London for 8 days

We have taken Europe by storm and loved it.  Here we are again in the lively city of London.  Oh how I love the buzz and excitement of this city.  It was so great to be able to share this with our children.  We stayed with our good friends Maria and Kev in Essex - gotta love Essex - "you know what I mean yeah".

We met up with Bevan briefly for two nights (before he had to come back to China for work). He took the kids to the Natural History Museum which they loved.  We also encountered some of my other friends from 10 years gone by - Mr Mark Jefferson who hosted us for lunch while our chaffeur for the day was Patrick and his adopted company Autumn (a dog).  Maria, Terry (Marias lovely daughter) took us to Kensington Gardens for the day where we played on the pirate ship, strolled through Kensington Gardens past the Palace, then cooled off in the Princess Di memorial fountain - bliss.  The kids and I then hit Oxford Street briefly before heading to the Baumbers for dinner and some devine wine.

We spent a day at Legoland in Windsor - left home at 7am and got back about 10pm so it was an epic but fun filled day.  The rides were fun and the miniature lego cities were impressive.  Got soaked on one of the water rides - lucky it was a hot hot day. We visited the Science and Technology Museum, hung out at Covent Garden watching the street performers which the kids loved - not bad entertainment for free.  Our chaffeur Patrick Spears took us and his sister to Greenwich which was a fun day hanging out in lovely London.

We so so so enjoyed our trip and seeing all of our amazing friends again.

Jefferson Boys, Mr Spears, Autumn (dog) and Cindy

Kevin Onslow teaching Samuel how to express himself

Maria Onslow and Kenzie strutting their stuff at Kensington Gardens

Squirrel that Samuel fed his snacks to.

Princess Di Memorial - Mackenzie, Maria and Terry

Maria and Cindy

Legoland

Greenwich

Rome - August 2014

We arrived in Rome in one piece to be greeted with a familiar and friendly reception by my Aunty Val and Uncle Carmine.  We stayed with them for 8 glorious nights.  During this time my Aunt cooked, cleaned, looked after the children and we generally had a brilliant time.  My Uncle was our Chaffeur - does life get any better.  It was pretty hot so we went to the beach several times.

We went into the centre of Rome twice and saw the amazing sites including the Colosseum - lucky I had prebooked tickets for this as the line was massive.  Samuel was very interested in the fighting that took place here as was desperate t get a gladiator outfit which was subsequently purchased.  We took a tricycle ride to Piazza Novana then walked to the Pantheon and onto the Trevi Fountain which funnily enough was being restored and covered in scaffolding - this occurs at at least one major site seeing destination everytime. The kids thought the Pantheon was pretty amazing with the hole in the ceiling Our next adventure into the big smoke was to St Peters Bascillica - we used our skills aquired in China to skip the 3 hour long que by joining a Chinese tour group.  I engaged in some small converstation in chinese and before you knew it we were inside.  We then made our way to the Spanish steps where Samuel had the great idea of racing me to the top on a very very hot day. As you would expect he was much faster than myself.

Beach in Rome

Colosseum

   

Piazza Novana

Pantheon