Robertsons & Daughters: London!!!

Yep, we're crazy and went to London one weekend. IT WAS AMAZING!

But you need a little cereal excitement before heading out...

Going to London was on a whim...sort of. We heard that the play, Phantom of the Opera was being discontinued in New York City, and we should have made an effort to go, but didn't. I just figured we go to Phantom in London someday. One morning on the way home from seminary Haley told me that Phantom in London was stopping as well this fall. I had an internal freakout moment. Even Elden chimed in saying he wouldn't mind seeing that play. I started looking up tickets in London and planning out a trip. Though I haven't found evidence that the play in London is actually stopping. But that is what instigated the whole London trip. I also moved the weekend we went--I forgot I had told my friend I'd watch her kids while she was in Paris with her mom and sister--but that made it so Clark could come with us! I invited my sisters to come as well. Stephanie came with her daughter Maggie, and my niece Kirsten came (Lena's daughter). We had a blast! We flew on Play Airlines out of Dulles. Tickets were $400 each, round trip.

Airport and airplane time!

Overnight flights are soooo hard. But the pain for the price of travel...

In Iceland!

We made it to the Stansted Express! I love the public transportation options in other countries. It took us about an hour to go to London.

The Underground!

Our first official stop was Kings Cross to see Platform 9 & 3/4ths. We didn't stand in line but snagged side photos. Then went to the Harry Potter shop which is super cute.

Next up we stopped at our hotel to drop our bags and head out to the city. Sites along the way...

You know, just getting a photo shoot on the streets on London...I wonder what store or brandline this was for.

I popped into a pharmacy along here somewhere to get Haley a toothbrush.

Our hotel was really tiny, but it worked! Kirsten, Haley and Shanna had a 3 person room, then Clark and Elden shared a room, and Lee and I had our own room. That was the annoying part...can't fit 4 people into the rooms and they were quite expensive but I wanted to be close to downtown. We were north of Hyde Park just a few blocks.

A treat from the shop.

Off we went! We enjoyed our walk over to the Thames River Cruise.

Big Ben!

We saw lots of neat things while on the river like the Globe Theater.

And I think this is the pub where Shakespeare went after plays.

The ship The Mayflower set sail from here in 1620 to the United States! And you can actually buy stamps here too. Random fact.

Yep...no to little sleep equals sleep in the late afternoon.

After the cruise and a little walking we hit up Trafalgar Square.

We then went over to the infamous downtown London Shake Shack in Leicester Square where we accidentally left Haley two years ago. Ooops! We had never heard of the Shake Shack till we were in London in 2022, just walking by.

We also went back to the Lego Store just down the street where we realized Haley wasn't with me or with Lee! Fun coming to this store with no traumatic events this time around.

On our way back to the hotel we saw this sign...Glad we snagged a photo!

We got our Oyster cards and had fun using the Underground.

We existed at Paddington Station. Fun to hear a band playing!

Lee, Clark, Steph and Maggie stayed at the hotel and the rest of us went back out for a McDonald's run. Because you know, it was only around the corner and when in London....

The next full day was Saturday! First up, Portobello Rd shopping! It's funny because both Stephanie and I thought separately to go to Portobello Rd. But we made it happen with Steph suggested in. The telephone box!

It sprinkled that morning, but was never a downpour, which was great.

It was fun poking around the different shops. This particular store was filled with smaller stores/booths.

We found a yummy French bakery.

Lee spotted these awesome sunglasses and the guy who makes them was there! Lee bought a few pair to sell at his office.

Off to Tower of London!

Sadly lots of horrible history here.

The Tower Bridge!

Something I really wanted to do this London trip was have "tea". I don't drink traditional tea or coffee, but I can drink herbal tea. Stephanie's friend recommended this place. I was trying to have tea at the Ritz but the times didn't work for us. The "tea" was SO fun and SO expensive! Haha. Like I've said, I'm not a foodie person and I don't like to spend lots of money on food, but this was such a fun experience!

Posh!

Funny enough, the people seated next to us were from the US and Latter-day Saints!

The food was so fun! There were couple things I didn't like, but over all it was awesome. And unlimited teas and hot chocolate to drink. We all enjoyed trying the different herbal teas.

The scones and clotted cream were OH SO DELICIOUS!

With full bellies it was time to walk over to the play! Some of the street and alley names are so funny.

Unfortunately we had to walk through an Israel/Palestine protest. At first we tried to walk around it, but it was all over where we had to go. Thankfully we just had to walk through this small part...not a wide part. But the protest was HUGE. Kind of freaky!

We made it to His Majesty's Theater for our main trip event: The Phantom of the Opera!

Wow, the play was awesome! I would edit a couple of parts, but we did enjoy it. Amazing singing and music. WOW! I bought Haley a really fun mug as a souvenir.

We had some extra time and found out at the Sky Garden on our river cruise the day before. We also found out it was free! We didn't realize that you were supposed to book free tickets online...but there was a standby line. Amazingly, we were some of the last people they let in for the night!

