Week of the food poisoning (or stomach virus or something)

My cousin Michelle came to Dallas this week to visit from England. I was really excited about her trip but about one day into it Sam and I came down with some sort of food poisoning (we're still not sure what hit us- and we're still trying to recover!) So my pour cousin had to suffer through our sickness! But, we still managed to do some serious shopping and make a trip to the stockyards in Fort Worth.

This weekend we drove Michelle down to San Marcos to stay with Melanie, Corey and Tay made the trip to hang out with us. --

Here are the girls after floating the river^

Sam and I can't go to Austin without dancing at our favorite place- The Broken Spoke! Tay and I even bought cowboy boots for the occassion. We also got to have dinner with my good friends Meagan and Travis but I'm a dork and took NO pictures with them :(

We were proud to be Texans while stopping by the State Capitol.

Our final days in London

Prepare to be completely bombarded with pictures and these are only a very small fraction of them! I wish I didn't have to post them so tiny but there are just too many- click the pic to make them bigger, some are really worth a closer look. The view from the top of the hill in Greenwich

Sam setting his watch to official Greenwich mean time

Forget four corners... I have one foot in the eastern hemisphere and one foot in the western

So, I had terrible allergies during the trip and Sam convinced me to buy the tacky checkered sunglasses pictured above...

The above picture isn't great but the story is better- we walked out of the subway to find ourselves in the middle of London's gay pride festival- whoops! I've never seen so many men in rainbow underwear!

My grandparents' house ^

Where my mom went to school^ (also on the squre that my grandparents live on)

This is one of the two churches in the middle of my grandparents' square

This is the view from my grandparents front yard. Wouldn't you love to wake up to pictures like this every morning?

It was a fabulous trip but it went by too quickly! Apart from my horrible allergies and destroying my hair straightner the very first night- it was such a great trip! (I only mention the straightner because Kathleen gave me a great haircut right before we left and I was excited to show off my new shorter do.)

English Countryside

Our trip into Kent to visit Leeds Castle among other things

Proper English Garden

A toucan in the aviary

They had a Dog collar museum- who would have thought??

Sam listening to the audio walking tour at Leeds Castle

That night we stayed at a very nice hotel in a town called Tumbridge Wells and the next day drove to Battle- to see the field and Abbey where the battle of Hastings took place in 1066

Again- Sam listening to the audio tour

ruins of the Abbey at Battle

I liked this little English house ^^

We made another stop at Bodiam Castle

Me with my grandpa- who is honestly able to give you some tid bit of information on any subject. A wealth of knowledge- good to be on a tour with.

Around London

Sam enjoying his first Bison Burger in honor of Canada day in Trafalgar Square

Buckingham Palace

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

Tower of London

On our way in to see the Crown Jewels ^

Tower Bridge

Monday of the trip Sam was treated to a London by foot tour and his guide was ME. We only got turned around a few times. These are some of the things we saw- again so many pictures and not enough space to post them. :( After these things we went to see the musical Wicked on the London West End and I loved it!! Really clever story and great songs.

London- Wimbledon

Sam- at 6am in 'The Queue' waiting to try and get Wimbledon tickets.

This is what the line looked like after we had already been waiting in it for 3 hours... only one more hour of waiting and we finally made it in with a grounds pass!

Of course we had the famous Wimbledon Strawberries and cream... yummmmy!

And now for all you Tennis Pros.... here are shots from a few matches we caught...

Jelena Jankovic

Baghdatis v. Lopez

Rafael Nadal- the soon to be Wimbledon Champ

Venus and Serena Williams- also soon to be Wimbledon Champs