Fall Break

We had a great time on fall break. The weather was beautiful and the boys were so relieved to be out of school that we had a great time running around. We first headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon to a place that I had only heard about, but for some reason had never been- Silver Lake. It was a great little walk around a picturesque lake. The fall colors were on in full effect as well;

We had invited our friends, the Hales, to come along with us. This is a favorite spot of theirs, so the Hales boys were able to show the Cardon boys all of the best places to stop and climb around on the rocks off the trail. We spent quite a lot of time waiting on the climbers.

There were lots of great board walks and little docks around the lake too, offering us some great views.

Finn quickly decided to break into super grumpy mode and spent a lot of time complaining about hating walking and hiking and everything else.... until we found a place for him to throw things in the water.

Wyatt was an expert rock climber.

We did have a fun and adventurous moment when the kids were playing off the trail and all of the sudden most of them started sprinting straight for us with panicked looks on their faces. They had spotted a bull moose sitting very close to where they were playing. We quickly grabbed up the smallest boys before going up the hill after Henry, who had decided to check it out instead of running for his life. Luckily, the moose was sitting down and posing no threat to the kids. We watched him for a while until he got bored with us and stood up and wandered off in the opposite direction. It was a fun experience.

The school had some new construction over the summer and fall, and the break allowed us a chance to try out the new and recently opened playground when we could have it all to ourselves. The boys loved all the new options.

Henry the monkey.

Wyatt loves trying to climb as many things as he can.

Gavin and Finn had a great time together. Gavin is such a good help with the baby brother.

We had a great success getting our family taken this year. Great location and great looking kids.

After the pictures, we headed to Woody's Drive-In for root beer floats and fries.

And Finn chased it down with fry sauce.

Caleb and Marci go to the UK- Day 1

On September 24, Caleb and I headed to the airport to catch a red-eye flight to London! This was the first trip to Europe for both of us, and we some how survived the packed flight and the over night journey to arrive at Heathrow around noon in England.

 The first thing we did was get on the Tube and head into Central London. We decided not to take the Express train to save the costs, but about half way there, we were regretting that because there was a delay on the train tracks and we sat for an extra 30 minutes. We were both quite relieved to make it to our hotel, St Ermins, in central London. It was a very fancy old building, and a great location. The room was small, but comfortable. We dropped off our suitcases and headed out to explore.

The hotel was right across the street from New Scotland Yard. We didn't see much criminal action, thank goodness.

Our first stop was Westminster Abbey, just a block and a half from the hotel. We came around the corner, into a suddenly very busy part of town and soon realized what a huge and crowded city London is. Westminster was beautiful and amazing to see, though our timing was always a bit off and we weren't able to go inside, due to it closing early that weekend for special services.

The side of Westminster Abbey.

This was part of the offices and living quarters that make up the large square of buildings around Westminster. We happened to be walking by as someone important was leaving, and a crowd had gathered to watch. We were just clueless tourists and had no idea who it was.

We turned the corner to run right into Big Ben and the Parliament Building. There was a huge roundabout by a small square to filter all of the traffic, so we got our first glimpse of the many red double deckers and the black cabs... and our first chances to try and cross the street with the traffic coming from a direction we weren't used to. We made it through unscathed.

Seeing this really made us feel like we had arrived in England!

 The River Thames was one of my favorite things, as it is such a huge part of the London landscape. The Parliament Building was both massive and very ornate. 

We headed across the River toward the London Eye to try and locate a few major sites on that side of the river. We quickly realized that we didn't want to stand in the lines to ride the London Eye on the first day, since were were anxious to get a feel for the city and try and discover a few more things for our weekend.

 After what turned out to be some very extensive wandering, done the Thames, past Trafalgar Square, near Charring Cross and down some random side streets, we came across an Ethiopian food place that we had read some great reviews about. By this time, we were both anxious to sit for a few minutes and were actually super hungry. The place was tiny and we squeezed onto some stools at the small bar, but The food was amazing. An interesting combination of flavors that we both loved. It was a great start to the international flavors that we would consume while in London.

 We turned our wandering in the direction of the English Portrait Gallery, with the idea of escaping the large crowds for a few minutes. It turns out that we don't know that much about English historical figures and while the portraits were interesting, they weren't enough to keep us awake after only a few hours of sleep on the plane. We headed back into the excitement and cruised Picadilly Circus on foot. The set up for a weekend festival was going on and there was plenty to see.

We then decided that since we didn't plan to take a tour of Buckingham Palace this trip, that we might as well walk to it and take a look. Turns out it was a lot farther than we thought, and we were a lot more tired than we thought. It seemed like a very long walk, but we made it.

These gilded gates lead to Green Park next to the palace.

 The palace was a pretty amazing structure, but without a tour, there is not getting close to it, since it is still someone's home and office. We did wander a little and take a look. And we used the zoom lens to get a closer glimpse of the very well armed guards. In London there were actually quite a few places that we came across with guards and military personnel carrying large weapons. No wandering into places you shouldn't by accident.

