Northern Europe Day 1: London

Last night, my sweet family of four returned from a two week vacation in Northern Europe with my parents and grandparents.  To say it was an unbelievable vacation would be an understatement.  We started in London, then flew over to Copenhagen, Denmark where we spent the night and then boarded the Norwegian Sun to set sail on a 10 day Scandinavian cruise.  We visited Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland and Sweden.  We ended with spending another day and night back in Copenhagen. We ate, we shopped, we walked, we toured, we ate and shopped some more.    The best part was the beautiful and chilly weather!!  We wore coats and long sleeves every day.  Such a nice retreat from Texas.

It's rare to get 4 generations together for two weeks of uninterrupted fun.  I feel so blessed to have had this time with my kiddos and husband but also with my parents and grandparents.  And the difference between traveling with my kids last year to Europe verses this year was HUGE.  It was so much easier and way more fun (which I didn't know it could be!). 

First stop...London...my favorite city in the world.

Smith and I at the airport ready for our 10 hour flight.  Thankfully, we left in the evening and flew through the night.  The kids did great.  They never fussed on board.  We loaded on, ate our meal and then I told them it was time to sleep.  When they woke up, it was bright and early in the morning in London.

Does this kid look ready for a long flight or what?!

We arrived in London ready to go.  This year, Kensington was responsible for her own travel backpack.  She LOVED it!  It was great because it was filled with all of her own toys, books, markers, etc. that she needed for the flights.  We're in line at customs here ready to enter the UK. 

We stopped in London for brunch first thing.

Lovin' his time in London already :)

Kensington was not lovin' the time zone difference.  She fell asleep in the car on the way to lunch and slept like this while Papa Jay ate.

With our family in our favorite city!

Here we are at Westminster Abbey.

Posing with Grandmother and Ken with Big Ben in the background.

We walked through the park to Buckingham Palace.  The kids loved this!

Kensington and Lovie hoping the Queen would stick her head out of a window at Buckingham :). 

This is me ordering 8 cupcakes for just my family of four at Harrod's.  Andrew and I went to the counter and couldn't decide because they all looked so stinkin' good!  We ordered a bunch and then sampled them all.  Sooooo yummy!

We left Harrod's and went to a special little section of London.  It's where one sweet girl gets her name.  Here she is showing her Papaw where her name is.

Smith had a blast playing at the park in Kensington.

These two were having fun with these two...

And just so you wouldn't think our day was 100% perfect (though it was close)...here we are at the airport that night.  I must have just told Smith about the whole two hour flight to Denmark thing and he's not happy.  We left London and flew to Denmark...next stop...Copenhagen part 1.