Great Britain, Great Brits!

Rick Steves talks a lot about taking time to meet with the locals, and makes it sound easy. In London, I felt like we hit the jackpot, speaking to this guy who volunteered his time to help keep the crowds safe from pick-pocketing, etc. Rather than stand in the middle of thousands of people to watch the guard change from afar, he advised us to hang out next to the Guards Museum on Birdcage walk. His help totally started the day off right! And it was awesome:

This was Monday morning of our stay in London - July 4th. It was the same day that Evan gave himself the nickname "Blue Thunder" at a play area in St. James Park, so of course it was a great day! We got up early, and went to Trafalgar Square. We've read to the kids plenty of times the book Katy in London, and saw her gallivant around town on one of the lions. We saw those lions again on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.  Neither do justice to the vastness of those beasts. They are huge!

Abby had helped plan our activities, which included a walk past the London Eye (they saw how slowly it was moving, and all decided we were OK just seeing it), and a long time at the British Museum, which was MASSIVE.

The kids started getting pretty worn out at this time, so I started telling them to pose with different things in the museum.

Like this scarab - I told them covering their ears would somehow protect them. ???

Same with covering their mouths. 

Thanks, Abby for helping us plan this day out!

Random story: In high school, the head football coach at Edward S Marcus was a man named Que Brittain. I didn't know him very well - I only spent one year on varsity, and I wasn't a starter or anything. But I knew his name, and respected or feared him. Long before playing football though, I learned about England and British accents through the classics - Sword in the Stone, Robin Hood, Princess Bride, Willow, Star Wars, Lucky Charms commercials - but his name for whatever reason predates a time when I anything I really knew or cared about "Great Britain".  I know this because I cannot search search or type anything about Great Britain without first misspelling "Great Brittain" at least once. I should have avoided correcting it in this post, just to drive that point home. But I didn't.