The Why

London Calling!

This trip has been several years in the making.  If you'd like to follow along with us on our trip, check out this blog!  We'll update as often as we can.  In addition to sharing information with our friends and family back home, I thought it would turn into a great momento once we're home.

First off, why London?

Two reasons.  First off is Matt's youngest sister, Emily, who lives in London and has been living there for, er, maybe 8 year.  Has it really been that long?  When Em first moved to London, we thought it was just for grad school and she'd return home, most likely back to somewhere in California.  She would come back to the states to visit and we didn't think about going there because, ya know, she was there temporarily.  Well, we eventually realized that it may not actually be temporary.  And as much as we still hope she'll return to California, she seems quite happy in London and is doing very well.  So, our turn to go visit.

But, then we had kids.  And although I know some people do it very successfully, international travel with young kids, it wasn't something I was into.  We were deep into Disney (still are), and didn't think the expense seemed like so much for something the kids most likely wouldn't remember.  So, several years ago, doing the math, we thought when they were 7 and 9, we would go.  And now, here we are!

The second reason, while juniors at Occidental, Matt and I were lucky enough to spend the fall semester of our junior year studying abroad in London at University College London.  That was the fall of 1999.  Napster was the coolest thing to come out and London was busy prepping for Y2K. Matt and I were 20, enjoying the lower drinking age in England, studying (some) and having a good time.  Looking back, we thought we'd get back to London every few years or so.  But, life happens and every few years turned into 18 years.

I dug out some old pictures, (back when we had negatives and actually printed them out), and found these gems:

So, here we are, in front of Buckingham Palace.  Notice Matt's haircut.  How that happened is a story for another blog post.

Made it to Stonehenge.

Matt at St. Andrew's in Scotland.  He got on the old course and played that day.  He's hoping to do the same this trip.  He didn't make the lottery for a tee time, but is hoping for one of the coveted, but limited, walk up day of tee times.

Matt's parents came to visit.  And yeah, that's Matt, and his dad.  Great hat, right?  I think it was the "Joey" hat (Friends reference).

My parents came to visit as well.  We were lucky enough to score these jumper seats on one of our train rides, as all the others were taken.  We're hoping for reserved seats this time.

And here's young Emily.  Truly young Emily.  I think her and Matt were getting off of some reality type car ride.

That's all for now.  Back to the packing and to do list before we leave.