Heading back to Paddington Station!

We couldn't settle on a place to eat and finally stopped here. It was fine....but overpriced. Clark didn't want to eat here and he later got fish and chips at a different place that we were initially going to stop at but didn't.

My salad was about $14. Gag! It was good but way too small.

Also that night we stopped at two different grocery stores in Paddington Station to buy food for Sunday. While we were at one store, I asked Haley to wait outside with some already purchased groceries while we finished up in another store. There were two grocers right next to each other. While she was out waiting, I heard a commotion, but didn't think much of it. When we exited the store Haley told us that a guy ran off with some groceries without paying and the security guards were going after him. And Haley was out there by herself. Gulp. Another crazy London experience for her.

Yep, another McDonald's run!

Clark's fish and chips! He picked a great spot!

Mini Uno cards from a McDonald's Happy Meal.

Our last full day in London--Sunday! We walked through Hyde park and to the church. We checked out of our hotel that morning so we needed to drag around our stuff for the rest of the day. We arrived at church, thinking we were early only to realize it was stake conference! And we were late!

It's also a visitors' center and I think the mission home.

This lady I think was the Stake Relief Society president. She shared a really neat story about how she really wanted to buy a house or apartment since she hadn't been married and felt like she'd been kind of a failure in her life. She found a flat that would be great, but it was too expensive. She and her mom went out to the car and her mom said a prayer that her daughter would get the flat. This RS president (the daughter) felt her mom using her priesthood power from her endowment to ask a blessing for her daughter. She got the flat! It was a neat story.

We asked someone to unlock the kitchen for us so we could eat our food in there.

What?! And ice cream maker?! Pretty sweet.

After we hung out a little bit and changed we set off to walk around Hyde Park. Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace.

I was very underwhelmed that this was Kensington Palace! Thought it would be more grand.

Random keys we found and left.

Clark informed us that this is where Mater saved the Queen, haha.

The leaning tower of Clark.

I love that there are flowers in the construction area.

Last stop before heading to Stansted, Westminster Abbey for a free organ recital!

Some of us had to use the loo so we got to see some of the Abbey.

Goodbye London! It was amazing! Oh, and it was funny...we met several people at church who were from the US but now resided in London. And half of the speakers at Stake Conference were from the US!

We took the a train to the Stansted Express, and then to the Stansted Airport. It was awesome, the hotel I booked for the last night was one you walked to from the airport. So nice! The kids had their own room and Lee and I had our own room. Kirsten had her own room this time at the hotel.

The next morning we met in the lobby just after 6am to walk over to this church, The 13th Century Parish Church of Holy Trinity in Takeley. It took us over a half hour to walk there but we made it. I wanted to do something the last morning in England...more than just eat and get on an airplane. This was a fun last stop.

Good thing I never saw this. Pretty creepy!

On the way back we took what we thought was a shortcut, and thankfully it was. Shanna slept the whole time at the airport...Maggie too.

Climbing up the hill to the main road. We thought this might take us to the church but we didn't know if we'd end up in someone's back yard or something.

We made it back in time to enjoy breakfast and walk over to the airport to buy snacks and lunch for the way home.

Baked beans for breakfast...a UK tradition. I declined.

We had one more crazy event before we left the airport. We went over to get food for snacks and lunch, and a TON of people were in the airport. I didn't think anything of it. We went to the airport only an hour and a half early because we were all checked in and had our boarding passes.

When we arrived there were MASSES of people. The security line was WAY backed up. We learned that there was some power failure which caused major problems at the airport. It took us such a long time to get through security. Steph got ahead with Maggie and I cut the line. Thankfully Haley saved us--she looked up what gate we were at. When we got through security I was the first one to bolt out of there. I didn't realize after security there would be store after store after store after store after store...you get the picture. I called Lee on messenger but he didn't answer. I tried a few times. I then called Clark and he answered. I told him very frantically (because our plane was to leave in about 10 minutes) to run as soon as they left security. He said, where to? I said, it doesn't matter (because of all the stores) JUST RUN! Clark immediately hung up. Thankfully I thought to stop and buy some water. I figured since I was ahead I might as well and saw a quick place to stop and get some. On Play Airlines you don't get anything for free. We arrived at the gate area and looked for the gate number to double check and it read "Gate Closed". AHHH. We decided to go ahead and go to the gate Haley told us to figure out what to do next. We weren't sure we had missed our flight but were pretty sure we had. We went to the gate...running like crazy people...and whew. People were still boarding. YAY!!!! Crazy, crazy moment. Haley literally saved the day! Since the screen said Gate Closed, we had no way of knowing where to go, but the Spirit prompted her to look, I am sure of it! And because of that knowledge, we made it. Yay! The flight home was great and nothing exciting happened. Thankfully. We had an awesome trip. Can't wait to go back!!!