12 Hours in London and Irish Cousins

As I mentioned in the last post, the main point of our trip south was to visit Lego Land and see our Irish Cousins. We also managed to squeeze in a little time in London.

Now I am a planner. I like to be organized and researched about the places we are visiting so that we make the best of our time there. The only thing I'd planned was the Duck Tour. We were winging the rest. This was a big mistake. Transportation was a disaster for us; they have started construction on the tube and train lines for the Olympics. I won't bore you with the details, but will say we wasted lots of time and learned lots of lessons!

Here's what we WERE able to see and do!

London Duck Tour - Quirky fun way too see the city. It's an amphibious vehicle that cruises the streets of London and the Thames!

The view of the London Eye from our vehicle. We wanted to ride the London Eye but the que was too long.

We walked by Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Trafalgar Square on Friday night. Saturday morning we saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace with 5000 other tourists, enjoyed a pub lunch, the Tower of London and a view of London Bridge.

Ethan misplaced his phone in Trafalgar Square and was asking this Bobby where the "lost and found" was.

Christopher is practising flipping his new Michael Jackson hat.

London Bridge

Buckingham Palace - Changing of the Guards

Tower of London Torture Lesson - Just what we need. Torture Lessons.

The Tube. We're learning. We're learning.

All in all it was fun but next time we'll be better prepared!

Saturday night we enjoyed a meal with some of my Irish Cousins. Glyn and Hilary and Gilly and Tom. They live in Guilford and we had a great time catching up! Glyn and Hilary have lived all over the world and continue to travel the world so I love to hear about their adventures. And Scott shares their sense of humor so we always spend much of our time laughing! The boys built their Legos and rode on Hilary's Stair Chair!

Lego Building after dinner.

The whole gang.

Riding the stair chair! Who needs the rides at Lego Land when you can do this??

Sunday morning, we were sad to see Ashleigh go home but thoroughly enjoyed having her here for 10 days. She leaves for University in 2 weeks and we look forward to hearing of her adventure!

Ethan found a postcard in one of the souvenir shops that said, "Good girls go to heaven and bad girls go clubbing!" Poor Ashleigh. Our boys were more than curious about her experiences out on the town in Glasgow!

Cadbury World and Lego Land

Last Wednesday, we loaded into the car for a road trip to Lego Land. It is located close to Windsor and we'd planned to visit cousins in the area on Saturday so last week seemed the best time to go. It just worked out that Davis was here to join us and Ashleigh too. Ashleigh was a saint to put up with a day and a half of Lego Land while in the UK!

A friend told me that Cadbury World was a good stop on the way and since we've toured 2 other chocolate factories this year, I did not want to pass this one up! It was my least favorite of the 3. Cadbury is similar to Hershey in that the companies built their communities with their industry. Both companies were very employee oriented and interested in running a family friendly firm. Again, Ashleigh was a trooper to endure this quirky stop. The chocolate was terrific but the entertainment and information was a little strange!

They had a playground, a gift shop and toilets, so all was good in the world (of Cadbury!)


Thursday, we woke early to be at Legoland when it opened and we stayed until it closed. The park is geared towards younger children and the 4 boys were hilarious to watch. Most of the rides are focused on the very young but Davis and Ethan still seemed to find their fun. Miniland, the area with a replica of everything in Legos was fantastic. We hit the big shop at the end and the boys have spent every free moment since then building Legos. Since we missed a few things Thursday, we went back Friday for a half day to catch the things we missed. It's a great park and I have to give a big thanks to Ashleigh for helping me keep track of everyone while there!

Remember the Angel of the North from our visit to Yorkshire in January with Mims and Gramps? They even had a replica of her!

Each of the boys took part in Lego driving school, passed with flying colors and have their Lego License! Wish I could say the same about my UK license. But that's another story for another day.

Don't Christopher and Davis look thrilled to be taking pictures??

I loved the fact that we've just seen this Rodin statue at the Burrell Museum in Glasgow last week and now they are seeing it in Lego. In this display, they had a creator office where we could see the Lego Creators at work and boy did that spark Ethan's interest. I think he has a new passion about his life's career.

It was a great visit and I think we'll be back!

Necropolis and Culzean Castle and Country Park

Sunday evening we took a quick walk through the Glasgow Necropolis. It is a cemetery located adjacent to the Glasgow Cathedral and it has been on my list of things to see in Glasgow since we moved her almost 2 years ago. After a quiet day on Sunday, we decided to check it out. Of course the boys had lots of questions about why we would want to go to the cemetery, and better yet, who is in there??

http://www.glasgownecropolis.org/

It's in a beautiful location and has fabulous views of the city. We walked around for a while checking out the views and enjoying the fresh air.

This is the crew at the top. (notice their cemetery pose-except Ashleigh!)

Then we took Ashleigh, Davis, and Ethan's friend William to our favorite Wagamama! It was a fun, relaxing day.

Monday, we headed to Culzean Castle in Ayr on the West Coast of Scotland. It is very near the location of the Open this past weekend and Ashleigh picked it out of the guidebook as a place she's like to see. There are so many things to do and places to see here that we really do have to look at the books, check the weather and our moods and decide on the day. This is a castle that we'd never been to and it was fantastic. http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/97/

It rained most of the day but we spent all day outside exploring this vast estate. They have a deer park, a swan pond, a play park, a coastal path, the castle and many forest walks on the grounds. The boys even enjoyed the castle because they'd hidden mini Lego figures in each of the rooms as a treasure hunt for the boys. Ashleigh and I enjoyed that just as much as the 4 boys did.

It was another terrific day out and we plan to return there in the near future.