About Town

Visiting London is always fun and we are finding new things to love every time we go in.
While the Dials rode London Eye we played on the playground nearby along the river and got some great shots with London Eye behind.



Along the walkway that lines the Thames river.



Westminster Abbey

The new things we got to this week were Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery with its amazingly inspiring works of art including Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Monet, Manet, Renoir and many more. Some of my very favorites and we really loved it.
Sadie and McKay found the art intriguing and asked lots of questions about it.




Brandon and Kristi took Tyler and Zach to see Wicked.
Abe and I decided not to go again as I've seen it twice this year and Abe once in LA.
We are looking forward however, to going to the theater soon when Scott and Kari come.

Saturday we had a babysitter come early in the afternoon and Abe and I headed back to London to meet Brandon and Kristi for a nice night out.

Here they are at Covent Garden.

We found a delicious Indian restaurant near Covent Garden where we ate.
We also watched some of the street performers as we wandered.

We browsed through Harrods enjoying the myriad of displays. Outside Harrods this Audi R7 was driving past and the guys actually ran a block to catch up and get a good look at it.
The guy driving it was so arrogant.
He saw the guys checking his car out and actually flexed his arm muscles...So lame!

We walked Hyde Park and past Wellington Arch
and then headed back towards Waterloo and the train home.
On the way we took a short stop to see the almost surreal view
of Parliament and Big Ben lit up at night.

The day before our trip into London while Abe was working, I drove the Dials to Wimbledon. We enjoyed touring the grounds and the Lawn Tennis Museum.
Can't wait to get back in June for the real deal.

Dialed In

Yay, our first visitors from home!!!  Kristi Dial, Kristi Dial, as Lucy says every second.  The Dial Family...well part of it at least, flew in on Tuesday and are staying for a week.  We have LOVED having them here. They are such wonderful friends and bring so much happiness and news from home.  They also brought the sunshine making the sightseeing more enjoyable with good weather.

Picking the Dials up at Heathrow we packed the day with visits to Oxford, Blenheim Castle, the Cotswolds and Stratford-Upon-Avon, where we saw William Shakespeare's birth and burial places.  We were trying to keep the Dials awake by cramming so much into the day.

The next day Windsor Castle was on the list to watch the changing of the guard but when we arrived the castle was closed for the day.  We still are not sure why, probably a dignitary visiting.  We saw no castle and no guard changing- oh well. I guess we should have checked ahead!  

We licked our wounds and headed onto Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral.  Five minutes after arriving at the cathedral, the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate.  We spent twenty minutes on the lawn  as three fire engines came with sirens blaring.  They determined some dust from construction set off the alarm and we were able to head back inside.   We were just glad it wasn't one of our group pulling the alarm.  The cathedral was a first for all of us, and we enjoyed it.  The tower is breathtaking and the cathedral holds the oldest working clock in the world and an original of the Magna Carta.  This amazing document was handwritten beautifully on vellum in latin script. 

The Dials are awesome and make everything fun!  We have enjoyed the sites and talking til late.  Zach is loving Tyler being here as well.

   

A new friend

                                           

On Friday night Abe had the opportunity of accompanying the missionaries on a visit.  They were meeting with a man named Stanislauf "Stan" Polsa.  Stan is from Poland  and has lived here in Basingstoke for 6 months.  He is earning money and sending it back to his wife and three children in Poland.  

The missionaries asked Abe if we could pick  Stan up for church today as it was his first time and he has no car.  He told Abe that he had waken up this morning feeling weighed down over his job situation and then remembered that he was going to church today.  His mind was lighter and he was looking forward to it.   

                                       

After the meetings we asked Stan how he enjoyed it.  He said that he was there for three hours and yet it was so entertaining it went by very quickly.

  

We stopped at home quickly and made sandwiches and then took him to see the temple and explain about eternal families and the differences between the chapel we had met in earlier and the temple.  Lucy really took to Stan as she does with almost anyone. 

We are amazed at the work of these Sister Missionaries in our ward.  Sister Peterson and Sister Eyre.  They had about 8 investigators at church today with 3 committed for baptism and another 4 that have been baptized in the past month.  They really have an awesome spirit about them and are doing the Lord's work.  We have enjoyed getting to know them as well.  Sister Eyre is from Salt Lake and is the youngest daughter of Richard and Linda Eyre she has been on her mission for three months now, and Sister Peterson is from Ogden and has been out a little over a year.  

