London

Me across from Big Ben , today. We ate our sandwiches across from it. Lovely day, huh?


Conwy, Wales

Here I am at the base of Conwy Castle. It was really just down the block from our B&B. What's that you say? Jane's wearing a jacket in the middle of Summer? :o) It happened to be raining that day.

This is also Conwy. We walked the walls of the city and got so many pretty pictures.

Preston Temple Housing

This is in Kim and Bruce's room, where they invited us up for dinner after getting back from visiting Preston with them. The rooms had little kitchenettes in them. They brought their own hotplate for Mac and Cheese and Top Ramen.

This is also in their room. The food party. The whole gang, minus Ryan and Kristy. Fun times!!

I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

London Town

Greetings from London!!! I have taken over 650 photos, so I have to really condense what I post, as long as I can upload them. I can use my little computer
here at our hotel in London. Yay! There is just so much to say to catch up that I have been putting it off. Sorry!! It'll only get worse the longer that I put it off. Dublin was great as was the trip back to Wales and and then England. So far everything has gone well, no big mess-ups or "wrong turns" luckily. It's good to be "home" in London, after 15 years. A lot has changed and yet it hasn't. Oh, but I am getting ahead of myself. We got into Chester and after taking a taxi to our B&B, we walked into the town center as it was raining. We ate at a pub called the Red Lion. I had lamb cooked in a mint jelly sauce with potatoes and steamed veggies, all for about 6.75 pounds. ($13.50) Yeah, things are way expensive. (I spent 12 pounds today to go into Westminster Abbey, or $24.00. Ouch!) After, we walked the rows and saw the Chester Cathedral and Eastgate Clock. Such a cute town, just not much to do after the shops close. And then if you are not a shopper..... Well, we had a family room in The Laburnum guest house, meaning there were 3 beds, 2 twins and 1 double. Nice and spacious. Supposedly non-smoking, there was someone smoking up a storm in the place. We had to put a towel under the door to keep the smell out. The shower also had a bunch of mildew in it. Luckily it was one of our cheaper places. We then went to Stratford-Upon-Avon, on 4 different trains. Whew, we are glad that that is over. It can be stressful to make your connections and get the right platform etc.. And with all our luggage.!!! Our B&B in Stratford was lovely!! The Emsley House. The couple that run it are perfect for their job. Sooooo nice, helpful and personable. And we had another family room in the front of the place. It was great! We decided to do the hop on/off bus again and went to Mary Arden's house/farm and Anne Hathaway's Cottage (Shakespeare's mother's place and wife's home). We had to leave the Shakespeare birthplace for the morning before leaving for Warwick Castle. It was all great. The castle was neat and interactive. Too bad it was drizzling. That night we headed to Coventry because there weren't any places in Stratford or Warwick. (But that is ok because we had relatives from there and Aunt Sharon had wanted to go there anyway.) Whew, 3 cities in 1 day!! We had a wonderful B&B in Coventry, called the Acacia House B&B. It was more like a motel because they had a long wing added out the back of the row house that had about 4-5 more rooms. We were able to leave our luggage there and crossed the ring street to the center of town, the next morning. We saw the old bombed out cathedral from WWII and the new one next to it. And then there was the Lady Godiva statue. We then headed into London via a Virgin train, with our first class pass. There were only 3 of us in the whole car. The bathroom was huge and they gave us a lunch box with a sandwich and all sorts of fun things to eat. And then an hour and a half later another goody box with other snacks. Aunt Sharon loved it all, as did I. Where was this on all of our other journeys??? We got into London Euston station and then got Northern Line (tube) to Central line. We were on the platform when they told us that there was a person on the tracks at Queensway (the exact station that we wanted to go to) and that that line would be closed down. We had to drag our luggage back up top and decide what to do. We got a taxi. Ha Ha! 16 pounds later... well worth it. Our place is right around the corner from Bayswater tube station. Oooh, I pick well!!! But, circle line was closed Sunday and other obstacles with the tube were hindering us. We just had to get creative and find alternative routes, namely the bus. I almost always took the tube when I lived here before so I wasn't too familiar with the buses. But we found one straight to church sunday morning at the Hyde Park Ward and then to the Tower of London last night for the Ceremony of the Keys. (Where they lock up for the night--in a ceremony 700 years old.) We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. All these places have been mobbed!!! Everyone is in London this week!!! Today we headed to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the River Thames. We also saw the Millennium Eye (the big ferris wheel across from Big Ben.) After taking a bunch of photos, we went over to Victoria Station to see Buckingham Palace and Westminster Cathedral (not abbey-- where our relative John Southworth is buried.) Thank goodness for Circle Line, we could come back straight to our door, almost. Aunt Sharon has a bad cold and is probably miserable but knows that she will thank me when we get home for "pushing or encouraging" her to do all that we are, even though her feet hurt and she doesn't feel well. Tomorrow we will tackle the big "BM" or the British Museum and St. Paul's Cathedral. Well, I'll see what I can upload now. That is pretty much it for now. It was mid 70's today and might be warmer tomorrow. We are on the 3rd floor of the hotel and there is no air conditioning, but the window opens. It's still hot. Well, ta ta for now.

greetings from Ireland!

