London tea party with Charity

We were right at Kings Cross so we had to check out Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter.  We weren’t willing to wait for our own special photo there because look at that line?!  Yowzas.  It was fun to watch those line-waiters-for-a-photo-op though…they sure came up with some pretty great poses, with a Harry Potter scarf and plastering themselves on the wall like they were stuck.

Oh man, so exciting!

She took us on her “epic walking tour” of London and it didn’t disappoint.

Stopped to see these amazing musicians at COVENT GARDEN near where we were staying:

I have to put the video in here because wow.

We were in London at the perfect time, we found out that day, because the coming weekend was the celebration of the Queen’s birthday (her birthday was actually back in April, but they waited for us for the grand celebration. ha!  Much more on that soon because it was our favorite).

So everything was decked out special for the birthday festivities.  All the main streets were lined with British flags.

We walked by BUCKINGHAM PALACE:

Grumpy tourist had to pretend he wasn’t overly impressed…

We let Charity join in our jump.

Next we walked by TRAFALGAR SQUARE (which unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of since it was being set up for a special event).

We checked out BIG BEN:

…and I’m pretty sure there is a rule that you must take a total tourist picture when you’re in that spot.

We walked by the HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT:

…and on to WESTMINSTER ABBEY in all it’s glory:

We saw the LONDON EYE:

…had dinner at a delicious spot called Nandos.

And then let Charity join in our traditional night-card games.

(Her husband had late meetings so we didn’t get to see him until the next day.)

The next morning we headed to BOROUGH MARKET…

…because rumor has it they had the best donuts on the whole planet.

I’m not a donut kind of a girl, but everyone else was pretty enamored by those puppies.

Headed to TOWER BRIDGE:

…where we met up with Elle’s friend Sophia who she stayed with her first few days when she came last summer.

We fell in love with that girl and loved that she stayed with us overnight…wish we could have kept her the whole time!

We visited the TOWER OF LONDON

Charity took everyone but Lu and I on a bike tour over to KENSINGTON GARDENS…

The bikes were too big for Lucy (much to her dismay) so I took her on a double-decker bus to meet them, which helped her cheer up.

We checked out Kensington Palace:

And then got to PORTOBELLO ROAD only in time to see everyone packing up their goods for the day, gosh darn it!

But we did see this gigantic rose bush which made the trip worth it.

…and added Sophia to our jump:

Apparently we also added another “grumpy tourist” to our mix:

Charity, Claire and I split off to see the Church Hill Arms pup I’d been wanting to see ever since Char posted pics of it on Instagram.

Check this place out:

Does that explain more why I wanted to go?  Isn’t that a magical spot??

And then we met up for dinner at Covent Gardens where we finally got to see Ian (Charity’s husband).

That night they both joined us for cards and it was so great to catch up.

Love those two…and that new little baby who has now made his grand arrival!

To be continued (again).  Happy Monday!