London in a flash

This post continues off of a post that I never finished.. And the whole thing is just a mess of slightly organized pictures. ha happy reading-

One of the highlights of my experience was having my family come. OHHHHH how fun it was! We ran ourselves absolutely ragged. By the time they left we were all sleep deprived, sick with colds, and smiling :)

Their plane got here around 6:30 am. ugh. We greeted them with a poster that said "The Royal Family greets 5 beautiful women" :)

(missed you Whit)

After a nap it was straight out to the sights! We took the train into Waterloo and they obviously had no idea where we were until all the sudden.... BAM!

We turned the corner and there was Big Ben! Now renamed the Elizabeth Tower or something like that, but we will call it by it's original name

Trafalgar Square

Buckingham Palace

etc

Because of some birthday tradition, the Queen had her Trooping of the Colors that Saturday morning. Basically the troops with their fuzzy had and musical instruments pranced down the street.. and so did the royal family! We didn't get there early enough so we resorted to propping the girls up so they could video and photograph the whole thing

   

Kate Middleton- Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry sitting across from her... Will was on a horse.

Queen Elizabeth herself

Then off to Paris:

climbed the eiffel tower..

Caught in an absolute down pour! Found refuge in Notre Dame

Lock bridge

Sparklin' Tower. AMAZING.

Overall we didn't like Paris. ha it was dirty, smoggy, and just not great. We much preferred London and couldn't wait to get back.

After 36 hours in the dirty city of Paris is was back to England for a power packed tour.

City of Bath, Windsor Castle, and Stonehenge tour:

More London touring:

Crown Jewels

In the next picture can you spot me and my sisters at St Pauls?

We went to Wicked-

We went to a pub and watched Euro Cup soccer

Harry Potter was of course on the agenda

London Temple

Hampstead Heath

Then the family left :( And I thought the next few weeks were going to drag by because as ridiculous as it sounds I missed home. A ton... which I think is ridiculous now that I'm not there! I miss LONDON..

Wimbledon:

 My new... "friend" and I went to Wimbledon and managed get into Centre Court to watch Ryan Harrison and Novak Djokovic. It was pretty cool :)

So this boy we will call Harry. He goes to the University of Utah and was doing an internship with Parliament. We met and hung out with the same group of people in the Britannia singles ward. When you are in a ward full of foreign people (people in that ward were from everywhere and anywhere but London) it's funny how the normal people find each other.. it would've probably been exciting to date a foreigner, buttttttttttttt it was way more fun to go around London with someone I had things in common with. We had a blast together.

He finally got the guts to ask me on a date one day and this is where he decides to go to dinner:

 I said 'You're taking me to Hornymans for dinner!?' and he turned bright red and said "it's pronounced horn-e-mans!.. hey aren't you a seminary teacher?" lol so we went to the Horny mans for dinner. It was a pretty great date.

For the 4th my friends threw a huge 4th of July party and it was a party!

some of my great Britannia friends :)

This is Sarah. She's South African and holding Root Beer.

The next morning it was off to Scotland for a week! Thanks to Harry I made it through the crazy tube system while he ran behind me with my suitcase. 4 minutes to spare! YIKES

Glasgow's Windy Hill

 I stayed with a friends, friend of a friend in Scotland haha their names were the Mckechnie family and they were great! This is me and Joe

 He looks less than happy to be photographed haha right now he's in the MTC learning French!

I even wore my "wellies" (rainboots) for our field trip in the rain

 This is us on our field trip to Loch Lomond! I was told by a very nice Scottish man at church that you have to say it with a throaty otherwise it's a "lock" like a key lock and not a loccchhe like a lake.

 Irn Bru (Iron Brew) is the traditional Scottish drink

 University of Glasgow

I was in Glasgow for 5 days and only saw the sun on the first day. I was rained on for 5 days straight

Then I went to Edinburgh and it was beautifully sunny!

 _____________

This is my favorite snack. Banana Yogurt with chocolate flakes :) SOOO GOOD

 When I got back to London I had less than 14 hours before I had to get on the plane, so Kerry (the lady I lived with in Wimbledon) and I went to get Korean food. It was scrumptious!

This is a picture of my last tube ride. I was so sad! I listened to the song Homeward Bound like 10 times.

 Then it was oversees to Chicago.


I walked through the airport a little shell shocked to hear so many American accents, but when I saw the sign for the Macaroni Grill I knew I was home.

 Iced water... and LARGE portion sizes of GOOD FOOD. 

I loved London. It was the most amazing experience for me. Throughout the Olympics I cried inside seeing the clips of the city. If you haven't been to London... GO!

I don't even know how many pounds I gained in London. Lots of crappy gross cheap food. Now it's time to go to Jerusalem and eat lots of veggies and walk all day long ;) No promises that I will be good about blogging because I sucked in England, but I'll try