Today we drove over 5 hours touring the English countryside. It was fun to look out the window and see green hillsides, vibrant wildflowers, and grazing sheep.

Our main stop today was at Lyme Park where Pride and Prejudice was filmed. We had a good time exploring the palace and the gardens. Mom really enjoyed it!

Later we stopped at Sherwood Forest, home of the Legendary Robin Hood! There was a Robin Hood and Little John statue which we took pictures in front of. We ate dinner at The Robin Hood restaurant before heading back to our hotel. The drive home lasted 45 minutes longer than we'd expected due to some road closers. We were happy to finally make it back!

We left our house today to begin our trip within a trip! We're heading into the English countryside for a few days, but we will be back in London on August 1st.

This morning we drove to Blenheim Palace where Winston Churchill was born and raised. The estate is now home to the Duke of Marlborough, but we were able to tour parts of it. The palace grounds are beautiful and we had a great time walking around the spectacular gardens. We had fun racing through the hedge maze, playing giant chess, taking pictures in the rose garden, and walking through the butterfly tent. We also got to see where Churchill proposed to his wife! Pretty neat!

Dad had planned to have a picnic out on the grounds, but it started raining pretty hard so we ended up having an indoor picnic! We tried a bunch of strange British foods, but our favorite was the clotted cream biscuit with jam!

After exploring the palace we got back in the car and drove through the Cotswolds. We saw tons of sheep and beautiful hill sides. Yellow and purple wildflowers grow along the side of the road everywhere here! It's beautiful! We stopped at an old mill to take pictures and walk by the stream and old church before continuing on to Stradford-upon-Avon.

When we made it to Shakespeare's birth place we walked over to the Trinity Church where he is buried. Unfortunately it was closed so we didn't get to see his actual grave, but we got to see where he grew up and lived. We ate dinner in Stradford-upon-Avon at a yummy place called Wildwood. My calzone was delicious and Zach enjoyed his chicken pasta.

Finally we drove to our hotel in Coventry where we will be staying for the next two nights. We got settled in and headed to bed!

The boys were all excited to go to church today so they could wear their fancy new ties! The London ward is really different in the fact that most of the congregation are visitors. There are only 3 local girls in the 14-18 year-old Sunday School class that Zach and I went to and the rest were visitors!

After church we walked next door to the Victoria and Albert museum where admission is free. We looked at the old furniture, dishes, and clothing on display. It was all really ornate. My favorite part was when we saw the Raphael paintings and tapestries. They all depicted scenes of Christ and the Apostles. It was super neat!

After exploring the museum we went to the Tube station where we ran into the missionaries! We talked with them for a bit before catching our train. Once we got home we made lunch and ate.

We left to the London Temple. It took about an hour and a half to get there because Dad and Mom were having a rough time navigating. Once we got there we went into the Visitor Center. It is so cool how they have it set up. They have little touch screen displays that you can do different things on. Dad and Zach got into the Temple Geography Quiz! We walked around the temple grounds and took many photos. The temple and grounds are so pretty! It was really fun!

We headed home and started preparing for our trip inside a trip tomorrow!

We rented a car today! Driving was pretty insane. The whole driving on the left side of the road thing is pretty hard to get used to! Dad did a great job maneuvering our black little stick shift car to Hampton Court Palace and we were all pleased to arrive safe and sound!

We had a great time exploring the palace where King Henry VIII lived. We learned all about his six wives and their unfortunate fates.


The palace is huge and we had a fun time looking at the old tapestries, stain glass windows, and paintings. There were people dressed up pretending to be members of the king's court and King Henry VIII himself. It was fun to watch their performances.

Later we walked around the palace gardens. They are incredible! They had tons of beautiful flowers, cacti, lemon and orange trees, and magnificent fountains! They even had a legit hedge maze that we raced to the middle of. Of course Zach and I won! We also saw the biggest grape vine in the world! While we were walking around outside it started to rain a bit so we made our way back to the car.

On the way home we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some food for tomorrow. We ordered pizza and had a nice fun night together at home.

Today we took the Tube to Westminster Abbey! It is beautiful! We marveled at the building's  intricate details and I loved seeing where Will and Kate were married! We took a bunch of pictures out in front, but unfortunately they don't allow photography inside.

