Well we’ve been back almost 2 weeks from our whirlwind trip to London and Jersey. We had an amazing time. It was quite different from our last trip to Europe, where we went “sans kids”. Going on a transatlantic voyage with a 3 and 1 year old is a whole other ballgame. The 5 hour difference affected us a little for the first few days but the kids adapted really well. We did slack off a bit on routine and rules but that was mutually beneficial in that we wanted to relax a bit ourselves. So here are some pics we took along the way. So this is just a small handful of the pics we took.

We arrived just a few days after the anniversary of Princess Di’s death. These are the gates at Kensington Palace, covered in flowers and pictures of her and words from well wishers

What turned out to be the first in many shoulder rides on the trip. I believe Chris’ spine may have compressed a few inches on the trip

witnessing the changing of the horse guards. At one point, a guard detached himself from the group and basically stormed a cluster of tourists. A policewoman nearby yelled at those tourists letting them know that was a warning shot and that they had got too close. We wondered what would happen after that warning shot if they did it again. They didn’t…

This guard gave a head nod saying we could take a picture with him. I tried to get Henry to come with me, he said no and didn’t want to get near him.

Henry wearing his “kiss me I’m Irish” shirt in front of Buckingham Palace with a guard in the background.

The boys in their favorite spot in the flat. They loved having breakfast right on the edge of the door to the balcony

One of the ravens of the Tower of London. They keep 6 (really 8) on location and legend has it that if they were to leave, the monarchy would fall. Funny enough, the day we went for our tour, one of them had escaped and a beefeater had to go chase him outside the walls of the tower.

This is me shaking my hand in disappointment at a coworker who was supposed to take a picture at this exact location earlier in the summer. He didn’t do it. Hence my disappointment.

Our last day in London, we decided to travel to the center of the earth…. or the museum of natural history. My memory is a bit foggy.

I begged Chris to let me buy this book for my friend Caitlin. He said we can take a picture only. I still regret not making that purchase.

Chris drinking Bass beer. Apparently it’s the oldest trademark in the world. Chris is a trademark officer so this is basically like his holy grail.

We went to the Durrell Wildlife Park. The man behind this park was a pioneer in saving animals from extinction. This was the first enclosure you see as you walk in.

The boys chilling in a cool swing at Millennium park. I got to swing in it as well and loved it. Trying to convince Chris to install one in our backyard.

another cool feature at the park. Henry loved it. It’s basically a giant rubber string with a seat on each end and a kid sits on each end and bounces up and down.

These are cool pools built to work with the low tide. Basically you can’t see any of this at high tide but at low tide, it keeps the water in the giant circle and people can swim in it.

We visited the Jersey War Tunnels. Probably the best museum I’ve seen. The Germans built these tunnels as an underground hospital during the German occupation and the Jerseyans turned the tunnels into a walking history of the german occupation.

Our final full day in Jersey, we went to visit Elizabeth Castle. We went out at high tide so we had to take a ferry, on the way back, it was low tide so we walked across and were passed by the ferry which was now a bus.

Climbing to the top of the castle. Well Freddy was carried part of the way in his stroller. We abandoned the stroller partway up though and forced him to walk up.

Our last morning in Jersey and Freddy enjoying jam. He developed a huge love of it while we were there. He’s been in withdrawal ever since.

This was in the Jersey airport. I wish we had one in the Ottawa airport. The kids were so well behaved on the flight back to London. Probably due to sheer exhaustion from the bouncy castle.
So that was our trip. I’d do it all in again in a heartbeat. And to sign off, I’ll leave you with this, a lifesize lego Queen Elizabeth and her lego Corgi.