Famille en Suisse: January 2012

I neglected to post any photos of our "Pre-London" Christmas...so, here they are! I hope you can handle a little more Christmas!!!

First, we made our own stockings! Even Kai sewed quite a bit!

The finished product!

Then, Santa came two days early because he must have know we were going to be out of town!!!

The kids were so surprised when they woke up to get ready for the last day of school before their two week holiday, to find that Santa had come...we let them take the day off, of course. Santa brought furry hats, clothes and 3D puzzles of Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, a knight costume for Kai (and Playmobile Knights for him to play with) and Soren got a Vivitar video "flip" thing, headphones and a microphone that applauses when you are finished singing! Santa brought everyone Swiss slippers and Swiss chocolate too!

We spent the rest of the day packing for London!!!

I had to end with this photo to show the "Favorite Christmas Vest" that was worn over and over and over!

Christmas Eve, London


Big Ben!

Westminster Abbey "Lessons and Carols" Program


Inside the Abbey - Kai fell asleep, which made the program even more enjoyable for us! Soren is holding the candle which the entire congregation lit and held while singing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" at the end of the program.

Shawn's favourite place in the Abbey, the "Poet's Corner"
(where many great authors are buried)

Christmas Eve Feast

Pub food at our local Chelsea Pub!

Bangers and Mash! YUM!!!

Christmas Day

Buckingham Palace to visit the Queen!

Kai and Shawn in front of Baden Powell the founder of the Boy Scouts

Prince Albert Memorial

Wellington Arch

Christmas Dinner with the Tingy Family and Missionaries

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve at Westminster Abbey. The music was amazing and the boys choir fantastic! We thoroughly enjoyed singing carols, hearing Christmas scriptures and listening to the speakers. Being inside the Abbey itself was a treat! I had only been there in the day hours and the night was so special with a beautiful Christmas ambiance. My girls were "ga-ga" walking down the isle that Kate Middleton had walked down for the royal wedding!

Our Christmas feast was delicious and much appreciated because we were starving! London pub food is the best!

Christmas day was one we will never forget. We attended church in the morning and were graciously invited by an American family to have dinner with them and the missionaries. We hesitated considering the fact that we are a family of six to invite without previous planning! We accepted their invitation and had a wonderful evening. We felt blessed to be in their home and the dinner was delicious!

Monday was our "Theatre Day"

Old Globe Theatre

It was exciting for Shawn to visit the Old Globe with his love of Shakespeare plays. Although it was not the original, because it burned down after a canon went off in one of the plays and caught the thatch roof on fire, it was rebuilt on the original site with all the exact details.

SHREK
Shawn and the little people went to "Shrek the Musical" at the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane! They LOVED it! It was Kai's favourite thing he did (so he says if you ask him!).

Phantom of the Opera
I took Jordan and Sage to the 25 year Anniversary Performance in the original theatre "Her Majesty's Theatre". The girls loved it and we sang the songs all the way back to our flat!

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square had such an energy! There is the "countdown" clock to the Olympics, huge lions on the monument, the National Portrait museum, Big Ben in the dusky background, double decker buses and black taxis driving by, etc. It was such a beautiful night!

Tower Bridge

View from the bridge looking at the Tower of London across the Thames

Kensington Palace
This palace, where many "royals" have lived, like Princess Diana, Queen Victoria, Queen Mary, etc., was under a bit of construction, so they decided to make it "enchanted" so they could black the windows to keep from seeing the construction outside. It was really neat! I was afraid it was going to be distracting, but it was actually quite nice.

These are dresses worn by real royal princesses. The top one was Princess Charlotte, the bottom left was Princess Margaret and the bottom right was Princess Diana.


This photo is the "war room" with lots of little army guys that Kai was thrilled to play with after having to bear all the princess stuff! The photo above right is Princess Victoria's room where she was awakened to be told she was the new Queen of England!

Tower of London

Here we are with a "Beefeater" who gave us a rather informative tour. To become a beefeater, you must have served in the military for about 20 years AND you get to live at the Tower! Below is a guard of the Royal Crown Jewels which are housed here. They are REAL and REAL BIG! The Queens crown is here and we saw it! WOW!

Smallest armor and Largest (for a 6' 8" man)

We had lunch in the Tower dining room.

Beauchamp Tower (named after our relative who was a prisoner here for a long time, thus giving it the name). There were many more "white collar" criminals who were housed here including more of my family members, the Dudleys after supporting Lady Jane Grey as the Queen of England (John Dudley is pictured below. His "graffiti" - which was common for prisoners to do - is also below with me pointing at it. His brother also left his mark, number 75, Richard Dudley. Sage also found her name carved in the wall!).