Legoland & Buckingham Palace

Last weekend we drove down to London for a little escape. The kids wanted to go to Legoland again and I wanted to see Buckingham Palace. We hit Legoland first on Saturday and mainly did things we hadn't had the chance to last year. The highlight was seeing the entire mini-land exhibit which included all the sites of London along with other European villages and a Kennedy Space Center replica....all out of Legos!

Before going to Buckingham on Sunday, we got to see the Lego version....don't think I got this good of a view at the real thing!

 

The kids were excited to ride in the Fiat Lego cars.  This year Alexa was old enough to drive and she was thrilled!

 Though there were quite a few traffic jams....

 This year there is a new Star Wars Lego exhibit which was a lot of fun to tour.

Saturday night we stayed in a lovely Bed & Breakfast near Heathrow airport and then took the Tube into London on Sunday morning.  Though we arrived at Buckingham Palace 45 minutes before the Changing of the Guard, there was already a huge crowd.  So it was pretty hard for Sean and I to see much.  But the kids took turns sitting on our shoulders, so they got a decent view.  They are responsible for the pictures that you get to see below.

Much of the activity took place inside the gates surrounding the palace.  Because we were not right up against the fence, we got lots of nice detailed pictures of the bars.  This one below is my favorite.

 

After watching the Changing of the Guard, we grabbed a quick lunch and scurried to our 1:00 tour of the Palace.  It was quite impressive, especially the Jubilee display of the Queen's diamonds.  I loved seeing all the diamond tiaras and crowns that have been passed from Queen to Queen  for 100s of years.  Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the Palace.  We were able to take photos as we exited the back of the palace into the garden.

Overall, a very fun weekend....though it was hard to go to school this morning!