London on a rainy Sunday

This is the best picture that I could get of me... isn't it great! This lady totally walked right in front as the camera flashed! Gotta love tourist photos!

This is my seat! In other words my Standing Seat, a group of us decided to go to the Lion King and see if we could get tickets. We ended up paying 12.5 pounds (less than $25) to see the musical!

This is how high up we were:

The outside of the Theater

Oh, and me, without the lady's head in front of me!

More of London... including BIG Ben!

The London Eye, I'm totally going to ride this ferris wheel, nothing like the psycho Disneyland one!

Like my RAD Big Ben photo? I liked the fence around it, there are crowns everywhere around that place, even on the lamp posts. I focused on the fence so it makes the clock a bit blurry.

Hi London! Here's a shot of Big Ben and Westminster Abbey/House of Parliment in the background across the river. BTW... the river color is tan!

I know Nicole and Karly would love to be riding the hot tube system over here! I took a picture to make them miss Paris! All of the signs look like this with the station name in the middle, and everyone says "Mind the Gap" so you don't fall off the train onto the tracks.

Cool clouds~

My attempt at the Sun Exposed look:

Check out what I saw on Portabello Road! I've been looking for a rad old camera for a while, and these ones are from London! I totally got one that resembles the one below on the next picture! Portabello Road wasn't my favorite, lots of crazy antique people and not much space, mixed with fish and food smells... Nicole you didn't miss out on much, you would have wanted to KILL every tourist for the rest of the day!

This is what my "new" Camera looks like, but BETTER! It has a "viewfinder" in the whole back of it and you can see it focus on something and it even shows up... upside down!! I'm excited to display it. The guy who sold it to me said it was from the 1920's in Germany.

This next picture is for Nicole... If you parked this in your spot in the garage, I know the exact line that you would say each time you parked your "Dirty Dancing" Car....

Nobody puts Baby in a corner!!

I can just hear what you're saying "That was so lame!" But I'm sorry, I had to!

We went to see Billy Elliot, it was real good, the little boy who was Billie was an amazing dancer, he was very talented. We sat on the front row an I may have got a little spit on me...

Totally "Wicked" day!

So today was a fun filled rainy day! (again) We went to get discounted tickets to Wicked and got really good seats for about 1/3 the cost of the tickets in Salt Lake. LOVED the story! I thought that it was really cute and really makes me want to watch the Wizard of Oz with a new outlook on those witches. Here are a few pictures of the outside and the set:

In this picture: Becky Kendrick, Me, Susie

Our wicked treat: Cupcakes from the cutest bakery called the Hummingbird Bakery, the cupcakes have their own little place in the box so they don't squish together (cleaver!) Oh, and I loved the box too! Tomorrow we are headed shopping on Portabello Road! I'm really excited to see what I can find. I did find some cheap ties today for Ry, hope he likes them!

FINALLY!!!! Pictures from Ryan

Here is a little update of what is going on with Ryan.

He is currently serving in Burlington, KY and he was so excited to learn that he was going to serve with Elder Arave aka RV. He says they just have a great time! Elder RV is the District Leader and is going home next transfer. We think that means he is training Ryan to be the new DL but who knows! They just recently had a baptism! Ryan loves the work he is doing! He just wants more letters (hint hint). His address is listed in an earlier post for those of you so inspired to write him!

Elder RV, Elder James and Elder Harvey just having a random photo op.
Ryan and Elder Fox got the chance to go to a Reds game and they sat in really good seats. Ryan also met a kid that went to USU and his brother played for the Reds! So he quickly became Ryan's favorite.
Ryan is in Burlington, KY which is really close to Cinci. When he got transferred he went to a ward that is attended by Chantell Robbins who grew up down the street from us! She is in Cinci while her husband does summer sales. Needless to say we were all a little jealous of her!
I guess Ryan has high expectations! This is his "First Presidency" picture. Ryan's "counselors" are his companion Elder RV and I'm not sure what the other Elders name is but we think he resembles our countries president Barak Obama, so I think we shall dub him Elder Obama.
IT'S TIME TO GET CRUNK!!! Yeah, Ryan thinks he is so buck with his jewel encrusted grill.
Seeing this pictures of Ryan helps us know that even though he is on a mission he is still the same crazy fun loving guy that he was before he left.

So... I'm in London!

After what seemed like a million years and a "crappy" experience with the airplane, I finally made it! I had to make an unexpected stop in Canada to "empty the lavs" and refuel after we burned fuel to land for 45 minutes! The ride was lame, it was supposed to be 7 hours on a plane and turned into 10! I was so brave, rode the metro by myself and then getting lost for a little while, searching for our flat... I finally made it. Oh, and did I tell you it was raining like crazy and I looked like a drowned rat?! I finally sat on Susie's steps and waited (we ha apparently passed on opposite sides of the road when she went to search for me at the metro stop) and she came walking down the road! We then took the train to Cambridge and walked around in the rain and browsed the stores and relaxed on a boat.

You'd never know that we hiked a while in the rain by the looks of the blue sky in this picture, but don't be fooled, it was raining real hard! This corner is where we went punting.

This is a view from the boat under one of the bridges on the river

This is the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge, instead of going to prison, the students go to take exams in one of these buildings... hence the sighs! Oh and this is THE HARRY POTTER BRIDGE!

This is a bridge built by Sir Isaac Newton (if I remeber right), the bridge was built without any bolt or screws supposedly and it was taken apart and tried to put back together by students at Cambridge but it was impossible for them not to use screws or bolts... little did they know that there were screws of some sort that were totally hidden in the bridge. Tricky

HARRY POTTER...(not sure where in the movie, but supposedly this is where he goes to learn to fly in the first movie in the courtyard in the front)

bridge of sighs again

This is our Punting Guide on the river in Cambridge. He is a dancer and showed off his skills on the edge of the punting boat.

Here's an action shot of the "punter" named Roymond...

punting boats in a row

View from the dock where we got on the boats for our ride

Susie, me and Mark Beck on the punting tour.

so, we didn't want to be like everyone else....

So, we decided to post this later than everyone else, we didn't want to jump on the bandwagon about Michael Jackson stuff. But, we did. Just a little later so it doesn't look like we would be the crazy people who stood outside his house, crying and singing Thriller, Heal the World or other songs like Bad and Billy Jean and Nicole's personal favorite " I wanna Rock with You, all night...". But we will post a few pictures from the Cairo, Egypt Hard Rock Cafe... from one of the best videos he's ever made...... Smooth Criminal. I totally thought that Michael Jackson could lean that far without wires and was very upset to learn that it wasn't true, although Nicole thought I was lame for thinking it. Oh and Karly just said that she was a believer too!

Anyway, while looking for some sweet pics for Nicole, I came across this bit of memorabilia.

Even though he was REALLY wierd, he is certifiably the greatest moonwalker of all time!

Happy Birthday NICOLE!!!

Nicole is super adventurous! Also, kind to animals... my camel Birdie was in love with her and couldn't help but rest his tired little head on her lap. Just goes to show that Nicole loves EVERYONE and everything {camels with shaved heads included!}.

Nicole Hearts pictures! Nicole's so nice, she came with me to the top of this little town in Greece to get a picture with a windmill behind us!

Nicole and Sarah chilling with a mini sphinx! Nicole even treks through the blazing Egypt heat to take pictures with old statues!

Nicole is sooo loving her favorite spot at the Colosseum.

Nicole loves the kids, she's always posing for great pictures whether they are funny or serious, she's always making us laugh!

Happy Birthday Nicole!!!