A couple of weeks ago they were over to our house for dinner and family night and shared one of their lessons with the kids.  It was on communicating with Heavenly Father through prayer. The kids loved it and it really got them excited about missionary work.  The kids even watched out the window as the Sisters knocked on our neighbors' doors and when a neighbor would let them in they would get all excited for them and ask if we thought they would get baptized:)

Shamrocks, Seasides and Starfish

When Abe scheduled a meeting with a client in Dublin a couple of weeks ago we looked into taking everyone and making it a weekend trip. Thanks to Ryanair we were able to fly very cheaply the day AFTER dad. Mom was a little nervous but other than a half-hour delay the short flight went very well and we arrived at the Dublin airport to meet dad with no problems.
Dublin has a nice feel to it. We liked it except for the crazy streets. Thank goodness for GPS to get us around.

We spent all day Friday and Saturday covering as much
of the eastern part of Ireland as we could.
We visited Malahide Castle where we had a delicious breakfast in the cafe
inside the castle and took a guided tour.
This castle was owned and lived in by The Talbot family up until the 1970's.

After visiting the castle we drove on along the coast to the port-town of Howth where we took about a 2 mile hike along the cliffs and around the end of the peninsula.

These thorny bushes with the yellow flowers grow wild all over here are called gorse. They smell just like coconut and remind me of Summer.

Saturday we drove further up the coast and found a great park for the kids to play at.

When we had driven for a couple of hours we came across a golf course Abe about wept over, it was so breathtaking. We got out to take pictures and found a walkway that led down to a little private beach that we played at for a while and where Sadie found a starfish that we enjoyed handing around and then eventually sent back into the ocean. I've decided Sadie may be a marine biologist when she grows up, she loves the oceans and the animals in it.

The kids begged and begged to bring some of the rocks from the beach back with them to England. After enough begging we eventually caved in and let them take some only to have all the kids bags searched through security at the airport and the rocks confiscated. McKay was so crushed he cried all the way down to the gate. Later today we discovered a few they had overlooked so all is well.

When we arrived back in Dublin we decided to visit the National Botanical Gardens.
They were beautiful.

I'm dreaming of a white...April 6th?

Didn't we move to England?  

This is what we woke up to this morning along with loud thunder and lightening.  

Abe is driving to Reading with the bishop this morning for Priesthood meeting. We are all supposed to return this afternoon to watch Saturday afternoon session tape delayed and then Sunday morning session live at 5pm our time.  Frankly, I'm a little scared to get on the roads with the Brits who rarely see snow and NEVER get snow like this, especially in April.  

Oxford Adventures

Being seven hours ahead of Salt Lake, our first session of General Conference was not until 5 pm. Our stake center is in Reading, 20 miles north of us- so, as we would be driving a bit anyway, we decided to take in Oxford before conference.

It has started to be a running joke that the sun comes out whenever we're indoors but as soon as we get outside it clouds over. Truly it was sunny and beautiful on our drive, and literally, the moment we stepped out of the car, the wind picked up and the clouds came rolling in. Then, the second we got back to the car the sun started shining away again.

We enjoyed a short visit to Oxford. We popped into a couple of museums. One had a special exhibition on Gulliver's Travels- with a trail for the kids to follow along with Gulliver to explore inventions and to explore the small microscopic world. At the Bodleian Library there was an exhibit on John Milton with original pages of Paradise Lost and his Areopagitica. The blossoms have been coming out and they were so lovely against the backdrop of the stone architecture.

We left Oxford with what should have been enough time to get to Reading, but half-way there the road was closed by the police. We were sent off to discover a new way to Reading. We traveled through some quaint little villages with thatched-roofed cottages and beautiful bridges and streams, BUT we we had no clue where we were and luckily meandered back to the road headed to Reading. Sadly, we were 20 minutes late to conference and missed the sustaining of the First Presidency and calling of Elder Christofferson. But we did catch some of the end- including the calling of Sister Dalton. Oh well, we did get to see some of England we may never have visited right?