Saint Paul's Cathedral

Unfortunately, one is not supposed to take pictures inside of St. Paul's. I did manage to snap one before entering the gate and the guard not-so-kindly told me to "put it away." Oh well, perhaps it will give you an idea of how HUGE this place really is...
This picture I actually took through the grated windows while attempting to climb the stairs to the top (see below.) You can see that they used an enormous amount of gold inside, and you can see a portion of the dome on the right.
A picture from the base of the steps looking up the exterior before we went in. Somehow I managed to get these out of order, sorry!
The statue in front of St. Paul's. The inscription reads, " This original statue was erected on this spot in the year 1712 to commemorate the completion of Saint Pauls Cathedral- Francis Bird, Sculptor." Parts of St. Paul's actually date back to 1060 A.D. ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO. Isn't that remarkable?
Ok, back to the inside. I tried to take a picture of the many, many steps we had to climb to reach the various galleries at the top of the dome. Some of the steps were stone or concrete of sorts, and some were iron. They were all very narrow, circular staircases that were also built for short people, my head was touching most of the time! It was nearly impossible to stop and try to take a picture, but maybe this will give you an idea...

Views from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral

I just want you to know that I climbed almost 1,000 steps to take these pictures. No joke. And I was dressed up. But we had free passes from our event at the Exchange, and it was an offer we could not pass up. We went directly after the opening on Friday late morning. Remember those steps I had to climb? Well, it was very much worth it...
The entrance of the London Stock Exchange from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral.
Looking down on other portions of the building from the walkway around the dome.
A small garden lot adjoins the beautiful Cathedral. Did you know this is the church where Princess Diana got married? One of my first memories of seeing something "big" on television, was her walking down the enormous aisle of Saint Paul's Cathedral. The vastness of this holy place is awe-inspiring.
In case you didn't know, London is extremely rainy. Fortunately, we did not experience one drop of rain in the duration of our visit. It was somewhat overcast during much of our stay, so these picures are not the clearest of pictures. However, it gives you an idea of how far you can see from the top of the Cathedral, you may notice many of London's famous landmarks.

This is ice cream, I swear!

Lance & David wanted to take us to Ciao, an Italian Dessert Cafe near Picadilly Circus. They told us we would be surprised by the interesting desserts that are served...Lance ordered the Spaghetti, Ice cream "noodles" with strawberry "sauce" and garnished with parmesan-looking grated white chocolate. It was really, really tasty.
The rest of us opted for more traditional looking sundaes. Me with Josh, David & Julie Schneider.

4 fabulous days over the pond...

Welcome to London.
This is the outside of our hotel, The Russell Hotel. It is over 200 years old with exquisite architectural features and beautiful decor.
Our room was on the 7th floor. Thank goodness they had a lift!
Our hotel was directly across the street from Russell Square, a beautiful park with a cafe, fountains, and colorful flowers. Our own little haven amidst the bustle of the city.

Officially a walker.

Well, he has kept us in suspense for the last 6 months. The girls both took their first steps before they turned one. However, Will has been content to turbo-crawl or be carried around by his 3 lovely ladies--Mom, Katie & Sydney. Finally, I think he was encouraged to start walking independently after having playdates with two of the cutest little girls in town, Sophie Park and Anna Becker, both whom are walking machines! So at 17 months, my little man is officially a walker. Sigh. They grow up so fast. I might add, that his sisters are great encouragers and couldn't be more proud. (Me, too!)

Febreeze anyone?

We are plugging along during this extended time of Dad being gone. However, the lack of good, solid, continuous sleep is catching up with me. Last night as I lay in bed watching the digital numbers of my clock roll on, I decided to go ahead and check on the little blessings down the hall one last time. They are so dear to me and this is a nightly ritual I will never tire of, even on the weariest of nights! Since blogs live to infinity and beyond, thanks to the wonderful world of the internet, and someday I don't want one of my kids saying, "Mom, I can't believe you said that about me!", I will refrain from actually telling you the name of the child in this anecdote. However, it was definitely one of the cuties pictured below. Anyway, as I was tucking one of them in, smoothing the covers, touching their soft skin, kissing them, said child farted, loud and long. Yes, its true. I am fairly certain we all do this on occasion, (fart in our sleep,) but I had to run out of the room in order not to wake them up with my gut wrenching laughter! I ran back to my room and smiled as I pondered the wonder of our earthly beings (and bodily functions...) "I will give thanks to you, Oh God, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made," (Psalm 139:14). Yes, we are interesting creatures, to say the least. The good, the bad, the ugly, and yes, the smelly. So today I decided to look up some scriptures on God's creation. A rather common, well-known verse caught my attention. This particular version (Amplified) adds a word that made me laugh out loud when thinking back to what had happened last night. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any person is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. The new and fresh has come!" Ha Ha...enough random thoughts for one night.

Take me out to the ballgame...and dinner.

A perfect day for baseball. Rockies win!

Our dear friend Marcia joined us for an afternoon of fun and our kids' first Rockies game! The game must have been one of the shortest in MLB history. However, I got a screamin' deal on pretty good seats (thank you King Soopers!); and it was still plenty enough baseball for a one-year-old. The girls had a great time clapping and stomping along. When I asked them their favorite part of the game, Katie said, "the music," and Syd said, "the treats." Of course, a baseball game isn't a baseball game without some rockin' organ music as well as something salty and something sweet to eat. Afterwards Marcia took us to my favorite Denver Italian eatery, Pasquini's. Delicious. Everyone left happy, especially me since I ate so many of their amazing breadsticks, I got to bring home over half of my entree for tomorrow. (Sigh.) I will add, that although his face didn't leave looking as clean as it did when we arrived, the floor space under Will's highchair was basically spotless. The kid can eat and he loves pasta.