Happy Birthday Ben!

As most of you know Ben celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday.  Over the weekend he had a birthday party / sleepover with some of his friends.  He invited his friends Rasmus, Gabriel, and Ritvik to go Go-Kart riding, and then go out for some pizza, and then back home for a slumber party and movies.  The boys were up til 12:30 watching the Lord of the Rings, and then for some reason they got up at 7 the next morning and started playing video games.  So even though they didn't get much sleep they all had a great time.  Here are some of the highlights (including Megan helping Jenny making the cake.)

London, England - Day 3

On our third day we had just enough time to take a walk by the Thames and play at a park by the London Eye.  We were pretty lucky we had such great weather on all three days.

London, England - Day 2

On our second day we visited "The London Dungeon," which is an attraction where you interact with actors who tell you about London's gruesome history (Jack the Ripper, the plague, Guy Fawkes, etc.)  It's all done in a way that's spooky, yet funny.  Anyway, after that we went to the British Museum. which has become my favorite museum I think.  It was our second time there and each time I'm blown away by the collection.  It's basically the Louvre of ancient civilizations and antique artifacts (including my favorite...the Rosetta Stone.)  Ben likes the museum just as much as I do.  Lastly, we capped off the day with a movie..."The Lego Movie," which has quickly become one of our favorites.

London, England - Day 1

Last weekend we took a trip to London, England to celebrate Ben's birthday.  In fact, Ben got to make out the itinerary.  We gave him a bunch of options and he decided what we were going to do.  We love England because it's always an easy trip for us.  It's probably the one place in Europe where we don't have to work at making our trip a success.  The language is the same, the people are super nice, they have plenty of restaurants that we like, and there is tons to do.  So it's always fun and relaxing.  

So our first day there was super busy and a lot of fun.  Looking back on it now I can't believe we did all of it in one day.  We started off by taking the train out to the Harry Potter Studios.  That was our second time there.  It's where they filmed all the movies.  The kids love the place.  Then we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, which is the original restaurant (built in 1971.)  We ended the day with a night ride on the London Eye.  It was our second time on the giant wheel, but our first at night.  It was really cool.