Always Great When Auntie Michelle, Grandma and Grandpa Come!!!!

It's always great when 
Auntie Michelle, Grandma and Grandpa come visit!

We are a little late in the blog, so this is actually Spencer with his first post. I feel this is a little bit a "family journaling effort," so I am doing my part :)  Can I just say we love it when family or friends come to visit. Shout-out to Michelle, the first sibling to come and have tea with Queen and play in London with us.  
So, as soon as she landed, Britt took my Mom, Dad, and Michelle to tour Windsor Castle and see the changing of the guards.

You can't see it in the picture but the guard definitely had a smile on his face with these two hotties. 

The next day Brittany, Mom, Michelle and Alyson went for a "see the city day" in London. Brittany is a 5-star tour guide and has the trains, tubes, and busses down cold. They had a blast!! The day started with a train/tube ride to Tower Bridge with a walk across the upper part of the bridge which gave them fabulous views of the city. 

Walking across the tower bridge, with the glass floor was a really cool and a little scary they said. This bridge leads straight to the Tower of London.

From here, they got on the city boat cruiser and took a boat tour down the River Thames, which is a must. 

If you come with me, I will actually sing God Save The Queen during the ride!!

Great views of Parliament 

Let's be honest, everyone needs this picture!!!

London Eye

***So clearly my blogging skills and patience with this program are not great. The pictures below are when we went to Stonehenge. (not sure how they landed on this spot) It was by far the windiest day in Britain, but it was fun and worth the drive. 

It was so windy, and part of the memory. The kids loved leaning into the wind!!

Okay, back to Brittany's tour...

They discovered the architectural phenomenon of Westminster Abbey 

And into the souvenir shop...

This might be one of my fav pictures. 

Typical traffic you can see from atop a double-decker bus in Piccadilly Circus

Trafalgar Square - They went inside the National Gallery and saw a 

few of the great Impressionist's masterpieces. I understand they even went to Fortnum and Mason department store where they could only afford the mini fancy cupcakes! (which we had later on the train ride home.)

Once our crew came to home from school, Grandpa, myself, and the kids 

jumped on the train to meet the girls in London.

These two love to read, and it is such a great way to pass time on the train. 

So the girls had a 14 hour day in London. 

The night ended with the play Lion King - AMAZING!!

Incredibly grateful for grandparents who come and visit and create amazing memories with our family.  Also this city is amazing!!! We never get tired of going into London and seeing the sights.

On the train ride home, Grandma had bought cupcakes for all the kids at Fortnum & Mason!!! Since they won't be in London for their birthdays, we had an unbirthday party (going to the Lion King and eating cupcakes on the train ride home was a pretty great un-birthday party)

Because we believe in constant motion, the next morning we got and headed back into London for a food tour. We ran into our good friend Yuchen at the train station!!!

Aunt Michelle, was all about the jumping pictures!!

The East Side walking food tour is a must. We went with our friends the Fitzgerald's (Jason, Mary, Ben and Nick) and had such a good time. The food was amazing, the tour guide was funny and informative, and the company was the best. We stopped at 8 different restaurants and sampled the best of East London dining. We will do this one again. Our tour guide, Oliver, was incredible. Ike and Anne loved it.

A fun little British pub where we stopped and had a proper 

English Bread and Butter pudding!!

Because there are so many rules to building in London, the owners side-stepped this building code by building its own new, up-dated front, 

so as not to disturb the original facade.

Famous Cheese Shop - originally from France

Best fish-n-chips in London, wrapped in newspaper and all!

Next stop was the funniest British Pub that has a famous cat in it. This cat gets to sit wherever he wants and the rule is no one can move the cat!!! They were very thoughtful to accommodate us with a fun orange fizzy drink. 

Best Curry in London!!! 

This street they call the Curry Mile, because it is all Indian and Curry restaurants; there were something like 30-50 curry restaurants in this area. (I obviously can't remember the exact #)

This is a 24/7 hour bagel shop and was absolutely amazing. 

Fitzgerald's are from New York and even they said it is a proper bagel place. 

Really cool spot in East London is the street art District, where you have artist's come and pain all different sorts of art work. Super Cool

After the food tour was over, Brittany and Ike headed home for Ike to attend a party and Anne, Michelle, Grandma and Grandpa, and myself had some more site-seeing to do. 

This was my first time to St. Paul's Cathedral, it was Anne's second and so she gave us quite the tour. We could not believe how much she remembered from her tour, it was really fun!!

Views from atop St. Paul's Cathedral

Yep, another blogger error, this is where the Stonehenge pictures should of been 

Monday, came - and everyone went to visit Bath where the Romans once built quite a city. (Well, everyone except me...someone has to work :))

Bath Abbey

This is the pigeon man, and as you can see from the pics below,

 he loves pigeons and gets them really close to you!!!

Inside the famous Roman Bath's

Inside the Abbey

Pulteney Bridge- historic bridge with shops built right into it. It is considered to be one of the most beautiful bridges in the world; similar to the one in Florence, Italy.

Yes..that is Grandpa playing in the maze with the kids! 

Everyone came home in love with Bath and saying one day was not enough!!! As you can see this was an action packed 5 days but I think we showed Auntie Michelle a good time in the UK - We hope she comes back!!! Next stop Barcelona....