DAY 1 -- May 12, 2012 Welcome to LONDON!!!

   Our trip actually started out on May 11th but it was a full day of travel and not too much exciting happened so I thought I would just get right to the good stuff!!!  We left from Salt Lake City around 11:00am if I remember correctly and flew for a whole lot of hours.  We had a minor layover in New York and then were on the plane all night flying over the Atlantic.  We thought we would take some Tylenol PM in hopes of crashing to help us in our attempt to get over the jet-lag...  it wasn't really so helpful.  I think we got about 4 hours of sleep over the ocean and then arrived in London at 8:00am.  We knew we had to just tough it out and stay up the whole day to get over the jet-lag. 

   Upon our arrival in London we had our first adventure in trying to locate our hotel!!!  It was pretty darn funny.  =)   We started asking around about what bus would take us to the Sheraton Heathrow hotel.  There was a kind man there who helped us find the "free" bus because we were too cheap to pay the fare to ride the hotel shuttle.  We ended up at a Sheraton hotel but it wasn't the right Sheraton.  Good times as always.

   We finally located the correct hotel but couldn't actually check in to our hotel room until the afternoon so we "freshened up" in the hotel lobby restroom which was pretty entertaining in and of itself!!!  After dropping off our luggage with the amazingly good looking Bell Boy who had the cutest accent ever, we were off to see LONDON!!!  Our first day was spent exploring Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and then in the evening I got to meet up with Kadija and Melenik.  (Kadija was one of the members I worked with a lot in Greece and Melenik was one of the elders I served with in the MTC).  They got married and are seriously the cutest couple on the face of the planet!!!  If you ask me, they were definitely a match made in Heaven.  =)

The London Underground  =)

Adrien Swenson said I needed to eat here!!!  It was DELICIOUS...  =)

The Big Ben

I love this Picture with the Double Decker Bus... what a great photographer I had.  =)

Houses of Parliament...  Aren't the buildings AMAZING!?!?

Random guy I asked to be in my picture...  I think he might be Russian!?!?

West Minster Abbey -- What a phenomenal building...  Pictures don't do it justice.

The back side of the Abbey.

I just LOVE the details of the buildings.  It's just not the same in the states.

If you look really hard I promise we are in this picture... Can you find us!?!?

The French Men that were trying their best to speak English so they could talk to us!

At the Buckingham Palace

Kadija & Melenik -- The couple that are a Match Made in Heaven!!!

Just being goofy!

Not sure why all the men were shirtless but it made for good "eye candy!"

China Town in London.

The beginning of eating Ice Cream every single day!!!  =)

Going on 3 weeks... and NO posts about the trip...

   Well, I can barely believe that I am already into week 3 of being home from Europe and I haven't put up a single picture on the blog....  I know, I know, I'm at total slacker and I need to get on it.  =)  I just don't know where all the time goes.  I've been trying to get up early in the morning to get in my exercise and daily studies of the scriptures before heading to work... and then my evenings seem to fill up with some sort of YSA activity or something and then it's time for bed so I'm going to try and do better.  Maybe I'll aim for a post a day during my lunch break!  It will only take me 22 days or so to fill you in on each day of our trip!

   I am bummed to be home and back in the somewhat mundane routine of life, but overall life is good.  =)  I have been sooo blessed to travel and see so much of the world.  I do also enjoy being home and having the opportunity to hang out with the nieces and nephew.  They are sooo stinking adorable but getting huge so I'm trying to soak it up while I can.  =)

  I'm officially back on a "trying to eat better and exercise" kick.  Hopefully it will pay off...  Otherwise, I'm totally going back to my junk food habits.  =)   The insurance industry is absolutely crazy with all the reform going on so some days are better than others at work, but overall I enjoy what I do!!!   Living with Grandma Larsen is incredibly fantastic!!!  I'm not really home all the much but we do at least say goodnight to each other most nights.

   There isn't much to report on in the area of MEN in my life... but I'm not worried.  It will work out when it works out!  I'm just grateful to know that Heavenly Father has a specific plan for me and my life!  =)  That knowledge seems to make all the difference.  I guess I'll quit boring you with the small details of day to day life and I'll get on with our amazing travels across Europe.

   This is hope to many more posts to come....