Hanging with the Travis and Emily Cushing Family- Part Two

So since Owen was born, Tyler and I have had probably three dates without him present. Em and the kids offered to take Owen all day Thursday so that Tyler and I could have some "alone time" in the city together. It was such a fantastic day. We got into London a little later than we had originally planned because that's how Tyler and I do things so we knew we were only going to be able to see a couple of things before they closed for the day (everything closes for tours at like 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon). We decided to hit up the Tower of London first things first. It was amazing...

This nice guy showed us around the place

We were there for about two or three hours and wished we could have stayed  longer because there was so much to see . We probably only saw like half of what we could have seen but we also wanted to hit up St. Paul's Cathedral so we knew we had to get out of there. We decided to walk, which took a little longer than expected but it was so fun to walk around the city.  We did end up getting to St. Paul's Cathedral just before they closed for the day and got to take a tour. It is an amazing place.

View from the top... isn't it gorgeous?

From there we decided to go see WICKED!!! YAY! I was so excited. I read the book years ago and have wanted to see the play for years but we've never really had the opportunity. We figured this was our chance. We headed to a nice Italian dinner and then to the show!

It was so much better than I ever even thought it would be. It was so fantastic and so fun to have a day alone with my handsome hubby.
THANKS Em and kids for hanging with Owen all day!

Friday we got up and headed to the Oracle (a shopping center near Em and Trav's place) and hit up H&M for some new clothes... YAY for H&M! Love that place.
We had planned on getting an early start and getting to this place called Avebury early in the day but of course, because it's how we do things, we got there much later than planned and were so bummed when we got there and realized how amazing it was. I had never even heard of Avebury until we got to England but Em and Trav told us about it and had never been there so we decided to check it out.  It's this really cool place with huge stones like Stonehenge but you can actually walk up to and touch the stones, not just look at them.

So sad I didn't get a pic of Owen's favorite part of Avebury... there were sheep just grazing in the field with us. He was so excited about them.
After we left the stones we headed to a nice little French dinner. Yummy.

Don't judge me for the mess on Owen's face. I honestly don't remember it being that big of a mess when we were at dinner or I promise I would have wiped him up before taking pictures.
Anyway, such a fun day.
Friday we got up and headed to Stonehenge first thing in the morning. Really cool to see it in person for sure.

Owen was so interested in the Audio tour Tyler was getting







As you can see, Owen didn't care as much about the stones as he did about rolling around in the grass around the stones.

After Stonehenge we headed to Bath. This was one our favorite places that we visted the whole trip.

Tyler was really excited to check our the Roman Baths while we were there. I'm so glad we did. It was such an amazing place.

I would highly suggest it if you find yourself in the area.

Sunday was just a super relaxing day spent at church and with some way nice friends of Em and Trav's that invited us to dinner. So nice of them.

Even though we spent every day seeing amazing things, Owen's favorite pastime was hanging with cousins and playing "choo choo's" whenever we found ourselves at home. Even two weeks later he is asking for Ty and Car and choo choo's. So cute.

We had such a fantastic time and are so grateful for Trav, Em and kids hosting us for ten days. Thanks for showing us such a good time!

Hanging with the Travis and Emily Cushing Family-Part One

Yay for family that moves out of the country for six months so that we can go visit them! Ok, so us visiting was not the reason for the move but my brother his wife and their four kids moved to London about six months ago for work. When Tyler and I found out they were going to England, we felt like we had to go visit them while they were there. We flew out on the 5th of November and made the flight by the skin of our teeth. Do people still use that saying? Well, I'm using it now because we seriously thought we weren't  going to make it onto the plane but made it with seconds (no joke... seconds) to spare (thanks nice Delta agents for your help!).
So we arrived the morning of the 6th, were welcomed into the Cush Clan hotel (details to come in a later post) and immediately went and took a two hour nap before we were headed  to my first European league soccer game (if you're interested in that, you can read about it here.)
Don't worry, I'm not going to give you a minute by minute account of what we did, instead I'll just give you some of the highlights of our daily happenings.
Monday: Tyler, Owen and I headed to Windsor for the day. 





Went on a tour to Windsor Castle

 


Hung out at the Thames River







Classic "Stand as close as you can to a guard" pic.

 

Tuesday Travis took off work so that the whole group could head to Harrods to see "Father Christmas". Don't make the mistake of calling him Santa to Father's Christmas' helpers. They don't like it.

If you are wondering if there really is a difference, there is. I've listed them below.

1. Father Christmas wears blue eyeshadow

2. Father Christmas cracks jokes and tells children that their names in reindeer mean "toilet brush" and other such things.

3. Father Christmas doesn't ask the kids what they want for Christmas. After cracking jokes and insulting children, he sends them you on your way. 



Waiting to see Father Christmas



One redeeming quality of Father Christmas: Instead of one little candy cane, he gave each child a Peter Pan book and a big chocolate.

P.S. Harrods had the most amazing kids clothing. Not that I would ever buy my daughter a skirt for $600 (if I had a daughter) but man if I ever decided to, that's where I would buy it. Gorgeous clothes.

After Harrods we headed over to the London Sea Aquarium:

We also got to check out Big Ben and Parliment:

Westminster Abbey:

And Buckingham Palace:

Oh and ate some yummy crepes and drank hot chocolate from street vendors.... yummy!

Wednesday we headed to Oxford with Em and the kids:



At Oxford University
































We were super bummed we didn't have more time in Oxford, we could have spent a couple of days there but Tyler needed to get back to meet Travis for the Chelsea vs. Fullham soccer game:

To be continued...

Futbol

When Tyler and I were dating, had been dating for almost two years he decided to take a trip with some friends and their girlfriends to Germany for the World Cup. Since Tyler had a hard time deciding whether or not he really wanted me to be called his girlfriend, I was not invited. He had a bunch of good excuses, like that they purchased all of the tickets before he and I were really very serious, or that it would cost a lot of time off work and money (neither of which I had). I admit it... I was really bummed about it. I had grown up watching soccer, playing soccer and loving soccer. I wanted so badly to be  number 1. travevling with Tyler and number 2. Watching soccer at the world cup in Germany.
Since that time, it's been a running joke with us. Whenever soccer or the world cup comes up in conversation Tyler will ask me why I didn't come along when they went. I act like it's not funny and then he promises to make it up to me at some point.
It finally happened. By way of my older brother Travis, me and Tyler were finally able to go to a real life European Futbol game together. To make it even better, my sis-in-law Em and nephew Carter came along for the game as well.

Am I really going to give Tyler credit for this and let him get away with the fact that I wasn't invited to go along to the world cup? Definitely not... I mean let's be honest, it was Travis who really invited us and got us the tickets so Tyler can't really be taking credit for that now can he?