London Trip

I found cheap airplane tickets to London last summer (in 2019) and snagged them. Unfortunately, my crystal ball was malfunctioning at the time and it did not foresee the Coronavirus crisis that would correspond with our travel dates. As we were packing for London the night before our trip, President Trump made a live announcement. I listened in shock and disappointment as he declared a travel ban for Europe and I thought that our trip was being cancelled...but then he said that the UK was fine and would not be under the travel ban. Phew! (Until we were already in London and then the UK was included.😄)

The next day, on March 12th, we left our home just before 7am and drove six-ish hours to the Los Angeles airport. On the way we stopped at the largest Chevron in the world. I mention this mostly so that the boys can remember it because for some reason they really loved it. It was raining for a lot of our drive and by the time we got to LA and found the economy parking lot, it was pouring rain. Holding umbrellas while trying to grab suitcases, backpacks, and coats and get five people moving to the bus stop was super awkward and we got pretty wet. Peter also discovered that the shoes he was wearing had a hole in the bottom which let all of the water come straight into his shoe. This was by far the most rain we saw on the entire trip and was also probably the most unpleasant part of our whole trip.

After going through security and waiting around the airport for awhile, our plane finally took off at 4pm LA time. This was the boys' first time on an airplane. Our flight was around 10.5 hours long, but they did great and loved it. Because of the time difference, we arrived in England at 9:30am on Friday morning.

We took the subway and buses to our hotel where we napped for a couple of hours and then went to explore Holland Park which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel. Of all the parks we saw, Holland Park was my favorite. Here are a few pictures from Holland Park.

I can't remember which days we did which things, but we also saw Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The British Museum, Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross Station, The Royal Botanical Garden, the Tower of London, and several parks including St. James Park. We also saw tons of cool buildings and cathedrals and beautiful places just from traveling around London. Here is a random mashup of a few trip pictures.

For the majority of the trip, the only side effect of the Coronavirus was that nothing was crowded...until we went to Piccadilly Circus. Then we definitely felt the effects of the Coronavirus. It was eerily deserted with most of the shops closed.

Chinatown in Piccadilly Circus. Notice that there was no one else in the picture. It was empty. We loved the name of this restaurant/pub.

Outside of a closed Lego store with a Lego Big Ben in Piccadilly Circus

On Wednesday morning I got an email that our flight home Friday had been canceled and that I needed to fill out a form online whereupon someone would contact us to reschedule. We still hadn't heard back from the airline by Thursday afternoon so I called them and spent over an hour on the phone trying to get a new flight home. In the end, they rebooked us on a flight from London to New York and another flight from New York to Los Angeles. From the time that we woke up in London and began packing and traveling to the airport until we arrived in Saint George, it was thirty hours. This is how the boys looked on the drive from LA to Saint George.

Despite the Coronavirus and some long traveling days, it was a really fun trip! We're so glad that we went.

As an interesting side-note, the day that we got home London restaurants, cafes, pubs, etc. were all ordered to close and two days later London went on complete lock down.

Gideon had a choir concert last Monday. It was really fun to watch. I especially enjoyed his choir teacher's enthusiasm and Gideon's lack thereof. He's on the right side, gym-floor row in this video.

Ambrose absolutely loves this bathrobe. It is super soft, so he wears it whenever he wants to feel "cuddly." I didn't know until this week, though, that he had another reason for loving it. He told me, "I literally think I'm cute when I have this on."

This week's highlights:

1) Gideon had a band competition that I got to go watch. They did really well.

2) On Saturday, Peter and the boys had a fun time spelunking in Snow Canyon. Here's a video Peter took. Unfortunately I don't know how to edit it and make it shorter...so stop watching when it gets boring.

3) During the past two weeks, the boys and I have watched two or three episodes of "Chopped" together. (If you haven't seen "Chopped," it's a competitive cooking show.) Apparently a couple of episodes was all it took for the boys to soak in some foodie vocab. Earlier this week I was making a smoothie with Ambrose and asked him if we should throw in some oatmeal. He said "Yes, I think we need to transform this smoothie." Then tonight we were eating some snack foods when Silas came up with a new creation. He spread some cheese ball on a cracker, dripped some Valentina's hot sauce on it, and then topped it with a piece of popcorn to "add some dimension."

After having a family home evening about friends and making good choices, Silas randomly spurt out, "The wisest choice at a bar is a tankard of strong ale!" That boy has read one too many books.

