Touring Buckingham Palace, Royal Mews, and Queen's Gallery

I have a bit of a history bringing my children to Buckingham Palace. Our first visit ended like this and included Big Arrow getting his head stuck in the gate.

A photo posted by Nicole Wiltrout (@arrowssentforth) on Sep 16, 2015 at 11:44pm PDT

Tips for Visiting Legoland Windsor (and Legolands Around the World!)

As a way of culminating a 10-day visit with my sister's family, which took us from our house to Norfolk to London, we planned an overnight at Legoland Windsor. We were a traveling entourage of 8 people, including 4 kids age 7 and younger. Needless to say, we fell right into the Legoland target market.

Memories of London's Paddington Trail

My husband first learned of our opportunity to live here in England on a business trip 2 years ago. He spent his last night of the trip in London, and wandered over to Hamley’s to buy the boys each a little gift. He was hoping to get them excited about our potential British adventures. His present to Little Arrow was a small Paddington Bear stuffed animal, and it has sat on a shelf in his room ever since. 

Beyond that bear, the boys were basically oblivious to Paddington. Let’s be honest, he doesn’t have quite the modern appeal of Frozen, Harry Potter, or the current favorite at our house, Lego Ninjago (ugh).

But I saw the trailer for the new Paddington Bear movie a few months ago, and I knew I absolutely had to introduce one of Britain’s most iconic and beloved children’s characters to my kids. In fact, when we went to see the film a few weeks ago, it was Little Arrow’s first time at the cinema. They adored it from the opening scene to the credits and now they’re hooked on all things Paddington. I’m excited to start reading the books with them.

Our Christmas Eve day trip to London came at the tail end of a temporary exhibit of more than 50 Paddington Bear sculptures around the city, called the Paddington Trail. Each was uniquely designed by a celebrity and Big Arrow quickly made it a goal to see as many as possible throughout the day. Fortunately several of them were along our planned route for the day so we were happy to indulge him.

Christmas Eve in London

Do you ever have days out with your family where everything just clicks? Nobody whines. Nobody throws a fit on the train. Everyone has so much fun it sort of feels like your favorite song is playing on repeat in the background all day long.

That is definitely not our every day. But that was our Christmas Eve in London.

I wish I had some behind-the-scenes, magic secret to share with you on why the day was such a success. I don't. It helped that the crowds were very manageable. It even helped that Little Arrow was a bit under the weather, meaning he was content to sit in his stroller for long walks most of the day.

And of course, it helps that London puts on a pretty good show when it comes to Christmas spirit and decorations.

We started at Selfridge's, one of London's most famous department stores. My two made a beeline for the toy shop.

London Transport Museum

I've been talking to lots of friends and family back in Indiana about what a long, horrible winter it was for them. For those of you not from the area, there was a period of several days when everyone was (no exaggeration) frozen inside their homes. Not to mention almost weekly storms that dumped anywhere from several inches to a couple of feet of snow.

On this side of the pond, we had a much milder winter. I sometimes neglected to mention to those back home that we could occasionally still visit the playground or take a hike in the woods without risking instant frostbite. But even without the frigid temps of America, gray, rainy days still got the best of me mentally at times.

Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Our trips to London always inevitably involve a bit of hassle. Non-handicap accessible tube stations, which means we carry a double stroller up three flights of stairs, crowded streets, lines, etc. I'm not complaining. We're lucky to have such an amazing city just a train ride away. And it's well worth the effort, each and every time we visit. But there's nothing about going into London that's easy. I suppose that's true of any city, particularly when you have young kids.

So I truly appreciate those moments of relaxed bliss, a chance to carve out some space among the streets and the sights, full of millions of people, when you feel like you have a little corner all to yourself. Exactly what we were treated to when we ventured over to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in mid-December.

