Utah and England

Well, I guess it's time to post about our trip.

At the end of July we drove to Utah again.  The kids do pretty well.  It's kind of fun, which sounds strange because it's about 12 hours driving, but it's not very often we get to spend that much time together without a whole lot of distractions.  So we actually kind of enjoy it.  We spent a few days in Sandy before Dave and I left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa Edwards and got on a plane to London.

 Sam started swimming lessons.  It was a little too cold in the morning for his liking.  But I got to run into Sarah Brown, my old roommate who also had a daughter in swim lessons at the same pool.  That was fun.

 We caught the Days of '47 Parade with grandpa and his bag of chips.

 And we went to the Butler Days fair where the kids got to sit in a mini fire truck and play in bounce houses and slides.

I was nervous about how the kids would handle us leaving, especially Thomas.We tried to prepare them and talk about how we'd be leaving and then we'd come back.  We made a special calendar so they could see what days we'd be flying, be in England/Poland, and what day we'd fly back.  I think that was a good thing to do, at least for Sam.  Anyway, when I was saying bye to Thomas he was just sliding down the stairs on his tummy, waved and said, "Bye Mommy."  No tears, no gripping my legs and pleading to be picked up, no devastation.  Wow.  That was unexpectedly easy.  And since they handled it well it made it a lot easier for me to handle it well.

We flew through the night to London, arriving at Heathrow on Thursday morning with very little sleep.  When I was tired on the plane Dave and I were watching a show so I didn't go to sleep.  When it was over I had a hard time falling asleep.  I don't know if I've ever been that tired as I was Thursday afternoon.  I'm not one that usually falls asleep super easily, but I kept falling asleep.  Dave kept waking me up because we wanted to try to stay awake so we didn't ruin our chances of a good sleep that night.  But I just kept falling right back to sleep.

Anyway, Thursday morning my parents (who are serving as missionaries in the London-South mission) picked us up at the airport.  We rode the tube into London and went to the tower of London.  We could see the city was gearing up for the olypmics which were about to start on Saturday.  The Tower of London was fun and interesting.

Dave in the armory.

 Us in the tower grounds.  The tower mostly seems to be about execution.  On the bridge behind us you can see the olympic rings.

 My dad went to check on something and he came back and said, "I saw Matt Lauer."  So we decided to go check it out.  Matt Lauer, Katie Couric  Meredith Viera, and-I'm not sure who the middle one is- were there, presumably to cover the olympics.

 The tower in the background with me about to blow my nose.  I had a cold and my ears wouldn't pop after coming down in the airplane.  It's surprising how irritating plugged ears are.

 Our guide at the tower-very entertaining.

Friday we went to Winchester which was a lovely place south of London.  We also managed to get Dave's glasses which he stepped on the night before.  Below is the round table, if it even exists.

 Mom and me in Winchester.

 Dad and Dave in Winchester Cathedral.

Pretty windows below in the Cathedral.  Sam wants me to say that it's Sam and Patti in the picture.  I said, "But Sam's not in the picture."  He said, "I see two Sams."

Saturday was a bit long on the traveling side of things (which didn't seem to be anybody's fault except maybe the olympics), but we finally made it to see a few things.  This is Dave in the British Museum.

 Big Ben

 West Minister Abbey

 Buckingham Palace below.  Can you tell I'm tired?

I think I'll save Poland for the next blog post.