Gideon went to his first Young Men's activity on Tuesday. It was combined with the Young Women and they had a cake decorating competition where each team decorated their cake like a scene from the Book of Mormon. The Deacon's won with this cake of Samuel up on the wall.

I guess this week is all about Ambrose. On Monday Ambrose started at The Grip--Ninja Warrior Training Center. He's been asking me if he could go there for a long time so I finally signed him up. He was pooped when the class was done but he had a lot of fun. He can't wait to go back. On Friday, Ambrose's class celebrated the 100th day of school with various activities and the kids could also dress up like they were "100 years old." This was the best we could do with short notice. He kind of looks like Colonel Sanders.

Today during singing time in primary, the primary chorister asked, "What is a seer?" Ambrose raised his hand and said, "It's something you shave sheep with."

December 31, 2019

We went hiking in Snow Canyon and found a frozen pond (pond? large puddle?) which was super fun for the boys.

Christmas 2019

In Summary...

Okay, so my last post was in February of 2017. I guess it's time to catch up on the last three years. So here's a quick summary.

1. We did a lot of hiking. Here are some pictures from a few of our hikes.

2. We went to Lagoon in May 2017.

3. Peter and I went on a 10-year anniversary cruise from Miami to Cozumel in July 2017. The boys stayed in Idaho with Grandma and Grandpa Stott.

4. Peter took the boys on a trip to Colorado in September 2017 while I stayed home and completed some projects. One of the nights they all slept in the back of the van together.

5. We went camping at Oak Grove in the fall of 2017. It was beautiful but very hard to sleep due to the drunk loud college students camping next to us.

6. Here are a few more pictures from the fall of 2017.

The boys' first trip to the Grand Canyon

The boys and their friends taking leaf pile jumping to the next level.

Halloween

7. One night in the fall of 2017, Peter went to bed really, really early. I didn't want to go to sleep yet, but everyone in the whole house was sleeping so I couldn't make noise or go upstairs. I decided to cruise around on Craigslist and Zillow. When Peter woke up in the morning, I told him that we needed to go see a house and some kittens. We ended up getting both...and all because Peter went to bed too early!

Kitties: Chicken and Waffles

 8. Ambrose learned how to ride a bike without training wheels on Christmas Day 2017.

9. In the beginning of January 2018, we moved.

House we moved from.

House we moved to.

10. We spent a lot of 2018 painting, replacing lighting, getting new appliances, and remodeling our master bathroom and upstairs laundry room.

This is what the kitchen looked like when we moved in.

This was our mustard yellow dining area.

This was the blue living room next to the mustard yellow kitchen.

Here's the kitchen and living room after we painted, got a new fridge, and replaced the ceiling fans.

11. We found out that our new house had a scorpion problem.

12. In May 2018, we went to Peter's Grandpa's funeral and the beach in Los Angeles.

13. In June 2018, we went to Idaho for Jace and Dylan's wedding and Silas' baptism. While there, I became a "cowgirl."

14. In July 2018, we went to the Grand Canyon. Peter and the boys had been before, but it was my first time there.

15. In August, Kodie, McKay, & Deacon came for a visit and we went back to the Grand Canyon where we went on a super memorable, fun hike.

16. School also started in August. It was Ambrose's first year of school and all three boys got to be in the same school.

17. All three boys played flag football (but for some reason I only got pictures of Ambrose).

18. For Halloween 2018, Gideon was a taco. Ambrose and Silas wore matching washer and dryer costumes.

This was the year that one of our neighbors set up a table with a whole bunch of truly random things and let the kids pick their trick-or-treat. Ambrose picked this antique bar of soap thinking it was candy because it said "milk 'n honee." Gideon picked this apple clock.

19. In May 2019, we went to Yellowstone and to see Clay and Amber's family. It was fun but freezing cold. We saw lots of wildlife--including big horn sheep, grizzly bears, black bears, bison, a fox, and a moose.

20. In August 2019, Silas and Ambrose switched to a new elementary school so that Silas could do an accelerated learning program. Gideon started his first year of intermediate school and ended up joining band which he really likes. For Halloween 2019, Gideon went as a turkey, Silas as a hot dog, and Ambrose as a whoopee cushion.

And that concludes the whirlwind tour of the last three years! I'm sure that I've missed some things, but it's better than nothing.