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...