God Save the Queen

Let the European vacation begin! We started off our journey in the fast paced city of London. We arrived in London around 11am. After 12 hours on a plane, and only a few hours of sleep, we were exhausted, but in order to fight off the jet lag we got right to it! We grabbed our camera and headed straight to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. It was a beautiful sight indeed and so fun to actually be standing in front of the buildings we see so often in movies and television.


In order to get a bird's eye view of the city we took a ride on the London Eye. The London Eye is this giant observation wheel built in 2000 to celebrate the millennium. It over 400 feet tall, and has amazing views of the city.


Here's a picture of us inside the London Eye overlooking the Houses of Parliament.

We had a great afternoon just walking around the city and enjoying the sights. We toured Westminster Abbey (which was beautiful!), walked through gorgeous St. James Park, and checked out Piccadilly Circus.

All that walking leads me to the next two pictures. These pictures crack me up, because we really were as tired as we look in these photos. I like to call these our "Jet Lag Photos." Here we are taking a quick break at the memorial just outside of Buckingham Palace, and these are the pictures that we took. I think the look in our faces say it all...TIRED.

Over the next three days we saw all of the great sights of London. Here are a few of our favorites:

St. Paul's Cathedral - The whole time we were here I kept singing the "Feed the Birds" song from Mary Poppins. I was hoping to see the bird lady, but no such luck.

The Tower of London -- We really enjoyed our visit to the Tower. Here we got to see lots of interesting items from England's past--we even got to see the Crown Jewels, which were so sparkly and pretty I couldn't keep my eyes off of them. If I was the queen I would keep the jewels at home so I could wear them all day long.
This is a view of the Tower Bridge from the Tower of London walls.

The highlight of our London experience was Saturday night at the theatre. We saw Wicked and it was absolutely incredible!!!! Such a treat. The actors were amazing, and their cute British accents made it all the better.

To finish off our last night in London we took an evening stroll along the Thames. The Tower Bridge is just breathtaking at night and it was the perfect place to finish off our London experience.

If you are interested in viewing all of our pictures from London, click here.