London Holiday

 Lyman and I both agreed for our upcoming 40th birthdays we would both chose a vacation. So, when my old friend Nathan from my year abroad in England said he had a three bedroom house in East London while he's pursuing a degree in theology, there was no choice but to see how many flight miles we had available.  It turned out, we only had enough miles for one ticket, but we saved more than a year for the rest. We had an amazing time, that I know I will never forget and hope Milo is old enough to remember.

 We arrived on Christmas Eve, so the first full day there was Christmas!  Milo woke up to find that Santa found him in London to deliver his much asked for Nintendo 2DS.

 After church services, off we went to Southend on Sea to sister Rachel's home. There were 6 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 1 flaming Christmas pudding aged 3 years and a pile of gifts! Milo had such fun running around with these kids; he was a sweaty mess.

 Oh, the food!  Lyman and I think English food has a bad reputation because we love it. Well, I didn't love this pork pie surrounded by jelly and cranberries, but I tried it!  The rest of the meal and all the restaurants were delicious enough to make all my pre-trip workouts worth it! We loved how traditional the food was and how warm Nathan's family was. It was a wonderful Christmas Day and we were just getting started!

 This was the Christmas of the selfie stick, right?  What a great invention for capturing these pictures. More and more posts about the rest of our trip ahead...

Chelsea V West Ham United

 On the top of Lyman's things to do was attend a premireship football game. This turned out to be a very tall order with tickets being very expensive if even possible to get!  In a casual conversation at the church where Nathan is acing as associate pastor, Nathan mentioned this wish. One of the parishioners has a son who plays in the under 21 league and they hooked all four of us up with tickets!  What an experience this was! 

 First of all, you sit in your seat by the time the game starts and you stay there the whole game. If you go to the bathroom, no one will be in there, and it's very clean.

 If you want a delicious meat pie at the interval, fine, but they will not sell it to you until the whistle blows for the break.

 If you support a team, it's like a religion, There are songs, chants and abuse from the other team, but you won't care.

 Here are two new Chelsea supporters! 

Windsor Castle

 The first castle of the trip was Windsor which is about an hour outside of London. Traffic getting there was dense, and it was rainy, but we managed to see everything before closing the place down. This is no ruin but a functioning castle for state affairs making it very lush inside.

There was a whole section with this amazing doll house and French dolls that had belonged to Elizabeth and Margaret as princesses.

 Who doesn't love the ceremony of guards marching?

 This was in the town center with royal Christmas light decor, and we found a nice little pub with cider and pies for dinner!

 The next morning, this is the full English breakfast that Nathan made for us!

Winter Wonderland and Mommy's Day Out

 Sunday, we were feeling pretty pooped and opted for a lazy morning at home. This was fine with Milo who had hardly had time to open or play with his new Christmas toys. That morning Nathan cooked us a full English breakfast which was huge and delicious too. Later that day, we went out to Hyde Park where there was a Bavarian carnival Winter Wonderland. Lyman enjoyed chips with gravy and cheese. I had spiced mulled wine. Milo jumped on a trampoline. It was CRAZY crowded which made me mostly anxious. I had the most fun in the ice kingdom where it was sub freezing and full of ice if that tells you what kind of night it was!

 There was an ice slide. I understand there is an ice exhibit like this in Long Beach, but there they give you an extra coat and something to slide on- not here, we just went down on our frozen butts!

 The next morning, Milo woke up in the early morning hours with a fever of 103 and vomited three times over the course of Monday. Nathan wanted to get out of his own home as soon as possible. Since this was my birthday trip, Lyman was gracious and told me to go out as well.

 This day turned out to be an unexpected treat!  When offered London with no child, I chose high tea at Selfridge's after seeing an amazing production on Billy Elliot in the West End. The show was so joyful and beautiful. If you have a chance to see it, do, but take lots of tissues!

Tower of London and Tower Bridge

 At the top of Milo's list was visiting the Tower of London. Basically, anything I showed him a documentary about was at the top of his list, but that just shows how interested he is in new things.This was the day after his fever and vomiting. He woke up with a low grade temp, but he and Lyman were really suffering from cabin fever so out we went!

 The tower is old, and it is huge. The website said to allow three hours to see everything. Maybe three hours in March when school is in session. But on Christmas break, you need the whole day and lots of patience for queues.

 The queue to see the crown jewels at one point was 1 hour 40 minutes!  We did not stand in this line. We walked the walls of the tower, saw the ravens, went in the White Tower and saw armory, old toilets and talked to people in character about their rabbit dinner. Then, the last 30 minutes we got in line for the jewels and closed the place down.

 Then we did something really fun. Nathan led us across Tower Bridge, away from tourists, to a nice, quiet restaurant.

 For dinner, I had along with my pie a scotch egg. It's an egg, surrounded by sausage, coated in breadcrumbs and then fried. Those are some friend pickles to go with it. It was perfect with my pint of cider!

New Year's Eve and Day

 New Year's Eve day, we headed down to the South Bank on the Thames. There is St. Paul's Cathedral, which we did not go in but admired outdoors.

 A walk across millennium bridge brings you to the Globe. Again, it's not open in winter for performances, but I have seen several before. Next door, is the Tate Modern Art Museum which was high on Lyman's list of things to do. It's just a warehouse looking place on the outside, and just a huge and open inside too.

 Another item on the top on Lyman's to do list was eat crispy duck in Chinatown. That duck, and everything else, was delicious! 

 The tube was tiresome for Milo. He was tired of the long rides and often large crush of people, but that's how you get around in London. As you can tell, we got around!

 Here is a tale of two cats. New Year's Day, we were welcomed at one of Lyman's old friends who he meet on comic book chats years ago. We had a wonderful meal with some super nice people. They also had these two Bengal cats who didn't make Lyman sneeze at all for the five hours we were there! The night before, on New Year's Eve, Nathan treated us to a Pantomime in Hammersmith "Dick Whittington and his Cat." It was so fun. It's mostly for kids with them being allowed to participate calling out to warn the hero, "He's behind you!" but there are also all these sexual double ontondores I didn't get most of them, and I can't spell it eiher!) for the adults. If you're ever in the UK at Christmas, go see one for sure!