Hotel Gray

The girls and I headed down to the infamous Hotel Gray for the weekend and had a smashing time, the rates are very favourable, the food fabulous and the guided tours of London are top notch, I would highly recommend this if you are anywhere close. Here's a quick re-cap of our time there.

The drive down to London from Manchester. I probably could have avoided this but thats another story, really there wasn't much difference from trying to get around in LA except the steering wheel is on the otherside of the car and the cars around me look a little different but really this felt just like being on the 405!

Here are the proprietor's of Hotel Gray, couldn't find a nicer couple, see how excited they are to see us? I'm pretty sure they had no idea what was in store, first kid visitors I'm told.

It was of course raining when we got there and the girls loved exploring Emily's back garden and getting thoroughly soaked.

On my way down we pulled off into a Tesco's, they had these cute 2 piece top sets that I couldn't resist buying, aren't they cute? waiting for the train to go into London.

On the train, Kate looks a little bug eyed, there were several stops on the way to the underground and at each stop the girls had to switch seats.

Emily is a very seasoned tour guide now, she picked the perfect things for us to do with kids that captured a few things of the city without being too boring for the kids, we got off the tube at Waterloo and walked past the Tower of London onto a boat on the River Thames, we took the boat down to Big Ben, forgive my crappy camera, the girls and I with Tower Bridge in the background and Big Ben.

Outside Buckingham Palace, Sara was fascinated by the guards with the big hats.

Then onto the natural History Museum, at the end of the dinosaur exhibit there is a mechanical T-Rex, Sara was a little afraid, it was really cool though. Here is one of my seasoned travellers waiting at the tube station. London was fun but tough with 2 kids and a stroller, there are a LOT of people and most of them are rushing about and 2 little curious girls don't make it easy for them, plus the city is not very wheelchair friendly, ie no ramps and elevators are hard to find so lots of stairs. They are making a lot of improvements to make it more accessible for the 2012 games, so all in all the city was fun but for me a little tough and stressful with kids.

STONEHENGE!! I must be a country girl, the city was fun but this to me was bliss, Stonehenge is really in the middle of nowhere and the scenery is breathtaking.

Kate being super sweet to Sara and helping her with her audio guide of Stonehenge and here is a perfect example of my girls, Kate enjoying her savory sausage roll and Sara with her sweet ice-cream.

There are some fields behind Stonehenge with these mounds on that we let the girls run around on.

Sunday we went to church and then planned to take a picnic to the park, here's the funny thing about the weather here, go to church no rain, come home no rain, almost ready to head out for the picnic and it downpours, have picnic in Brent and Emily's living room, weather clears up and head to Richmond Park, beautiful, does it look like it was pouring down with rain just 30 minutes earlier? In Richmond Park there are wild deer that are roaming free, first few shots are from the car.

Then we parked and got out and wandered around by them, it was really cool and there really were hundreds of them.

So thank-you Gray's, we loved seeing you guys and had a blast. Emily, thank-you for taking us around even though you have done everything about 20 times already.