HouseTrip London Apartment Review

One of the dilemmas we have when planning London adventures is whether to stay the night or try to do everything we want to do in a day. And yes, I realize this very much falls under "first world problems." The train ride to London from our closest major train station is only an hour. But there's a balance between the expense of the train tickets to get into the city (which can be around $50 per person if we don't plan ahead), the expense of a hotel room for a night or two, and then the kid factor: how hard do we want to push the kids to see a lot of sites, without much rest or downtime?

We've done it both ways (day trip itinerary for London here and weekend itinerary for London here). They both have their positives and negatives.

So when the opportunity to check out one of HouseTrip's London apartment rental properties came about, I jumped at the chance to take in a few days in London, knowing we'd have a place to call home in the evenings. Especially in December, when the city is full of Christmas magic.

0 Days in Paris, 2 Days in London

You've already heard the tale of our weekend getaway gone wrong in the Peak District. Since we're on a roll with the travel failures, let's move on to our canceled trip to Paris. Could there be anything sadder than that?

The thought of a long weekend in October in my favorite city in the world had been the proverbial carrot on the stick, enticing me to plow through the lonely summer months here and the stress of sending Big Arrow off to school in September. The icing on the cake was that my brother and sister-in-law were visiting us and had never been. I was so excited to experience the city again, and for the first time as a mom, and also with two of my favorite travel companions (they've joined us on trips to Arizona, Chicago, Michigan, and hosted us in Minneapolis).

We had even arranged a babysitter so that the four adults could paint the town red and live it up. I couldn't wait to see the City of Lights at night again.

Alas, as their visit approached, both Arrows became quite ill with a stomach bug. My parents were visiting at the time, and I was glad we hadn't made any travel plans for their visit. In fact, my mom and dad saw a lot more of my living room than they did of England. As they headed back to the U.S., the bug seemed to be lingering well beyond the normal 48-72 hour mark.

Photographing the Streets of London

One of the biggest adjustments of being an expat, especially with young kids, is suddenly finding yourself without a support system. Our families were so generous about spending time watching the boys whenever we needed a break or had something we'd prefer to do without them. I've also really missed my network of mom friends, who even on a rough day, could turn my mood around with a playdate at the park and some fun conversation. I'll be the first to admit that the last 5 months have been very high on the intensity scale in terms of parenting for me.

Fortunately, we found a wonderful babysitter within our first few days here. But like any busy family, we typically only utilize her for parent meetings at school or the rare date night. And luckily, we continue to make progress in making friends, too.

Over the last few weeks, I had purposefully planned a few breaks away from the Arrows. I knew I needed a little sanity check, and these moments provided that for me. (And I'm now strongly encouraging my husband to plan similar outings for himself.)

My first big break was a day-long class on street photography in London. I'm not sure I left any better at photography. I think what I enjoyed more than anything was the chance to take my time with my camera, which I'm still getting the hang of. Goodness, my children do not wait patiently while I set up the perfect shot. So just the act of pausing was such a luxury.

Anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from the day.

That's One Way to Meet the Queen

On our first day trip to London, we convinced Big Arrow to leave lovely Hyde Park by telling him we were going to see the Queen. We thought he'd think that sounded exciting, and we were right. Of course, we were merely going to walk over to Buckingham Palace and check it out. There was no actual invitation to meet the Queen. (But I check my mail daily, Your Majesty, if you're reading...)

So when we arrived, Big Arrow was very amped up. And then he did what any right-minded 4-year-old does when approaching a gate like this.

Half Day in London: Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace

One of the goals we have as a family during our three years here is to really get to know London as well as we can. It seems only natural to take advantage of our close proximity to one of the world’s greatest cities (we’re just a couple hours away by car, or 45 minutes by train).

So I’m kicking off what I hope is a series of posts on how to spend a full day or ½ day in London with young kids.

For our first day trip, just 4 days after arriving, we hopped on a train in Peterborough bound for King’s Cross station, one of the main train stations in London. Given that it was a rare sunny day, we planned to spend the bulk of our time in Hyde Park, so from King’s Cross, we took the tube to the Queensway stop on the red (Central) line. (This stop does not have elevators, so you'll have to navigate your stroller up some stairs.)