Sweet Maddi

Opening her friends present before we headed out to go swimming for her birthday fun


Maddi has been waiting to turn 12 for a long time. She has talked about being in Young Women's for month's now ever since her friend Maddy Taylor's birthday last year. She turned 12 on Wednesday and was able to go to the activity which was on that evening. She was absolutely thrilled! This Sunday she received her For the Strength of the Youth booklet and her Personal Progress book. She brought her booklet's with her to school today. She is not afraid to tell others about what is important to her. She is a shining example to our family on how to love others and be Christ Like. Maddi has always loved to bear her testimony and does so faithfully each month. We are proud of her because she is courageous. She has gone through and will go through many trials in her life. She pulls through with a smile on her face at each hurdle.
Speaking of hurdles, school hasn't always been easy for Maddi. BUT, finally with some help and understanding from her teachers, she has made the honor roll for the first time EVER for Quarter 1 and Quarter 2!!! This quarter, she earned a sliver award for a GPA of 3.50-3.99. We are so very proud of her hard work. We love you Maddi, you make us proud to be your parents!

The final London post

I've posted a lot in an effort to catch up on our trip. I'll end with the flight over. Enjoy the picture overload!

Even the giraffe was protected. Dallin made sure that during take off and landing he was buckled in. What a good care taker!
Clutching her panda because Brilee was NOT enjoying take off. She was very hesitant to fly. After all, didn't we just read in the paper of an airplane crash? Wasn't it all over the news and didn't it crash into the water? Hmm....what were we going to fly over?? The English Channel!

No cares in the world, just squeals and laughter. A few plugged ears and near tears from Lauryn but not too shabby. The flight was just an hour long.

After the arrival into the metro station, we ran to Krispy Kreme. We've been waiting for this day for a very long time! The very disturbing news is that Dallin after eating the not so sweet donuts found in our bakeries here took one bite of the glazed donut with chocolate frosting and handed it back. He said it was too sweet. WHAT????I quickly put my hands over his mouth so he couldn't utter any other ill speaking of something the rest of us still hold near and dear to our hearts. For the record, my favorite is the chocolate one with the twinkie cream. Mike likes the custard filled, the girls go for the fruit filled.

Portobello Market

Here we are in the middle of Portobello Market which happens to be one of the most famous street markets in the world. There are tons of vendors selling stuff from antiques to food and new gadgets. We got there earlier like around 10 in the morning. This place became mayhem shortly after. I was cold and had become grumpy with the absurd crowds. I enjoy browsing when I have something in mind. I had no purpose therefore, I did NOT want to be there. Mike could've spent the entire day looking at each antique booth. He sure married the wrong person...sorry honey.




This is the sign that marks the underground or "tube station" or metro. Call it what you want, it was our transportation for the trip. This blues type group was performing on the street. We found them quite interesting and fun to watch. Look at the instruments they were using.
The suitcase base drum was cool.
They had quite the crowd watching them play their music.

Buckingham Palace

Every time we walked around, Lauryn and Dallin had their eyes on the ground scanning for any treasure they could find. At the end of the night they emptied their pockets with metro tickets, feathers, pop tops, rocks, coins, and anything else small they'd find. They're two peas in a pod outside. They could run in puddles and play in the dirt all day long and be happy.





Posing in front of Buckingham Palace
Waiting for the changing of the guard to begin. It was cold and we had about an hour and a half to stand and wait for the kind of- a little bit- ok a lot boring changing of the guard ceremony. It lasted for over an hour. The guards march around, the band plays, the guards march some more and then the bands play again and again. We were packed in like sardines, everyone trying to get a close look. Since we were there 90 minutes before it started, we were right along the fence.

Misc. Pictures

This is the London Eye Ferris Wheel. It's 443 feet tall and takes about 30 minutes to go all the way around. You stand up in the capsules which hold around 25 or so people. You get quite a view of the London area while riding inside.
Goofing off inside


The Parliament building with the clock tower (big ben)

The famous red phone booth that everyone has to take a picture of.

The Lamborghini dealership we walked by.

Mike drooling in the background over this car

Tower of London

This is looking out to the London Tower Bridge after we visited the Tower of london. We enjoyed our visit here.

The kids learned how to become knights and squires. They asked for volunteers and our kids were always eager to help out in the process of learning. I almost felt a bit sorry for the others in the group as our 4 were the ones to do the fun stuff.

Learning about the protection they used back in the 1500's.

The kids were learning how to be servants to their Lord's and Lady's. They progressed through 4 different rooms with the hopes of meeting the "king" after their training was over. They learned what it was like to be a page, squire and a knight.

Before each child went up, they asked their name and where they were from. Lauryn was first and told him that she was from the United States. Since this training is happening in the 1500's he laughed and said "sir Lauryn from the United States..whatever that is" I guess we could've said Germany but we're American! Everyone laughed and got a kick out of his reaction to us American's in the training.




Sir Brilee being knighted. It was funny to watch how serious the younger kids took this training. They made sure to bow with their knee NOT touching the ground because that was not allowed back then. Dallin loved this part of the Tower of London.
The group of eager Knights to be
It's never too cold for ice cream right?

Dallin loves to make a mess with his ice cream for the camera.

This picture was funny to take. We heaved the kids up on this wall. It was quite wide, not like they were ready to fall into the Thames river or anything like that. You would've thought they were on a skinny balance beam by the way they were clinging to each other. They were terrified on that wall and jumped down as soon as the picture was taken.

WICKED!!!

Here is Dorothy I mean Lauryn in her ruby red slippers
Riding in the" tube"



Posing in their fancy green shirts before the show.


We were in the 10th row smack in the middle section, super seats

This is after the show with Galinda the Good witch played by Diane Pilkington

This is Kerry Ellis who played Elphaba or the Wicked witch of the west. She is fabulous!

Birthday BOY!!

She looks just like that fish at the museum.

The famous red telephones all over London.


Our internet is still down, I'm sitting at a USO terminal with free internet. This just bites! Oh well, I'll slowly get to updating the blog. I'll start with Dallin's b-day that was on Sunday. We started out with intentions to go to a church in London but our attempts failed, we didn't make it up in time to be there at 9. We didn't have the lap top to look up another starting time for the local wards. Oh well, we had church in our thoughts that day. :-)
Our day started with a trip to the London Natural History Museum. All of the museum's in London are free! This museum was pretty cool! There were bones, animals, reptile and fish models, interactive science things and a whole lot of other fun stuff. We spent a couple hours inside, leaving just in time as the huge crowds were arriving.
We walked to Harrod's department store and shopped around there for awhile. By shopping I meant we glanced at the over priced items. We did buy some chocolates which were yummy.
That day we also celebrated his b-day lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. Free drink refills lured us into the restaurant. I hear they're the only restaurant around that do free refills, so far I believe it. Dallin was suprised when the waitress walked over carrying an icream in her hand with candles lit. She asked him to stand on his chair and invited the crowd to join her in a loud happy birthday song. He was embarassed but enjoyed the candles.
We ended up at Westminster Abbey and walked around the church grounds. We wanted to see the organ concert that evening but there really wasn't much to do around there while we waited for the concert to start 90 minutes later. We called it an evening and headed to the hotel to get packed up for our early departure. When I say early, I mean EARLY!!! Our wake up call was at 3:15 am. We had the taxi pick us up at 3:45 to take us to the bus which took us on the hour ride to the airport. Although it was early, we had a good trip back home.