Day 6 ~ Edinburgh

 View of Edinburgh from a top the castle

 Edinburgh Castle

 Tate practicing his sentry duties once again

 Trace & Taylor obliging their father in a photo

 More castle

 View from the garden

 Castle in the clouds as it is called

Speed walk racing through the garden

Our hotel

Day 5 ~ Edinburgh

 Stirling Castle

 Haymish the Scottish Cow

 It really is just like you think it will be

 A hill - they are all called hills here no matter how tall

 Charming village of Fort William

 The boys with their special olympic metal cokes

 Taylor with her coke olympic coke bottle

 The olympic torch - no idea who the runner is???

 The hill of Ben Nevis in the background

 A bagpiper at Loch Ness

 Looking for Nessie

 Loch Ness

Urquhart Castle

We were greeted warmly in Scotland, our driver from the airport, David was so funny and made us feel  welcome.  Our day started early with a 11 hour tour of the Highlands, glens (valleys) and Loch Ness.  Our guide, David (different from our driver) took us up into the Highlands where we came upon castles, sheep dotted hills, red deer, scottish cows, and majestic lochs (lakes).  We heard all about the various Clans, Mary Queen of Scotts, the Vikings and Scottish folklore.  It is amazing to think that they have records dating back to 800 AD.  The city of Edinburgh itself is divided up into old and new - the new being the 1700's.  An unexpected pleasure was being able to see the Olympic flame run through the village of Fort William.  We lined the street with all of the locals and cheered as it passed by.  The great disappointment was that we were unable to catch a glimpse of the Loch Ness monster.

Day 4 ~ London

Not the London Temple, but the Hyde Park Chapel, whoops...

The damaged wall of the Victoria & Albert Museum

Lunching at a charming french bakery

In front of Buckingham Palace

Leftover Queens Jubilee decoration

Passing the time at the London City airport

Today was our last day in London and it was rainy and windy. We spent the morning at the science museum. It was 5 floors of everything from models of the first steam engine to a depiction of the Apollo 11 space shuttle. The most exciting part of the day was when Trace and Taylor decided to break free from the pack and sent me into a near nervous breakdown. Bill, Tate and I spent 45 minutes trying to find them and in the end had their names announced over the loud speaker. We then found ourselves down the street from the London temple, which has such interesting architecture - very different from the temples we are used to. There was a quick break in the weather so we walked though Green Park and made our way to the Palace grounds, or as close as they would let us get. They are still cleaning up from the jubilee celebration. We are off to Scotland this evening! By the way, I have adopted a mantra for the rest of this adventure... Keep calm & carry on! - used by the British Government during WW II.

Day 3 ~ London

 The Imperial War Museum

 An example of a bomb used in WW II

 Tate sitting in an artillery seat

Lunch at Harvey Nichols - YOSushi!

Entering our show

Taylor approves of our seats!

Late night waffles

Our wishes for another day of good weather proved to be too greedy.  We filled our rainy day with a trip to the Imperial War Museum.  It is a museum dedicated to every war that Britain has fought in during the modern era.  The boys loved all of the examples of bombs, planes, ships, and weapons.  It also had a section filled with the history of the Holocaust.  What a moving experience, should be a good warm up to our visit to the concentration camp in Munich.  For lunch we made our way over to one of the many shopping districts.  We ogled our way through Harrods department store and had lunch at Harvey Nichols.  They had a sushi restaurant where the dishes came by on a conveyor belt and you choose what looked good.  Each color of plate was a different price, pretty genius I think.  The highlight of our day was the evening performance of Wicked.  Everyone loved it, but especially Taylor.  We were all humming the tunes when we got back to the hotel.  Bill then took us to his favorite late night haunt for ice cream and waffles. DELICIOUS!

Day 2 ~ London

 London Tower Bridge

 Tate practicing his sentry skills

 Peek of London Tower Bridge from London Tower

 London Tower

 Lucky Ducks who live in the Palace Garden

 Part of the changing of the Guard

White Palace

 Royal Albert Hall

Prince Albert Memorial

English Fish & Chips for lunch

Our day started bright and early...2 am for the kids and 5 am for Bill and I.  We spent the day with our guide Jeremy.  He drove us all around London and took us to some of the highlights.  One of the places we went was Westminster Abbey ( pictures were not permitted ).  We walked over the tombs of Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, along with many others.  We saw the changing of the Royal Guard, ate authentic fish & chips, and saw Medieval weaponry and armor at the London Tower.  We also saw the crown jewels which include a 500 carat diamond in Queen Elizabeth's II scepter.  We were so grateful the weather cooperated, we have our fingers crossed for another beautiful day tomorrow!

Day 1 ~ London

WW II bomber and fly over

jets with colored trails

the closest we came to seeing the Queen 

our hotel 

all tucked in...

We made it!  The flights went smoothly and everyone was able to sleep.  After arriving we attempted to get a glimpse of the Queen, but our efforts were unsuccessful.  The rain kept our sight seeing to a minimum, just a soggy walk down Picadilly and dinner at an Italian restaurant.  The rule was none could go to bed until 8:00pm and that was really hard to do. We are hoping for better weather tomorrow.