London Calling...

Our adventures in London included Grandma Nancy, new knee and all.  We were a little worried that we may have broken Grandma.  We walked a LOT.  David was wearing a pedometer and we had a couple of days in London where we were over 10 miles for the day.  In spite of the mileage, we saw it all...

Buckingham Palace

The British Museum

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Downing Street

Horse Guards

Goodwin Court

The Tower of London

Our Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London

Guard at the Jewel House at the Tower of London

The White Tower at the Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Daddy and Molly on Tower Bridge

Grandma and Katie looking down through the glass floor on the Tower Bridge walkway

We saw this fox at the Old Brompton Cemetary!

Big Ben

Weitzel Wanderings

Once upon a time I had the idea that I would be writing and posting regularly.  Life, however, had a different idea.  When I logged in today Blogger told me that I hadn't posted anything since July of 2013.  Almost 2 years ago.  Wow.  I'm not even going to try to catch up.  As I thought back to what was going on during all that time,  I remembered vividly why I wasn't posting.  The Fall of 2013, pretty much all of 2014, and even the first 3 months of 2015 were incredibly challenging.  Dramaville indeed.

However, there was something getting us all though the last 6 months.  Something we planned for a year.  Something that will be legendary in our family for years to come.  It was 3 weeks in England, Wales, and Scotland packed full of history, culture, and adventures in geekery that will go down in Weitzel Family History as the pinnacle of family vacations.

This is roughly how it went down:

Week 1 - London
Week 2 - Cotswolds, Stratford Upon Avon, Bath, and Wales
Week 3 - York, Scotland, Lake District, Peak District

We packed in a whole lot in those 3 weeks - going every moment of every day from the time we woke up until the time we fell into bed at night.

Here's a little taste:

Our little flat in London - it's the downstairs door on the right.  

The daffodils were just a taste of what we would see all over the countryside - daffies EVERYwhere.

The London Eye

Buckingham Palace

Greenwich Royal Observatory

Hampton Court Palace

(Cameo's by Henry VIII and Cardinal Woolsey)

Katie has a key to the Tardis!?!

All ready for Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station

Holy butterbeer, Harry!  This place was A.MAZ.ING.  

Augill Castle - where we stayed in the "Pendragon" Suite

Chatsworth House (aka Pemberley)

Alnwick Castle

Our owl experience near Nottingham

Going out with a bang.  Our last adventure:  Special Stone Circle Access at Stonehenge

We took several thousand pictures on our trip.  These are just the tip of the iceberg...

In A Nutshell - March

March - March came in like a lion and went out like a lion.  It was pretty much all lion, all month.  At least here in Dramaville.  As work finally wound down all the other things I'd been ignoring for months  swarmed in to claim my attention.  It was exactly like that - a big swarm of everything buzzing in my ears demanding attention.

Here's what bubbled to the top...

There's a store here in L.A. called Whimsic Alley.  

For a Potterhead where could be a better place to visit on your birthday?!

Later, at home, Hagrid made her cake.

What's a celebration without Chocolate Frogs?

Plus a few besties for a Hogwarts style feast?

It was a pretty Potterific celebration!

Speaking of Magical Celebrations...

A special lil' bunny hopped on by our house and left some sweet surprises...

Winston thought it was pretty amazing!

There were plenty of treats to go around!

In the end, everyone was happy that Spring had hopped on in!

In A Nutshell - February

February - You were a bit of a blur too.  The routine was now: dog, work, dog, school stuff, dog, mom stuff, dog, sleep, repeat.

Somewhere in between all of that we put together a little thing called the Blue, Gold, and Pink Banquet.  Some of you who know Boy Scouts might be familiar with the Blue & Gold Banquet, but in our ward this year we added the Activity Day Girls in for some awards and fun - thus the Pink.  Because of my calling in Primary, I ended up deep in the middle of it all.  Our theme was "campfire".

I had the Mr. make us a "campfire" we could gather 'round for our program.

I made the awards and lanyards for our Activity Day Girls

The campfire theme travelled to our table decorations with some help from one of our Activity Day leaders.

I made these super cute and easy flag garlands.  

I loved how they brought the colors in, but kept the decorations simple.

For the cake competition my girls and I made this campfire cake.  The girls especially liked breaking the Pirouette cookies and smooshing the melted Starbursts to look like flames.

There's Lil'Sis getting her awards.

Big Sis was proud to get her awards too!

It was a fun night, but a bit of a blur in the middle of everything else we had rolling at the time. 

 I'm glad we captured a few pictures or I would never have remembered it!  

Sometimes that's just the way it is in Dramaville...