Birthday and cousins visit

I turned 26 this week! Woot woot. It was such a great day. Taylor took us for a ride to see my birthday surprise. He bought me a barn! Well, a side of a barn that is still standing. I love old barn wood and the best part it is that is was painted bright pink! So it is weathered pink barn wood. I should have taken pictures, but I didn't have my camera, and my phone is ancient. I am so excited so start making something! Then we got some breakfast and ate it at home. Taylor headed to work and Al and I took a little nap. My Mom drove up from UT to spend the day with us and got there about 10:30. We hung out for a little while Al and then headed to the zoo. We love going to the zoo, so we were excited to have my mom along with us.

Checking out the monkeys- they are our favorite:)

Waving hello!

Getting a drink from the lions mouth.

We went out to lunch and did a little shopping before she had to head back home. It was such a treat to spend the day with her and we can't wait to live closer so we can do it more often. After she left, Taylor came home from work. I didn't feel like going out so we just got some take out and watched Safe Haven- another gift from Taylor. It was a perfect day, I got to spend it with all of my favorite people:)

Then on Friday, my brother Dave and his wife Shauna came to visit us with their 2 boys. When Taylor and I were first dating they lived in Rexburg so we hung out with them alot. Then they moved to Denver, but they recently moved back to UT, so we love seeing them more! We had a lot of fun with them and Al loved playing with their boys. I wish I would have taken more pics- I got these when they were all ready for church.

Ha ha this one is my favorite

Tay-Wray Graduated!

Taylor graduated on Saturday from Idaho State University. He was just so excited to walk...haha jk I had to bribe him with everything I had. But I think he was glad in the end that he decided to do it. Here we are in Holt Arena. My parents drove up and Taylors parents, Andrew and Ashely, Chase and McKenzi, Grandma and Grandpa Hammer came. Paige was such a lifesaver to watch all the kids at the park. 

They had all of the Doctorate and Masters degrees go first. It was long...but we got to see my good friend and Taylor's cousin, Kaylee graduate with her Masters degree. Go Kaylee!

Ok here is Taylor walking up the ramp...

And here he is. You can see his name on the screen.

He walked across the stage and right out the door. I got a text from him that said, I'm outside:) So we all left to join him!

Such handsome guy!

Grandpa was thanking him for leaving early:)

Proud parents!

We went to Golden Coral for lunch. Paige met us there with all the kids. Al was cranky and tired, but so excited to see his Dad. I made Taylor stay in his cap and gown for a sec to get a family picture.

They are little twinners.

Love our little family! We are so proud of Taylor. He has worked so hard and has gotten really good grades and has worked while doing it. And taken the GMAT and applied for grad school, and he still finds time to help around the house and hang out with us. And he is in the Young Men's presidency. He is amazing and we couldn't be more grateful for how much he supports us. He is the best husband and Dad. We can't wait for our next adventure. We are moving to Bountiful in August and Taylor starts school at Westminster the week before the baby is due. We are still trying to figure out where I'm going to have the baby, but we want to be settled in an apartment either way. 

London: Part 2

Saturday: We slept in this morning and got rested up for the busy day ahead of us!

This is our view from the hotel. It was an awesome hotel. Very contemporary and Ikea-ish. And we had the cutest little bus boy that brought Lizzy bottles of water for her feeding tube every night.

First thing was the Parliament tour. This was one of the things that I really was looking forward to doing. We learned so much and it was so fascanating to learn about their government. The English are very traditional and formal, it makes us Americans look like hicks from the sticks. 

Here we are in the Great Hall. During a big flood back in the day, they used it as a rowing pond, and it was also used as a tennis court, its where they have a big feast for the coronation of the royalty, and someone important was beheaded there, but I can't remember who:) Also they had the funeral public viewing of Queen Elizabeth the 1st there. Its the only place you can take pictures in the building. We had the best tour guide ever.

I just had to capture Mom's expression. She stayed up late on familysearch.org the night before finding our English ancestors and she was just so excited about it is was just darn cute.

We ate a yummy lunch and headed to our bike tour. These pictures are of a tunnel that is the only legal area in London to do graffiti. They encourage it and hold competitions there. It was so cool.

We saw this girl working on her stencil art when we were leaving and saw it completed when we returned.

Liz in her element.

We got to ride these fancy cruiser bikes all around. Our tour was called the "Secrets of London" tour and we saw some pretty random and fascinating things.

Mom was such a good sport and was so cute riding her bike.

