Natural History Museum

We had been wanting to check out the Natural History Museum in London, and since Jake didn't have to work on Martin Luther King Day and Luke was out of school, we finally went.  We liked it.  Another fun (and free!) London attraction.  

The museum has lots of dino and various extinct animal fossils.  Luke thought they were pretty boss.

Kiddos checking themselves out in the funky mirrors..

The body area was actually really cool.

And lots and lots of animals.  Ella was ticked that there weren't any real ones.  Guess next time we're in the city we'll go to the zoo.

The museum!  And me.  Proof that I was there too.  :)

We can't be around the corner from the creperie and not stop for some lunch!



Cuties on the tube..

We went over to St. James park to say hi to the squirrels and birds before going home.  It was really getting cold by the time we were done!!  The parks here are just not the same in the winter.  Poor Ella wasn't feeling so great so she slept a lot of the time in the stroller. Hauling a stroller up and down stairs and on/off the tube is not fun.  Especially when the train is crowded.  Worth it though for a day out!

New Year's Eve in London!

Jake and I spent New Year's Eve with the Lakes in London.  It's a crazy place to ring in the new year!  We  were jet lagged from getting home the night before, but had fun.  We tried a new Mexican restaurant and then browsed some shops.  After that we headed over to a comedy club in Covent Garden.  We thought we'd be able to see the fireworks after the show, but there were so many people downtown that I guess we would have had to claim a spot a lot earlier in the evening.  All the streets leading to the fireworks were fenced off, and the buildings are so high that they blocked our view.   People were just celebrating in the streets when it came time to count down to midnight so we just soaked up the crazy atmosphere!  Next year we'll go down just for the fireworks :)    Some pictures from our night on the town...

With Tyler and Cindy..

Random entertainment all over the place.  You can hear everything from violin players to construction cone music while walking around on New Years Eve.  :)

We walked around Chinatown for a while.  Kind of fun to check out all the crazy foods in the restaurant windows.   They've got some great London/England souvenir shops there too.

Chinatown map...

I don't want to eat it, but weird roasted animals make for some fun pictures!

All the crazies around us for the countdown...  the city was packed!  Free rides on the London Underground that night made for some packed subway rides after too. 

And the crazies on the other side of where we were standing...  :)

Tyler brought some Martinelli's to celebrate with and we found some fun London shot glasses at a Chinatown souvenir shop...

The guys wanted hot dogs on the way back to the tube station...

Everyone around us was popping champagne bottles at midnight and Jake got popped in the head by a cork.    It hit his ear and fell in his jacket, and he found it in his jacket hood once we got back to the car.

 
A Fun New Year's Eve down in the blog book!  Happy 2012!!!  I think it's going to be a great year :)

AZ trip part 2! Christmas with the Smiths

The second week of our time in AZ was spent with the Smith side of the family in Sedona.  Everyone is coming from all over the world now, so it was great that all could make it!  It had been too long since we were all together.  Wish we could do it more often!  We have Arizona, Utah, California, New York, England, and Japan represented.  I'm curious to see where we'll all be in ten years or so when we are settled down.   I'm thinking most of us will be settled down somewhere by then..  It was so much fun catching up with everyone.  Here are some of the fun things that went down Christmas 2011!

Lots and lots of treats and eating!  In one day we frosted and decorated sugar cookies, made cake pops and chocolate covered pretzels, and Jenni made caramels.  

We finally got to meet baby Asher and baby Emmy!  Super cuties.

Lots of gaming went on!

One day Mila painted Ella's fingers and toes!  Mila is pretty awesome at it.

Fun times being silly with cousins!

Grandma and Grandpa surprised the kids with a ride on the Polar Express.  We watched the movie earlier that day and then everybody took off for Williams, AZ where the train was.  It was the only time the kids saw snow on this trip.

Huddling around the heater to warm up while waiting for the train...

And it came!

I love that they have chefs like in the movie aboard the train :)

I think we took up at least half of the train car :)

Luke didn't remember a lot from the first time we took him on the Polar Express a few years ago so it was great to revisit.   More pictures from the train...

Checking out the North Pole..

Santa hopped on the train!

He gave all the kids a bell and a compass.

Santa with the kiddos.

The night before... when everyone got their new PJs... (Have to get the pajama pics!)  Here's the whole gang.

The kids..  All 18 of them!

The 2006 cuties.  It seems crazy that they're all 5 now!  I think this is the first time they were all happy for the 2006 picture.  They're sitting in order from oldest to youngest too.  

Austin, Luke, Logan/Seth, Lane/Lucy and  Gunnar!

The girls!  Hailey, Lauren, Shawna, Kristen, Jenni, Melanie, Me, and Sherry.  We added the final 2 sis-in-laws since the last Smith Christmas!  

And the guys :)

I like Ella's cheesy grin in our family pj pic.

Christmas program...

Santa delivered all of the presents to Rick and Sherry's condo, so the kids didn't get to see what they got until we got home from church!  Talk about torture!  haha.  Here are some of them after changing back into their pjs after church... waiting to see what they got!

Random Christmas morning pictures...

Playing outside Christmas day.  Luke got to test out his new bow and arrow set.

White Elephant Exchange... hilarious.  

Girls day out!  Abby got to come down from Flagstaff to go with us!  We had fun getting nails done and then eating at a tasty Mexican place for lunch.  Love these girls!

Swimming!  It was warm enough to swim the last couple of days we were there.

The kids went on quite a few hikes.  Usually the older guys would take them.  I wish I would have gone on one!  I was a bum though and stayed home.

Jake, Josh, Joe, and Ben went golfing one day...

After church pictures...  I like the first sibling one best.

All 7 couples!  The sun was just a little in our eyes!  We're all squinters :)

And another with everyone.

Ok, I've got a lot more pictures, but that's all I think I'm going to include!  Another fun Christmas season down in the blog books!  After we left Sedona, we went down to Mesa for another day and then flew back to London the next.  It was nice having Jake there with us on the way home.  We had a night flight, so the kids slept all but about an hour or two on the flight back. It took a good week before we were all back on England time once getting home though.  I'm glad we had a few days to veg and sleep in until after noon before getting back to school/work!