the sweetness: To London!

Oh hi!

I've been pushing blogging to the back burner of my brain and letting the good intentions just boil over. Blah. Jet lag is real, and is made worse by adorable children who simply refuse to sleep longer than 5:30am. But! I think we are finally getting back into a normal-ish rhythm since getting home from the UK/Europe so I'm going to try to make journaling here a more regular part of my weekly agenda again. So many things I want to share and jot down for my own memory's sake. Where to start? Perhaps the flight?

I thought I would be nervous flying across the ocean for the first time, but it was so much fun. (Though, I should note - after a month of being stuck in the house in the middle of Michigan's winter, tending to sick, miserable children who had every bug and flu around during the month of January, solitary confinement would have been fun to me - just saying!) I had never been on such a big plane before. The novelty of in flight meals and tv/movie choices kept me too entertained to sleep much. It was so exciting watching the GPS chart the plane's location as we flew by Iceland and Ireland.

I felt the need to selfie-document my first moments in the UK - complete with UK toilet!

(Oops. I always forget to shut the stall door when selfie-ing in a restroom, because I'm that cool.)

This is super corny, but I had a real "moment" as soon as I stepped into Heathrow airport. I literally closed my eyes and let it sink in "I'm out the U.S. - I'm standing in London!" Traveling outside the U.S. was a dream come true for me, one I never thought would happen during this time of life. It felt really, really surreal.

Ok, then I opened my eyes and tried to pretend I was cool and knew what I was doing.

Excited to ride the Tube and mind those gaps!

Crossing the Millennial Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral for church.

It was about 9a.m. once we actually got to our hotel. Too early to check in, they let us leave our bags there and we headed out to explore. We ended up walking across the Thames to St. Paul's cathedral and randomly decided to pop in for Sunday services! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral (which was awe inspiring - so beautiful,) but I'll keep those memories for the rest of my life. It was a cheerful, sunny service complete with a very talented boys choir (some of them were so little!)

The rest of the day was a bit of a blur. Matt and I went out with one of his co-workers for a really good Indian lunch, and then we took the Tube up to Trafalgar Square and popped into the National Gallery. (I'm so glad we did this the first day, because a couple of days later when I went back the museum workers were on strike and most of the galleries were closed.)

Monet...

...Van Gogh!

Trafalagar Square was bustling and colorful and majestic. If it wasn't so cold, I would have loved to sit on a step and just people watch all evening.

But it was really cold, and I was tired and ended up going to bed pretty early while Matt went out with his co workers for dinner and drinks.