One more day in London with my sis! And Queen E's Diamond Jubilee!

Looking through pictures and thinking about blogging just makes me want to go to sleep lately!  Maybe it's because I have so many pictures to look through.  I don't know.  I'll blame it on being pregnant.  This is the only place I document this stuff though so I know I need to suck it up and get going!  I'm getting behind.  Another excuse for slacking is that our desktop that I usually use for pictures and blogging seems to have bit the dust.  It won't even turn on anymore.  Super annoying!  I'm glad pictures have been backed up for the most part.  I'm hoping there isn't much that I hadn't transfered onto the external hard drive. Pictures look a little funky after editing them on this laptop, but I guess it will have to do for now.
Anyhow, to finish up with fun things we did with Abby in April... this was our last full day together before she headed back to Arizona.  We started the day at the Royal Mews.  It was fun seeing the carriages and horses.  Speaking of carriages, today is the last day of the official Jubilee celebrations throughout the UK, so we got to see them put one of these carriages to use again.  Well, I saw on TV.  Not about to go down to London without Jake (he had to work) to fight the crazies for a glimpse of the Queen going by.  Everyone has been off work since last Friday and British kids are out of school all week this week.  I really feel lucky that we have been in England for so many big events.  Last year was a national party with William and Kate getting married, and this year there is a lot going on with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics.  It's a good place to be!  Back to playing with Abs though, here are some pics from the mews...

The Gold State Coach.  Fancy shmancy.

The Glass Coach...  Royal brides have ridden in here to the church to be married.

One of the royal cars...

Horse stuff...

 Gifts for the horses to Prince Philip from the Obamas...

The horse stables ...

Royal Riding School...

  And some carriage action from today!  I found these online.  Happy 60 years, Queen Elizabeth.

 This is the same open top carriage that William and Kate used after they got married :)  Charles and Camilla rode with her since Prince Philip is in the hospital today.

 The crazy crowds!  The whole city is like this for blocks with these kinds of events.

 People have been decorating their houses, cars, and restaurants with flags.  Neighborhoods are having block parties and other celebrations, and wearing crazy clothes to celebrate, too.  :)

She's so cute. 

 RAF Red Arrow fly over

So, there's a little of the Mews in action today!  Kind of a big deal around here.  :)  Now, back to London with Abby.  After visiting the Royal Mews, we walked up to Buckingham Palace and then over to the National Gallery, ate some dinner and then browsed stores until time to catch our show. I love West End Theatre! Matilda was a great show and we lucked out with literally the last two (awesome) seats. I wish Abs was closer so we could play more often! Guess she just needs to come back to visit.

 Buckingham Palace Gates...

 Cambridge Theatre..

 Before the show started.  Don't know if pictures were allowed or not, but it was such a cute set!  I loved Matilda!

Love my sister!  Thanks for making the trip, Abby!  We loved having you here!

How to have a Fabulous Afternoon in Bruges

  *Check out the cool buildings and Belfry in the Markt.

 

* Sample chocolate!  Check out a few stores.  Admire the cute and creative shapes and giggle at the inappropriate ones.

Watch out though... with all the crazy chocolate combos in Belgium,  you may try one that you won't be fond of.  Luke + passion fruit chocolate = lots of spitting, gagging, and priceless faces. 

* Admire the canals.

*  Eat a waffle!  Before dinner.  You can't be full for your waffle experience.  Especially if it's your first.  :)    

Just a heads up... If you decide to share your waffle, you'll probably regret it.  It will be gone before you know it!

 

More Windmills!

Once you've seen a few windmills, you've pretty much seen them all, but I didn't want to leave the Netherlands before seeing Kinderdijk... World Heritage sight and home to 19 historic windmills.  There's a big walkway that you can stroll down to see them all.  Would have been fun to take bikes!

KeUKenHoF. Another Adventure in Holland

 Keukenhof ("Kitchen garden", Dutch pronunciation: [ˈkøːkə(n)ˌɦɔf]), also known as the Garden of Europe, is the world's largest flower garden situated near Lisse, Netherlands. According to the official website for the Keukenhof Park, approximately 7,000,000 (seven million) flower bulbs are planted annually in the park, which covers an area of 32 hectares.^[1]

Thanks, Wikipedia.  I was curious to see how many flower bulbs they plant here each year, and that was in the first paragraph about the place.  I loved the day we spent here!  It rained a lot of our trip to the Netherlands, but this day was sunny and nice, and this park is gorgeous.  I wondered if it would be better to do a big flower garden as a girls trip, but the kids had a blast running around and checking out the flowers, and Jake liked it too.  Score.

Abby, Jake, and I took a ridiculous amount of pictures here.  Just couldn't help it!  Pictures don't really do the place justice, but you get the idea.   After wading through all of our photos, I think these were my favorites.  

I don't remember the names of these cute blue flowers, but we used to have them in our yard when I was little and  I've always loved them.

My sis!  Love her.  I need to go back to visit AZ to get some sun! I  look like a ghost standing next to her!

Tulips, tulips, and more tulips.

I heart this one of Ella smelling them.  She was putting her whole little body into getting to the right one  :)

Excited to try on more wooden shoes this trip!

 

Some of my favorite styles and colors of tulips!  

Keukenhof has some cool art throughout the park, too.

Daisies!

I think I want my back yard to look like this one day :)

And even more pictures I want on here..

They've got some awesome greenhouses here.  Inside you can browse hundreds of different kinds of tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths.

 Keukenhof windmill...

The whole group.  The back of this boat was full of yellow tulips, but I guess we covered them all up! haha

Fields of flowers surround the park.  I was liking all of the purple!  And in the distance you can see rows of yellow, red, orange, and white.

After leaving Keukenhof we went over to the town of Lisse and ate dinner at Vrouw Holle.  Had to get in more Pannenkoeken!