I ♥ London. Especially London trips with the hubby.

We have some awesome friends who were willing to watch Luke and Ella overnight (thanks Logan and Stacy!!), so Jake and I went to London this weekend.  We sped off as soon as Jake got off work on Friday.  The drive there was a little stressful since traffic was bad and we needed to make our 7:30 showing of Wicked!  Driving into and out of the city is crazy on the weekends.  With no traffic it's about an hour fifteen min, but with weekend traffic it's quite a bit longer.  When people go to London from here they usually just ride the train in.  Makes things easier when you don't have to park a car and drive on the crazy London streets, but since we were staying overnight, we were able to leave the car at our hotel.  We ended up taking a cab to get to the Apollo Victoria Theatre from the hotel (The Crown Moran) and got there about 5 minutes late.  We had to watch the first ten minutes of the show from the back of the theatre until they could escort us to our seats.  Wicked was really fun though!  Jake liked it too.  I think the next musical I want to see here is Billy Elliot.   Here we are after the show.  The lighting was really weird in this pic, hence the black and white.  Crappy picture= better then no picture though, right?  Maybe not.    

It was too late after the show to really sit down and eat, so we grabbed some sandwiches at little place before jumping on the tube and got back to the hotel around midnight.  The Crown Moran has free breakfast in the morning, so after eating there we went out to see the city.   Jake and I had some company on our trip.  Our nephew sent us a flat Caden to take around England for a bit for his class at school.  We took him the next day with us sightseeing.  I think he liked riding the tube.  Haha.  Thought this picture was plain. 

(smith def. of plain acc to Jake for all of you non-smiths:  pleasantly funny in its own way.)

We wanted to go to the National Gallery since it's something we'd rather not do with kids in tow.  Pretty amazing seeing so many well-known paintings in person!  (Van Gogh, Monet, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Rousseau, Seurat, etc.) 

View of Trafalgar Square from the steps of the National Gallery...

Making sure flat Caden got a picture with a double decker bus.  My kids think they are cool. 

Can you find Jake in this next pic?  He's the only guy in the city wearing red so it should be easy :)

Looking down at Big Ben from Trafalgar Square...

Flat Caden met the Household Calvary and got a token phone booth shot...

House of Parliament...

It was exactly noon when we walked by Big Ben.

River Thames and the London Eye. 

Westminster Abbey.  William and Kate tie the knot in a couple of months here.  April 29th has been declared a national holiday for it.   

Caden and I went to Hogwarts for a bit.

Jake at King's Cross station

My favorite London food:  Crepes.  At the Kensington Creperie.  It was Jake's first time there and he's a fan now too.  Delish!  Come visit and we'll take you :)

It was fun just walking around and relaxing in the city with each other.  Thanks Jake for a fun weekend!