Life with these Crazy Boys...

Saturday, March 05, 2022

Day 2 - Biking around London

This morning we grabbed bikes and headed off through Hyde Park towards Buckingham again …. Hats off to London for their amazing bike paths that work alongside the craziness of London car traffic. After we learned which side of the roadways to stay on, we all felt relatively safe in and amongst all the people and cars. And bring Sunday, the car traffic was closed around Buckingham so we were able to leisurely peddle through that section.

What’s that in the distance? This was so exciting because it was all covered in scaffolding the last time Chris and I were here. It’s quite beautiful!! Bigger than I realized!

We were having so much fun. So good to be back on an adventure together.

Fish and chips for lunch before heading into the Tower of London … pic with the boys new gloves.

Dragon is made out of all old armour plates and supplies! If you zoom in close, even his toes are made of old guns.

Boys got stopped at a red light so I took the pic of them crossing to get to us with a great background

Back home by 4pm and I made dinner with all of the food phil gave to us …

The Chris and I slept for a few hours but were woken up by the apartments fire alarm going off - so that was a rude awakening! Clothes on! Where’s our passports? Run! Turns out someone was smoking in their room. After seeing how expensive London shows were (which was the plan tonight), we decided to stay home …. So isaac has been asleep since 8 and the rest of us are hanging out on our bed. Tickets for the British museum are booked for tommorow and after that we head out to the country. Elliot is very excited about that. I think being robbed last night did something to each of us in a different way but today was a wonderful day. One for the books!!!

Friday, March 04, 2022

Day 1 - True London experience …

So many people…. 90% without masks…..pretty strange experience to walk around and see everyone like COVID is over.

Every building and brick is beautiful and historical. Once we got off the longest flight ever, we took the train and subway to our apartment near Hyde park. Phil was flying our plane back to Canada and left us the most amazing package of food at the hotel he was staying at! Being here now a whole day, I wouldn’t even know where he found this stuff! There’s no grocery stores around here!! So he stocked our kitchen and set us up from such a good start.

We all crashed so hard for 2 hours until 4pm and then we showered and got dressed and went exploring. Rented bikes and biked happily through Hyde Park and got ourselves to Buckingham

Got hungry after a few hours of walking and all restaurants needed a reservation. So we settled on burgers at 5 guys … while we were there, a weird begger lady came up and put a weird sign on our table, pushed herself almost right up against me as I was sitting there eating and kept pointing to the food. She finally went away but we didn’t realize soon enough that where she put her sign was on top of my brand new phone I was waiting for the wifi to connect and wasn’t on my guard. So she stole my new iPhone 13.

Once we realized, I logged in real quick to see if find my phone would work and we thought it did so we went gallivanting out into the London streets to take down the thief but alas, the signal got lost. So I put the phone on lost mode, so they couldn’t get into but it also sent a message to the phone with Chris’s number in case she had a change of heart (very unlikely).

We decided we had had enough of all the people and decided to take the tube back to the apartment. As we were walking through the tunnels underground we were reminded of Ukrainians currently hiding and living in the tunnels right now and it just puts it into perspective….it sucks, but not a big deal and we were ‘promised an adventure/experience , we weren’t promised it would be a good one’ still plays out here. We are here to make core memories, and so far we’re off to a strong start. Many lessons today on humanity, how people live, how people steal (she was smart with her distraction techniques but also how guilty we felt for not feeding her, how important sleep is, how beautiful history is and how sad it is with so many lives lost due to war…. It was a big day. Thankfully insurance will cover the phone and everyone is happy and healthy and we still have the passports and wallets! It’s 9:30pm (1:30 at home), and we are all excited to go to bed.

Thursday, March 03, 2022

Long day but NOW we’re off!!

Like truly off to London!!! Quick bite to eat now that we’re all back together!

I had a row to myself on this busy flight so Chris is joining me and leaving the boys on their own. That was a really long day …. I lost my sweet Peru wallet that had all my wired things (charger and earbuds for the plane)…. Plus it was my favourite Souvenir from Peru …. So major bummer but it’s ok. I seem to lose something of value at the beginning of every trip. The last time on the way to Thailand, it was my iPad … so this one was more just sentimental (plus it had a fresh pack of mentos in it!!)

Here we go ….

We’re off!!!!

Charlie on HIS way to his vacation destination for 3 weeks ….

Gordon got a head start on play time ….

And Marg sent this shortly after we left …. He seems so unhappy that I’m gone, right? Lol. He’s a lucky pup.

I had to leave at 4am for a 6am flight … it was a beautiful morning ….

My seat mate was an old friend! Funny her husband is photobombing a few seats back!!!!

And of course these guys hit up McDonald’s before heading for their civilized 10:40 flight! We will all meet in Toronto tonight and overnight to London!!