Ladies' Weekend

The last weekend in March I had the opportunity to enjoy the weekend in London with some friends - Angie, Allison, and Claire. We had a blast!!! Andy is so good to humor and support me in such adventures. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's so nice. It was weird, but very nice, to not be pushing a stroller or lugging around a diaper bag. So, a big thank you to my hubby for letting me escape for a few days!

We flew out late on Thursday night. And it ended up being really late because our flight was delayed about an hour. Once we got off our supposed stop in London on the underground they were shutting everything down - it was 1 AM. Claire and I were confident we had gotten off at the right spot, but it was actually one more. So luckily the nice man who was locking up the tube told us where we could catch a bus (which run 24 hours) to get to our hotel. That night we didn't sleep much. Well, any night we didn't sleep much. I think I figured that for the 3 nights there we maybe got 10 hours of sleep. And that's a maybe... Too much fun to be had!

Here we are on Friday morning setting off to pick up our Mamma Mia tickets. Which they actually wouldn't let us do until that evening, so from there we did some shopping around the Piccadilly Circus area. Genuine laughter - you have to get a picture in one of the red telephone booths!

After a bit of shopping and browsing, we headed over to the Tower of London. Allison and Angie had never been in and Claire and I didn't mind doing another tour. This time I was able to enjoy a guided tour - one of the benefits of not traveling with little ones. Our guide was quite the character and we enjoyed the tour he gave us of the Tower of London. Definitely didn't feel like a repeat! We each tried to be really serious like the guards are - here's my best shot:

View of the Tower Bridge from the Tower of London:

That evening we dined at Hard Rock Cafe:

After a yummy dinner we went to Mamma Mia and loved every minute of it. Oh, the music! It was so much fun. I was with a bunch of girls that knew every word of the music as well, so most of the show they were singing along. :) After the show we couldn't go back to our hotel that early. I mean come on, turning in at 11 PM??? No! We grabbed some Cinnabons to save for breakfast the next morning and then headed over to Big Ben to check him out at night...I'm surprised this picture even turned out. The lady that we asked to take our picture walked away a bit tipsy!

On Saturday morning we made our way to Harrods. I'd never been there and it was neat to browse around. There isn't much in that store that's in any of our budgets, but we all splurged on some type of treat - I got a cupcake. The yummy displays:

I did get the my girls cute little bags and Easter bunnies from Harrods. Mom always has to bring something home for the little ones when she goes away! We then had tickets for the early show of Legally Blonde. Yes, we took this ladies' weekend seriously. We chose shows that we knew our husbands would probably never take us to. Once again a very enjoyable show!

After our early show we wandered around London for awhile. Grabbed some Krispy Kreme donuts. Honestly, I don't know why, because I was still packing around my cupcake from Harrods. I don't think I ate that thing until about 2 AM on Sunday... And we didn't eat the whole dozen of donuts in one sitting, just in case you're wondering. We did have plenty left over for an early breakfast on Sunday.

From there we ventured to Buckingham Palace. Had a fun time trying to distract the guards, okay, Allison had a fun time trying to distract the guards. :) From there we set off to find Kensington Palace. Let's just say after about 3 hours we gave up. But we did end up seeing some of the Notting Hill area. I don't think the Palace would have been open by the time we got close to it anyways. We got back to our hotel pretty late and played card games. We didn't stop until around 3:30 AM. We had to get up by 4:30 AM to catch our early flight. Allison and Claire took a nap, while Angie and I chatted. I can't remember the last time I pulled an all-nighter. Probably won't happen again for awhile... Here we are out in front of our hotel 5 AM on Sunday ready to go catch the bus to Victoria Station:

Yeah, we look a little tired. I think we all crashed once we got home. :) Andy and the girls were still at church, so I got a bit of a nap and then once they got home, we had lunch together and all took another nap together. Very nice!

While I was gone Andy was such a good dad. He supposedly "worked from home" on Friday. I don't think he got any work done. He of course was too busy playing with the girls! On Saturday he went with another motherless-for-the-weekend family to a local goat farm where the kids got to play. And I was quite impressed at how well he did getting the girls ready and to church. They definitely have a good daddy! (Not that it was ever a question before.) And I came back a better mom. As I've had the opportunity a handful of times since Rachel was born, it's always nice to be able to experience missing your little ones. Hopefully the next time I get to miss my little ones will be a nice 10-year anniversary getaway with my hubby... :)

Thanks ladies for such a fun weekend! NYC - summer of 2012, right???