England Trip {My Sister's Wedding}

The whole purpose of our trip to England was for my sister's wedding!

The Royal Pavilion was the venue for the wedding. The Royal Pavilion was the "pleasure palace" for the regent prince, and later King George IV. It was a beautifully ornate place.

The wedding was in the "red room" of the palace.

Here is Bethany being escorted by our father.

In Brighton (it may be all of England, I'm not sure), weddings not held in churches cannot have any religious aspects. So, Bethany selected an old English poem to be read by her Scottish friend, Kenny. The poem was "The Owl & the Pussy Cat" by Edward Lear. This poem was actually part of the Abeka Curriculum when I taught 3rd grade many years ago at Tabernacle Christian Academy. Students were expected to memorize it. Plus, I remember Mom was fond of it which made it special to Bethany.

Bethany & Warwick

Time for vows

Nothing is final until the paper is signed.

 Bethany's turn to sign.

After everything was signed & dotted, we moved into the "music room" for a few pictures. Here is Beatrix playing with her pink stuffed animal.

The now "Mrs. Stone" chatting with some friends.

Bethany's friend Fran & I took turns caring for Charlotte.

Then it was outside for more pictures.

Here I am with my beautiful niece!

The Stone Family!

This is Warwick's family - his two sisters & brother-in-law.

Bethany's friend Lynda & her beautiful hat.

Bethany & Kenny - they met in Scotland back in 1992 when Bethany was studying abroad and have kept touch over the years.

From the Pavilion, the wedding party walked through the "Lanes" in a promenade. Chris was carrying a sleeping Charlotte and I was pushing the stroller, so we didn't get any photos of that. It was probably a 10 minute walk to get to the Coach House where the reception was held.

The Reception

We were served delicious mojitos upon arrival. For our appetizers, we had little paper cones with fish & chips. I didn't get any pictures of them, but they were so cute! And yummy.

Here is Chris & me with our beautiful niece, Beatrix!

My Aunt Brenda & Uncle Ken from Lizton, Indiana came over for the wedding.

Here is Dad talking with a couple who hosted Bethany on a visit to England back in the early 1990s.

And here I am with my sister!!! My Dad likes numbers. He made the comment that I got married when I was 23 years old. And this year marks my 23rd wedding anniversary and I turned 46 this past January. It was kind of weird to think that I have been married so much longer than my sister who is just 3 1/2 years younger than me. It just took Bethany a little longer to find the right one! I am so happy for her!!!

I can't wait to see all the professional pictures from the wedding!!

England Trip {London}

We knew that we couldn't be in England without a trip to London. Brighton is about 50 miles south of London. We didn't have a car during our trip, so we took the train. The train rates seem to fluctuate a bit. Peak hours are more expensive, naturally. We found that we could get a cheaper rate if we selected an exact time for our return trip, but we preferred to have some flexibility with that. So getting to & from London for our day excursion cost us about £100. At the current exchange rate, that is $168. A bit pricey, but Chris decided it would be worth it because I wouldn't be stressed out about making the train at a certain time.

With only one day in London, we wanted to make the most of our time, so we had purchased tickets on a local hop on/hop off tour bus company. We got to see a lot of London on the bus. It was spring holiday for a lot of the UK, so London was especially crowded. After an hour or so of riding around London, we decided to get off at Tralfagar Square.

Then we went to the National Gallery.

Photography was not permitted in the National Gallery, of course! Chris has always enjoyed art museums, plus it was free!  We were completely impressed with what we saw of their collection. We've been to several art museums in the US and those may have 1 or 2 paintings from a big name artist, but here, not only were there so many artists that we were familiar with, but several paintings by each one. For example, according to this Wikipedia link, there were 19 Monets, 13 Renoirs, 4 Michaelangelos, and 27 Rembrandts just to name a few. We could have easily stayed longer, but with our limited time, we left after an hour or so.

We got back on the bus for a while and saw more of London. There was a tour guide on the bus who pointed out things & gave us some history of the city.

 

 We got off at the Tower of London stop. We admired the Tower from behind the fence. Back in 1990, on my short visit to London, I had seen the Tower & the Crown Jewels. With our tight schedule we decided to pass on it this time.

Our tour bus tickets included a boat ride on the River Thames. From the Tower of London, the boat took us to the London Eye. After talking to friends before our trip to London, everyone said we had to do the London Eye. We had reserved our tickets in advance to save some time.

We arrived at the London Eye around 4pm. We had to wait in the voucher line to get our actual tickets. That wait was at least 30 minutes. Our actual time to ride the Eye was 7pm, with instructions to get in line at 6:30pm. We were hungry by this time. We had gotten coffees and pastries when we were at Trafalgar Square, but hadn't eaten any meals since breakfast. We decided to walk around & try to find a pub while we waited. We walked and walked. We finally found a pub, but they didn't serve food, so we had to ditch the pub idea & found a restaurant. When we got back to the London Eye area, we still had to wait for another hour or so. There wasn't anything touristy around there, so we just watched some street performers and relaxed a bit.

The views from the London Eye were gorgeous!

Parliament & Big Ben

The River Thames

After our 30 minute ride on the London Eye, we started walking back to the train station. Most of the touristy things to do in London were closed by now, so we decided to head back to Brighton.  

Big Ben

Our attempts at "I'm crushing you" from Kids in the Hall.

Chris posing outside of Parliament.

We passed by Westminster Abbey.

Another view of the Westminster.

And back at Victoria Station, we saw this theater across the street & decided to take a picture for Hannah.

We returned to our little house in Brighton after 10pm. London is a beautiful city, but so crowded and busy. We were very happy to return to a slower paced Brighton.

England Trip {Brighton}

We absolutely loved Brighton. Brighton is often referred to as "London by the Sea".

We walked to the  Brighton Pier on Sunday, our first full day in town.

View from the pier.

The weather was in the low 60's and sunny. We were surprised at how crowded the beach was.

View of the pier from the beach.

This is the old West Pier.

Brighton Beach is a shingle beach. I wasn't familiar with that term. But basically, it's a beach made up of small stones instead of sand. There were sandy patches close to the water, but nothing like what we're accustomed to. We were walking in our shoes, but there were lots of people walking barefoot on the stones. And people were sitting directly on it, too.

The Brighton Fishing Museum is located on the beach.

The museum is home to Mr. Punch & Judy.

Punch & Judy was a popular seaside puppet show that begin in the 1600's.

We enjoyed shopping in The Lanes. The Lanes is a bunch of narrow lanes and alley ways with small shops and restaurants.

 

There are some beautiful churches in Brighton.

Brighton has a large train station. The station was about a 10 minute walk from our house. 

Chris & I had tea at this little shop.

Tea time

We saw one red telephone booth in Brighton. It wasn't functional, but it did help us on several occasions by letting us know that we were headed in the right direction.

This is the Royal Pavilion. This was built as a seaside palace for George, Prince of Wales who later became the Prince Regent, then King George IV. This was his "pleasure palace". My sister's wedding took place here. We took a tour of the pavilion the day before the wedding. Photos were not permitted inside on the tour, but we were able to get some during Bethany's wedding.