Bucket List Flashback: London? Check!

While making some organizational changes {and a few additions} to my bucket list the other day, I realized I never told ya'll about our trip to London last December. Which would make sense, because I didn't start writing this blog until January.

So will you please join me for a step back into time?

We treated ourselves to a pretty nice hotel, since it was our first Christmas ever away from our family and friends in Minnesota.  {I was eight months pregnant with J#4 so an overseas plane trip wasn't in the cards for us.  But a train ride to London?  Golden!}  This is the view from our balcony. Not to shabby, eh?

"Hey look kids, Big Ben, Parliment! Hey look kids, Big Ben, Parliment! Hey look kids, Big Ben, Parliment!"  Can anyone guess the movie?

I think the view might have gotten even better at night.  

Since I was so far along in my pregnancy, we took it a little easy on this trip. And now that we are moving to Scotland, it should be easy for us to get back to London to see even more, right? 

We did the "hop on, hop off" bus tour.  I love this as an option when you are traveling in a big city.  Gives you a good lay of the land, so that you can pick and choose the areas you want to check out more once you are done with your tour. 

Seriously.  Do you see this little baby boy?  Where did he go??? 

First up was our required trip to the Hard Rock Cafe.  And with this being the ORIGINAL HRC, we had to make sure that we ate there.  And we did.  

We went twice.  

Yes, we did.  On our first day in town (on the tour) and then on Christmas Day. Yup, our Christmas Dinner 2010 was compliments of the London Hard Rock Cafe.  

But back to the sites.  We made a trip to Buckingham Palace.  But there weren't the guards out front due to the holiday.  Boo.  Hiss. 

And the ever classic British phone booths... 

All I can say is "thank God for cell phones".  This thing was not the most pleasant smelling place in the city, I can tell you that for sure.  Although, I am guessing my sniffer was a bit more sensitive than usual.

Trafalgar Square

Of course we had to try fish & chips.  It might look like I am forcing this on J#3. Trust me, I'm not. It was either this photo or a REALLY bad one of me.  I write the blog, so I win.  

But what about Santa?   Did he find us?  Well, of course he did!

Setting up the train tracks for J#3 to enjoy.  Thanks Santa!  Actually, J#3 got to see Santa in the lobby of the hotel.  He evidently was so thankful for his train set he decided he was going to give Santa our camera case.  Isn't he a kind, giving boy?  ;-) 

The last day we were there we spent some time at the park.  

What almost two year old boy doesn't enjoy some time at the park?  And what eight month pregnant mum doesn't mind a park with a bench and a daddy to play with J#3?

To top off our trip, we stopped for a burger at the train station. What does J#3 do? Grabs Daddy's burger and starts eating it. Random. Totally and unbelievably random for this kid.

 Seriously, doesn't he look SO young in this picture? 

And that, my friends was our trip to London.  

Now that we have the big sites out of the way, you'll  have to let me know if you have any suggestions for our next trip to London. It's not yet planned, but it WILL be happening. This time I think we will hit in the summer...