First stop- Diagon Alley. Yes. They filmed Harry Potter here. 

It got a little chilly...

They filmed a John Wayne movie at that tavern.

We had a little snack break, so Lizzy hit up this record store and spent most of her inheritance there....and mom sat next to a lady who was smoking pot.

We went to the docks on the Thames River.

The Tower Bridge. Thats the one the dementors destroy in Harry Potter.

Amy being classy as always. And a sweet Maserati. 

Biking through London was a little scary, and yes I was taking pictures while we rode:). The brakes are on the opposite hands too, so that kinda threw me off a little. 

I couldn't get enough of Mom. She looked so cute. Dad would have been so proud of her.

The replica of Shakespeare theatre.

And back to return the bikes.

Yep my bike was named J.K. Rowling. I couldn't have been more excited about that!

Remember the stencil work we saw before? This is the finished product. It was amazing!

Favorite pictures of the trip!

We walked down to the river and had an amazing dinner. Then we walked back across the river and had these amazing views of the city.

Big Ben and Parliament.

The London Eye

 It was such a fun day and we were super tired!

SUNDAY:
We woke up early and took a taxi to the Hyde Park ward for church. Look how cool their building is! It was right across from the Victoria and Albert Museum and close to Kensington Palace. It was a huge ward and alot of great people. From there we took a taxi to meet our bus for the Stonehenge/Bath day trip.

We took a nice travel bus out to the country to visit bath. It was an absolutely beautiful place. So green and hilly. Johnny Depp totally has a house there:) 

Cool steam punk girl statue. She totally moved to look at the camera!

First stop was the Catholic Abbey that was shut down during King Henry the 8th's reign when he started the Church of England. This was the only church we went into that we could take pictures.

Then we went to the Roman Baths. It was an old spa built on a hot spring hundreds of years ago when Rome took over England. The hot spring is still live and they have spas in Bath you can go to.

The water is still hot and bubbling...

I had to take this picture for Taylors dad, Vince. He loves Burger King and it was the only one we saw and in a super random place! There were a ton of McDonalds and Pizza Huts though.

This is our tour guide. We called him George because he literally looks exactly like my sister-in-law Darby's Dad, George. So we found the british version of him. We had some free time in Bath and so he took us to Jane Austen's house. She lived in Bath with her family for sometime and wrote Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and a bunch of other novels in Bath. It was amazing to think she walked these streets and socialized and got alot of her inspiration here.

Did you know they don't have any pictures of her? They think this sketch is of her, but its the only thing they have.

We just had to try on the costumes:)

I totally got the giggles when we were trying to be serious.

Yep she lived on Gay Street.

This is the oldest bakery in Bath. We bought Sally Lunn's famous sweet rolls (we had never heard of them before but we were hungry:)

Then we got back on the bus and headed to Lacock. It is an old village that they film alot of movies at because they have kept it old looking. These pictures I took from the bus on the way...

Lots of green farm land.

And sheep. Lots and lots of sheep.

They filmed alot of Harry Potter in this building.

This is the village of Lacock.

This is the old tithe barn that the village had to bring their tithe to.

This is the house they filmed HP #7, it was Harry's parents house in the movie.

We had lunch at this old pub that was built in the 1300's. It was a cool little place. We hopped back on the bus and headed to Stonehenge. It was so cold...I thought I was back in Rexburg.

They told us not to touch or lick the stone...

Our tour was told us before we got to Stonehenge not to get too excited. He said, its just a bunch of rocks out in the middle of field. Ha ha he was right, but it was cool to see. Its amazing to think these stones were placed there about 2200 BC, and they don't really know why there are there. They have 24 hour guards there.

We got back on the bus and headed back into London.

MONDAY:

We check out of the hotel monday morning and ventured on the tube to find Abbey Road. Mom was so cute singing all of the Beatles songes and walking across the street like they did. I volunteered to take the pics...

We then went to the Victoria and Albert museum. It is a huge museum with a ton to see. Then we headed to the airport! We got to Newark around 7:30 pm and Steve picked us up and we stayed the night at their house. It was fun to see their kids, I am kicking myself that we didn't get any pics together. We rested Tuesday morning and Amy took Mom, Liz and I to the airport. I had a different flight than they did and Darby picked me up in SLC at 10:00 pm and I drove all the way home! I couldn't wait to see my sweet boys. It took a few days to get back into the swing of things, but it wasn't too bad. I brought these cute pj's back for Al.