The Abbey is an interesting place. It functions as a Christian place of worship as well as a place for royal weddings, coronations, and funerals. We took a tour of the Abbey which turned out to be really fun and informative! We got to see the coronation chair and many spectacular stone memorials. Our tour guide explained the history of the Kings and Queens of England that have been buried here. We got to see many of their elaborate memorials and crypts.We also go to see where Charles Darwin, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens,  and Isaac Newton are buried!

The Abbey is completely full of memorials and crypts! They don't bury many people there anymore because there simply isn't anymore room! As you walk across the floor you step over countless graves and tile memorials. However, there was one part of the floor that you couldn't walk on. They had it roped off and surrounded with red flowers. It's called the memorial of the unknown soldier. Our guide told us that an unknown soldier who died during WW2 was buried there and now his grave serves as a memorial to all the people who have died defending their countries during international wars. The inscription was made of what looked like gold, but was actually melted down bullet pieces that had been used in WW2. It was a really nice memorial and so cool to learn the history behind it.

After visiting the Abbey we headed to get some lunch. We stopped at a shop that had a bunch of ties on sale in their window. The ties came in little boxes with cuff links and a pocket square. The men of the family were all really excited about it and we left with 6 different ties!

We ate lunch at a fun little European chain restaurant called Giraffe! Then we walked over to Hyde Park. We went on the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial walk and saw her memorial play ground and fountain. We also saw the Albert Memorial that Queen Victoria had built after his death. She must have really loved and missed him because his memorial was insane! It was huge and super ornate! We kept walking and saw the Peter Pan statue and the Italian Gardens! The Italian Gardens were built by Albert as a gift to his love Victoria. Like Victoria's memorial to Albert, this gift from Albert to Victoria is fantastic! We all got some ice cream and sat admiring the beautiful fountains. I tried a Dairy Milk ice cream covered in Cadbury chocolate and Zach had some really good mint chocolate chip ice cream.


While walking through the park we passed Kensington Palace where Will, Kate, and the baby prince of Cambridge live! Although the actual palace wasn't very impressive,  the gardens out in front were spectacular!

After checking out the palace we headed home.

We got to sleep in today! After going and going all week it was nice to relax a bit this morning. We did some laundry, cleaned up a bit, and went to the grocery store.

We ended up taking the Tube into the city around two and went to Oxford Street to do some shopping! Dad took the boys to the Apple store and Nike Town while Mom and I went to some of the department stores here! It started out a bit rough, but ended up being really good! It was fun to see the London styles and try on cute hipster outfits! Although some of the department stores were a bit out of my price range, I did buy a cute shirt, some headbands, and a sweet bag! The boys enjoyed shopping in one of the suit stores and Zach bought a classy tie clip.

We enjoyed a real English dinner of fish and chips before finishing up the shopping and heading back home!

Happy Pioneer Day! I'm so grateful for the early saints who sacrificed everything to heed the prophet's voice and head to Zion. Many of the early members of the church came from England so it's neat to be here and remember them today.

We took the Tube into London this morning where we finally got to see Big Ben! The clock tower is huge and the surrounding/connecting building is so intricate! It's incredible! We took a walking tour called "This is London" where we basically just got introduced to the city. It was really neat! We got to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The Queen was in the Palace today!

After our walking tour we ate lunch at a fun chain store called Pret A Manger. They had all kinds of sandwiches, salads, and fruits to choose from! Then we sat in the park for a bit before going to Hamleys. Hamley's is a 7 story toy store that the little boys loved! They found some neat remote control cars that can race on the ceiling so they were pretty excited about that!

When we finally left Hamleys we took a double decker bus over to the London Eye! There was a huge line, but since Dad had bought tickets online we got to bypass most of the crowd and basically walked right on! We rode to the top and were able to see out across the whole area around.  It was amazing!

Afterwards we ate outside by the harbor at a Dim Sum place called Ping Pong! It was fun to try lots of different dishes and share them up.

