London

Rod went to the royal wedding.

And I met the queen! (she thinks I'm awesome)

We went to Warwick castle. This is the oldest section of the castle.

A view from one of the towers of the castle and the surrounding area. There were sheep in the pastures just beyond the castle.

I took this picture just for Kylee. Too bad for her that she doesn't live int he UK!

Piccadilly Circus. I think that a circus is something similar to a square. It reminded me of Times Square, just different.

 

 

 

 

King's Cross station platform 9 3/4. I think we missed the train to Hogwarts.

It wouldn't be England without any rain.

Tower Bridge

Buckingham Palace

A guard at Buckingham Palace

A changing of the guards type of ceremony

Westminster Abby

Big Ben

Benjamin Franklin's house. It was weird to see United States history pointed out in London.

Making a plan

I don't know which castle this is but it was my favorite. It was little compared to the House of Parliament but there was something about it that appealed to me. 

The British Museum

The London Eye

We did so many things in the few days that we had in London. It really was a good time.

The British Museum

Both of these are from the same painting, I can't remember what it is about.

The Rosetta Stone, Amenhotep III, and canopic jars.

Cleopatra's mummy

1964 Honda Dream

We bought this 1964 Honda Dream, also known as a CA95 or a Benly. It wasn't running when we bought it but Lance has skills. It has not been ridden since 1982 and a few mice made a nest in the exhaust pipe as well as in the wires (the little hole that goes straight through the middle below the seat). Lucky for me Lance knows a thing or two about wires and he was able to get them all reconnected. The carburetor was a little gummed up but he fixed that too. Lance was able to get it running and he rode it around a little. The plan for the bike is to get it running well for the summer and in the winter strip it down and restore it to as close to original as possible. I am excited because this is going to be my bike. It will be awesome cruising around on this sweet vintage bike.

New York Marathon

Lance and I ran the New York Marathon on November 6, 2011. There was a total of 47,180 runners that finished the marathon. I placed 20,277 and Lance placed 20,281. My time was 4:14:13 and his was 4:14:14. We ran together the whole way. We enjoyed the amazing energy that was given to us by the millions of spectators. The photo to the left is in our green camp before the start with the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the background. The bridge is the first mile of the marathon. It takes you from Staten Island into Brooklyn.

 The photo to the right is of all of the runners in front of us from the green camp that were starting in wave one at 9:40. There were people as far as you could see packed in waiting to begin. They played the National Anthem over the loud speakers followed by New York New York. And we're off... not really, it took us five minutes to cross the starting line. We ran through all five boroughs. The streets were filled with people, five or so deep on both sides of the road. The bridges were empty. All you could hear was the sound of feet hitting the ground.

We were obviously not in it to run a record time, it was more for the awesome experience.We stopped on the Queensboro Bridge for a unique photo opp. Our picture was taken by a French man that we ran next to for awhile. I am not sure where the photo to the left was taken. It was at one of the water stops. There were so many paper cups on the ground. We finally finished in Central Park and received our finisher medals and Mylar blankets. We had to walk forever after the finish line to get out of Central Park and find our family. We had an awesome experience. I would like to go back and do it again sometime, if I am lucky enough to draw out again. Thank you Shayne and Lucien for letting us stay at your house. We enjoyed spending time with both of you.

Halloween

Kylee was a skeleton girl this year for Halloween. She looked super cute.

Spiral Staircase

 These are the stair treds. Bruce welded each bar 

you can see his template in the upper left corner.

Stack of stairs.

Bruce hung his welder from his crane/fishing pole to weld all the stairs in place.

This is how the railing started.

With a lot of  effort and some help from a winch the railing was put into place.

The stairs are complete!

The patio.

Awnings are Complete

 We finally have all of the awnings up over the windows.

 Lance and Bruce used the forklift to hold the awnings 

while they bolted them into the wall.

 

While the boys worked on the house Kylee, my mom, Lena, Sariah, and I 

went for a little hike up Logan Canyon. It was a really nice day.

Kylee swam in her very first swim meet last weekend! She did so awesome! 

I am so proud of her she is a great little swimmer.