London Life

My glorious London adventure has begun! Honestly, I can hardly believe that I am actually living in the United Kindgom. We are staying in a flat right across the street from Hyde park and everything here feels like a movie. The buildings are all beautiful old red brick, and ornately decorated with stone and rod iron. Most of our company is staying on the 1st floor of ourcomplex... oh but not us .... four other girls and I are on the sixth floor! I am sure you can imagine our joy as we walk up the never ending stair case after a long day of walking and touring. I keep reminding myself that this daily stair climb work out is going to have way better result than any pair of shape ups could ever dream of after six weeks... hopefully I am not let down. Although the climb is quite tiring our six floor flat can only be described as quaint and wonderful, the true London experience. Our Skylight views out over roof top chimneys and iron rod stair cases. I am anxiously waiting for Mary Poppins to umbrella up at any moment from a near by chimney. So far this experience has been nothing but incredible. Days go so quickley here, we are moving so much we get back to our flats at night and realize we haven't eaten anything since early that morning. Normal priorities seem like eating and sleeping will just have to take the back burner until June, cause I'm in LONDON!

Eye of London and British Parliment

Big Ben

We walked down a street lined with loads of sayings on these yellow banners
I decided to take this one to heart over the next 7 weeks.

Apparently many people can't remember which way to look before crossing the road so they painted it on the street... it's quite helpful!

The Tube

What is with this city and stair cases?

Shopping and a popular local department store

As you can see... It's very popular!

Our very own royal wedding rings!

Kristen and I in front of Big B. This picture caused us to get separated from our group so we ended up touring by ourselves the rest of the day... it turned out to be a blast!

These are real!

Tulip Gardens in St. James Park

The reason for all the madness around the city! Their faces are plastered on every corner, mug, flag and t-shirt!

Let the chaos begins around Buckingham Palace in anticapation for the wedding!

hundreds of pot-a-potties

One of my favorie parts of this city so far!

The Palace Gates

Trafalar Square - complete with huge screen to show the wedding

China Town on the right "broadway" theaters on the left

This picture is for the dear Thomas family... apparently Troll Two is popular even in London

We found a tiny bookstore with such old books, we were lovin it!

We're not sure exactly what this is about...

The royal wedding is tomorrow so we are all bundeling up and spendin the night on the street so we get a good view at Buckingham Palace of the bride and grooms first kiss as husband and wife!

Cheers for now!

Living on Island Time

Maui is a beautiful place. Being on island time and the hang loose mentality that surrounds me makes studying for finals and finishing papers quite difficult.

Glow stick kick ball - as you can see, the littles ended up with all of the glow sticks.

The dads settle down for their long summer naps... they need three towels each. Sorry kids, you can air dry.

Meg and I attempted to skim board. This activity results in a lot of AFV worthy falls intermixed with a few successful rides.

6 A.M. snorkel/kiak ride.... failure or success? It's a matter of opinion I suppose.
Recap: haul heavy kiaks through volcanic rock, load three people on a two person kiak, get halfway out only to have the kiak carrying Me, Megan and Spencer capsize, Spencer loses snorkel gear, rope to tie kiaks to the car sinks, Meg and I can't stop laughing the entire way back to shore - spence is less than amused. Mom is relieved we tipped, she was sure we would smash into the rocks. In the end we found a great place to snorkel in Turtle Bay. We did however have to hang out the windows of our red mini van and hold the kiaks on top of the roof, but hey, HANG LOOSE we're in Hawaii!

Hawaiian National Park



Apple-Banana.
"looks like a banana, feels like an apple, tastes like crap." - Spencer Christensen

The first LDS church building in Hawaii, this is where the first Hawaiian members were baptised.

Maui Gold Pineapple fields

The North Shore


The fam headed to church