Then we went over to the Tower of London for the Ceremony of the Keys! The ceremony of the keys is when they lock up the tower and the exact same ceremony has been happening every night for 700 years! They've never missed a night and were only late once, when London was being bombed during WW2. It was really fun to be at the tower at night and see the white tower all lite up! The tower bridge and many of the iconic landmarks have been lite up in blue to celebrate Will and Kate's baby boy!

Then we took the Tube home and headed to bed!

We woke up and went to breakfast at the "Family Room" of the Novotel. The warm crepes were awesome, the chocolate pastries were yummy and the waffle was thick as cake, but tasted like a donut - rich! We walked over to the twin sister Lady Liberty and took some pictures although it was kind of a let down after seeing our beautiful Statue of Liberty.


We walked over to the Eiffel Tower, looked for souvenirs  took pictures, went to a little market close to the river and walked over to the other side of the Eiffel Tower for final pictures.


We took the Metro over to the obelisk - the place where the executions took place during the French Revolution. It looked cloudy and we thought it might rain. We got back onto the Metro and then when we came off there was a crowd of people huddled at the exit because it was pouring! People would come in and they were completely soaked. After waiting a bit, we decided to run for cover and ended up at a cafe. We stayed, ate lunch, and watched the rain. When it finally let up, we walked over to Notre Dame. We heard this huge clap of thunder that sounded like a cannon, but by that time the rain was gone and it began to get hot and humid again. The Notre Dame Cathedral was amazing - no wonder it took 200 years to build, it was so detailed.


After this, we headed for our train to go back to London. We loved our little stay in Paris, but are happy to be back in London where people speak English!

We had to wake up at 5:30 this morning to catch our train to Paris. We took the Tube to King's Cross Station and boarded the EuroStar. We read, slept, and played cards on the two hour ride.

 We got into Paris and took the Metro to the Louvre. We were overwhelmed with how much there was to see. It is amazing and would take 9 months to see everything! Here were the highlights: Statues by Michelangelo and Canova (Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss - cool because it was from one piece of marble); paintings by Raphael, Matese, Da Vinci and Vermeer. The huge pictures of Napoleon's coronation and The Wedding Feast were amazing! Of course we saw Da Vinci's Mona Lisa! Although crowded, we liked seeing this very famous piece of art.

We hopped back onto the Paris Metro (which we don't like as well as the London Tube) and headed to the Arc de Triumphe. That was gigantic! We went to the hotel to check in and got situated. Then we went to dinner at a creperie and it was delicious! Our favorite crepes were the desserts - of course! Nutella, banana and chocolate was the best!

Next, we walked over to the Eiffel Tower and took some pictures before we went on the Seine River Cruise at night. The Tower is such an iconic symbol of France that it was pretty amazing to see it in person. It's 1063 feet tall! On the cruise we saw a bunch of cool bridges and several lock bridges (where people go take a lock to the bridge and "lock" their love and throw the key into the river). We could see the Louvre, Notre Dame, their government buildings and of course the Eiffel Tower.

After the cruise we took some amazing night shots of the Eiffel Tower and we saw it sparkle on the hour! It's so cool! After a busy day of near pick-pocket experiences, riding on the Metro, amazing sights, and wonderful food, we headed home to the hotel. 

We woke up early today and got ready for church. The bus we were planning to take was delayed, but we managed to get to church right on time. The London ward was awesome and we got to talk with the sister missionaries which was way fun! They had a special Sunday School class for visitors so Dad, Mom, Zach, and I all went to it while the younger boys went to primary. We all had a great time!

After church we walked over to a nearby park to eat the sack lunches we'd packed. Then we went to the Science and Natural History museums since admission is free. The Science museum had an awesome hands on physics floor which the boys loved! Some of the highlights include the rocket launch, dry ice pool, and the reflection watch. Next we walked over to the Natural History museum. The building itself was probably my favorite part! It was built in 1881 by a very spiritual man who believed in the creation. The building looks a lot like an old church equip with high arches and stain glass windows. The stone was intricately carved with plants and animals. It was super cool! We saw tons of old dinosaur bones, a kola bear, a life sized blue whale replica, minerals, and precious gems!

We were getting pretty tired after that so we headed home via the tube and the buses. When we got home we relaxed, played games, ate dinner, and got ready for our trip to Paris tomorrow!