London Calling - We Meet the Queen

Disclaimer - I cannot guarantee that all of our guests will get a repeat performance of what we pulled off for my family. In fact, I cannot guarantee that my own family will ever have this experience again, but we did, in fact, have a run in with the Queen. Completely on accident. Here is our trip to London.

We were in London for three days. We stayed at a Travelodge in the heart of town, it was functional, but we wouldn't stay there again if we could avoid it. Every day we did a lot of walking (we clocked 8 miles one day on my mom's pedometer) and tried to see as much as we could and find something for everyone. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun.

So we decide on the first morning to catch the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. We start walking there and notice police blockades. We ask them what is going on and they say that in 15 minutes the Queen is coming from Buckingham Palace to Parliament to deliver a speech. So we found some prime real estate along the path and got out our cameras. Then we waited. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance full of bands, guards, horses, and at the end of it all, cannon fire. It was pretty amazing.

The first carriage carries the crown jewels.
Drumroll please....here is the Queen. If you go to Dave's flikr account, you can see many more pictures. If you click on this one it should expand so you can see the queen a lot more clearly.
Not sure who these royals were.
Buckingham Palace.Heading back after the Speech.
On the London Eye.
On the carousel by the London Eye. Hilde named her horse Princess. Enoch named his Bertrand. Mine was Buttercup.