Day 9 - Our last day :(

We forgot to buy t-shirts when we were in London, so Saturday the girls (minus L'eah) headed back into Brighton to try and find some.  We went to the mall and walked around, but they didn't have any touristy shops.  We went into Claire's to get Aubree some makeup applicators, and when we walked out, there was a threading booth right there.  I've been wanting to take Aubs in to get her eyebrows waxed for a while now, but was a little scared about how they would turn out.  So, I told her to sit down in the chair.  This was her thing I was buying for her, since she didn't get anything at Hamley's.  The girl was really fast and gave Aubree a really nice shape.  It was also cool to watch it being done.  I love how it accentuates her beautiful eyes!  My little girl is turning into a young woman!
After the mall, we walked along the seafront out to the pier, but only found shirts that had Brighton written on them.  We didn't mind walking though, because Saturday was the FIRST day (and of course our last day there) that the sun was shining!  It was still windy and cold, but the sun was out!  It was gorgeous!
We got back to the flat and picked up the boys and L'eah and went to go fly kites at Devil's Dyke.  Hannah will have to give us a lesson on why it's called Devil's Dyke.  Hannah bought a few cheap kites, and we tried to fly them.  For some reason, they didn't want to fly nicely.  They kept flipping over, then crashing.  It was super fun, though.  The countryside is lovely, and we had tons of fun in the sun!  We did one last dinner out, then headed home to pack up our stuff. 
We got to the airport early to get checked in, then had almost 2 hours to kill before our flight.  We got some breakfast and found t-shirts for the boys along with a couple other souvenirs.  We absolutely LOVED our visit to England.  Thank you Buzz and Hannah for being such great tour guides, and a HUGE thank you to Dave for putting us up!  Love you all!

Halfway there!

Brighton Beach from the Pier

Let the sun shine!!!

Trying to figure out how to put together the first kite.

Waiting to fly kites!

Buzz flies a kite!

Let's go fly a kite!!!

Panorama of Devil's Dyke

The rest of Day 8 - FINALLY!!!

The rest of our day in London, we rode a double decker bus!!!  We discovered that it was easier and faster than going into the Underground during rush hour.  Buzz just popped L'eah's pushchair into the bus and was able to stay with her in the pushchair/wheelchair spot.  The rest of us went to the top of the bus!  It was pretty vacant, and the kids had tons of fun!  We were able to hop on a couple times and really cut out a lot of walking.  The kids were VERY grateful, as by this time they were pretty tired.  Buzz was, too, from hauling L'eah in her pushchair up and down about 50 flights of stairs.

Anyway, we finished at St. Paul's and went shopping! Kind of, but not really. We went to the toy store Hamley's. It is 5 floors of toys, and the kids were in heaven! The first stop was Build-a-Bear, where they each picked out England shirts for their animal. I told them they could get one other thing, and the boys each chose Pokemon cards (because they didn't already have enough). I could afford those.  There really wasn't a whole lot to choose from for a 12 year old girl, so Aubree waited to get something.  By the end of this, we were STARVING, so we stopped at (don't hate me!) McDonald's for a quick bite.  We had tried other places the first time in town, and it was SOOOO expensive, and the kids didn't eat all of it.  So, McDonald's was an easy choice.  After we filled our bellies was when we discovered the amazingness of the double decker bus.

We did walk from Trafalgar square up the mall to Buckingham Palace.  It's a really beautiful building.  We had a lot of fun taking pictures there.  After the palace, we walked some more to some place that I don't remember the name of, then hopped on a bus to go to Harrod's.

Harrod's is HUGE!!!  We saw the memorial to Princess Diana, then wandered the food market part of the store.  All the food looked SO good, and was SOOOOOOO expensive!  We made one purchase at Harrod's - 2 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts!  The kids were in absolute heaven!  We each ate one sitting there, then took the rest home.  Oh, they were yummy!  By the time we left Harrod's, it was dark and we headed back to the train station to return to Hove.  We had so much fun in London, and hope we get to go back sometime.

This arch is at one end of the mall, Buckingham is at the other.
Trafalgar Square is through it.

 

On a double decker bus!

We're on the upper deck!

Look at the other double deckers we can see from ours!

The view of a square from our double decker.

A view of Buckingham coming up the mall.

Buckingham Palace

The gates to somewhere across from Buckingham.  St. James Park, maybe?

The police officers standing guard.  The guy on the right was
kind enough to turn his head so we could see his cool hat. 
These are the only officers we saw carrying weapons.

The central gate.

Look!  Buzz and Hannah did come with us!

Queen Victoria was the "People's Queen", and there are statues of her everywhere!

Loved the sunset.  This is the statue of Queen Victoria in front of Buckingham.

The whole gang (well, minus me!).

We walked here.

And we also saw this.

The shrine to Diana & Dodi.  I didn't even get a little teary.

The ring that was the supposed engagement ring.