arm and Hammer toothpaste. Every other kind is disgusting.
5. My second favorite color is green... or maybe a deep burgandyish red... you all know what my favorite color is...
6. The first thing I ever wanted to be when I grew up was a librarian... come on... you know why... where else would you be able to be around thousands of books all day and have a never ending reading supply!

Sabbath at the RiverWalk

On Sabbath we went to the TN RiverWalk with the Heilmans to spend the afternoon. After all the rain this week, it was wonderful to finally get outside in some sunshine.

Carrie really should learn how to behave in front of cameras...

but she does look like she's having fun...


Who will play catch with me once Carrie and Ryan are gone?


The circle of frisbee... well... most of it...

Finishing a paper/project that is 30% of my grade in a class today. It's actually going better than I thought. That is if I actually start doing it this morning. Tomorrow ends it for this semester and I CAN'T WAIT. I'm just checking off the list for these masters' classes. I don't think I'm looking forward to a single one of them. Also some are the lesser of two evils...