 This view with Caleb and the Palace gates give a better idea of how far we really were from the guard stations.

Our tired legs made us decide to head back to our hotel at this point, and we ended the night with a beautiful walk through Saint James Park.

 It had a great view of the palace from a picturesque bridge.

 The flowers and plants that were still growing at the end of September were a wonderful surprise.

 Caleb was done with photos for the day, but did agree for one more pose near the Horse Guard. It was an old and forbidding structure for just being a place to house the horses and guards. 10 Baker Street was also near this building, but so heavily guarded by a huge fence and wires that we just had to imagine that we saw it.

That ended our first day in London, and we were quite happy to head back to the hotel and crash by 8:30pm. It was amazing how just traveling made us so tired.

London- Day 2

The second day of our trip was our only full day in London and it was so much fun. We decided that we wanted to experience a few historical sites and check out some great views of the city. The obvious place to start was Saint Paul's Cathedral.

We took the tube over there and then wandered around looking for breakfast and waiting for it to open. We ended up grabbing something to eat at a place called "Eat"- this was our first truly English fare and it was something called a "bacon crusty roll." And that description pretty much sums up what it was. 

Saint Paul's is national church of England, and a pretty amazing structure. They don't allow you to take photos inside, but even the outside was great. We went on the audio tour, which was interesting and a nice feature because it makes the sites seem so much more quiet and peaceful despite the crowds. No one is talking much while they are listening to the tour.

The back of the Cathedral.

Near the front doors.

Saint Paul's ended up on the top 5 list for both Caleb and I for all of the places that we visited on our trip. We just really loved our experience there. We had to wait a few minutes after our tour to be able to climb the 528 steps to the top dome and check out the city of London. There were several stops along the climb. One in the whispering gallery, which you couldn't see from below, but opened into a view of the cathedral floor. The next stop was a balcony with high stone rails just below the cone and larger dome. The last stop was the smaller top dome and a beautiful city below.

There were small alcoves just big enough for a person to sit on the avoid the wind, and I would guess also the rain, though we stayed dry.

Caleb loves a good view point almost better than anything else in the world, so he was soaking up the chance to take a lot of aerial photos of the city. We also used this time to try and get a sense of direction and acclimate ourselves to where we were. Tho it was quite different back on the ground.

London business district

The smaller chapel and garden of Saint Paul's through the railing.

One of the things that made this one of our favorite places in England was the climb. We do love a good physical challenge, but I also loved the ancient feel of these stairwells and their winding and changing halls.

We also got a very close up view of the construction of the dome and the hidden cone that is the main supporting structure for this building. These stairs went right along it. Amazing.

That tiny dome at the top is where we were just a few minutes before this picture.

We saw so many of these iconic phone booth, but right by Saint Paul's was this one that is how I will remember England. Green and with lots of flowers and some old London history. Had to pose for a few photos.

And I was not able to access the Ministry of Magic from here.

We were much more wise and gentle on our feet the second day and did a lot of hopping on and off the tube to get around town. The oyster card was a great tip from a travel blog and we put it to it's maximum use this day. My favorite things about the tube are that there are no exit signs, just arrows pointing to "the way out."

And of course we loved the many reminders both verbal and written... to "Mind the Gap" between the train and the platform.

Our next stop was the Tower of London. We had the amazing experience to see the poppies exhibit to commemorate the 888,246 British military deaths in WWI. It truly was a breath taking and visual shocking site amount all of the grey of the city. The poppies are each ceramic and about the size of my hand.

We watch some of the volunteers placing the poppies as well. 

We decided not to tour the tower because of the incredibly large crowds and the other places we wanted to go. 

The view of Tower Bridge.

We did take the short tour of Tower Bridge, tho it wasn't quite as enlightening as we would have hope, it still had some interesting parts. Just the scope of technology used in making this bridge was something amazing. And to make it look great with the landscape of London, was impressive.

After all of our morning wandering, we took the advice of a good friend who had lived in London and we headed to Burrow Market hungry and ready to try some great foods.

We tried Schwarma, fresh squeezed juices, olive cheese bread fresh from the oven, Duck confit sandwich (Caleb's favorite), more Ethiopian food, and the most amazing donut i have ever had in my life- the traditional English donut filled with whipped blueberry cream.

Caleb waiting for the duck confit.

And Caleb after the first taste of the English donut... we may have bought another 4 after this one... though we didn't eat them all at once.

The food stands serving up some great stuff to loads of people standing and eating in the street. That's how good the food was. 

After Burrow Market we dropped off our stock of great food yet to consumed and then decided to take a double decker bus to Camden Market... not sure what tainted that experience for me, maybe it was the lack of eating food, but Camden was not my favorite place. The grungy, smoke blowing crowds and endless shops selling chinatownesk goods just didn't fulfill my London expectations. We did find a few souvenirs and then got out of there. 

We finished our night with some great Indian food and a walk through and interesting part of town, then we wandered around to take in the city in the dark.

London doesn't disappoint whether it is night or day.

Parliament

Westminster Abbey