Hello!! Today is Aunt Sharon's birthday and we are in lovely Dublin, Ireland!! We took that hop off/hop on tour bus and it was great. Loved it. We have been to York, the Preston temple and Conwy, Wales since I last wrote. In York we saw the minster, and the Castle Museum. The B&B was the attic room, with no window, and it was what we called "The Closet". My alarm clock also tells the temperature and it was 78 degrees at night up there. It was a good breakfast, semi close to town, nice people but hot and cramped. Also the bathroom was down on the landing outside of the room. Oh, well, one night you can do anything. We then went to the Preston Temple and Chorley. The temple is in Chorley. As we were with Kim Money in Edinburgh, we found out that they were going to be there the same day that we were. Cool! We got to spend some time with them doing laundry in the temple workers apt, bldg. and well, that was an experience. But Aunt Sharon and I did a session in the temple that morning and then she watched Caroline and Madison so that Kim could see the BYU students and her own children do baptisms. I got to be the "chaperone" for the confirmations. After the temple stuff we got to go with the BYU students on their bus and go into Preston to see some church history sites. We walked all over that town!! Poor Aunt Sharon. She's glad that she couldn't go with them on the month-long trip, because she says that she could never do the tour with them and all that walking. The temple was a great resting place. Wonderful rooms and wonderful people. It was great to be with the saints in another part of the world. "It's a Small World" in the church, as we all know. A man helped us on the bus from the train station to the temple and we never would have made it without him. Come to find out that he was going to the temple too and was a man from Scotland and from one of Ryan Money's areas. (We just kept counting the Tender Mercies of the Lord.) He also carried Aunt Sharon's suitcase for her. She says that next time she is bringing one change of clothes, if she does anything like this again. I still can't make my computer work here. I was able to make it work on the express train and was trying to upload some pictures but they wouldn't go through. So frustrating!!! Anyway, Conwy was wonderful!!! We just loved it and had a B&B right next to the castle. Such a cute, quaint town. We walked the city walls and took dozens of pictures, every time we turned a corner there was a great view!!! We took the ferry over here yesterday and will take it out again tomorrow morning. Then it's on to Chester for the day and then Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwick, Coventry and then to Hallowed London to finish off the trip. I am using the hotel's computer here in Dublin. I unknowingly found a great location for the hotel on the main street here, but it's not that nice. Good location though. O Connell Street!!! Anyway, I'll try and write more before I go home if I can find a way. I hope that you are all doing well. Ta ta for now. :o)

ok, I still can't make my little computer work with the firefox over here, even though I am using it here at the B&B in Edinburgh. Go figure! It will sign on the wireless router here but then there;s an error when signing in with Firefox! Ok, I am really not having a fun time with Linux! Where's my Microsoft? We had a great day yesterday. Even after only sleeping maybe an hour or two on the plane, I was fine with the whole jetlag thing. I slept very well last night. We went to the Royal Mile after going to the American Express offfice on George Street to exchange the travelers checks. We went into St. Giles Cathedral and found out that the Queen had just knighted 2 men there that morning. I was talking to the guy in the gift shop and he let me take a picture of the program for the occasion. Yes, the queen is here in residence at Holyrood Palace. Darn! I had wanted to go through it! Oh well. We did some shopping and sight seeing on the Royal Mile, had dinner at a Subway restaurant there and had a good time. We ran into the Money's and saw many of the BYU students there also. The Moneys had walked all the way there from their B&B. We took the local buses. All in all a good day. We might leave a little sooner to York since I can't think of anyting more to see here. I'll write when I can!!

Hello friends and family, I am here in Edinburgh at the Money's (cousin's) B&B. All went well. The one little problem was that I had lost my boarding pass at LAX. I went to the bathroom and then to buy a sandwich and when I went to sit and eat it, I realized it was gone. I retraced my steps, some 15 minutes later and after going around a couple of times, I found it on the floor of the bathroom entrance. Whew! Anyway, I sat next to a girl from Hamburg, Germany to JFK and then next to a girl named Lauren, from Park City. A BYU student. We had a seat in between us on the way to Edinburgh, so that was good. She joined the group in NY, from the Virgin Islands, where she was vacationing with her family. I think that she comes from money because she has traveled quite a bit. I ended up taking a taxi from the airport at 17.50 pounds because Bruce was taking back his rental and then they would all take the city bus in. Well, I may not be able to use my computer much because Firefox Mozilla might not work over here, at least it wouldn't work on Bruce's computer (I am using his right now.) I don't think that I can download Internet Explorer on my Linux system. Oh well, you live and learn. All is well. Well, Edinburgh is beautiful and quaint. A totally different view coming from the west, where the airport is. I had only seen the Royal mile and parts of new city. It's cool. It's in the 60's right now. Yeah!!! Well, I'd better go. We need to go over to our place and then off to see the sites maybe. Fun, fun!! Love ya, Jane No pictures yet!!