Day 4--The Royal Treatment

There was a civil servant strike today. Not sure what all the implications of that were. The tube was a little more crowded, I suppose, but for the most part we got around without many complications. Again it was a pretty laid back morning, the highlight of which was a picnic lunch with Mom and Mike in the gardens behind the house. How we will miss those gardens.

A Belated Thumbs Up for 'The 39 Steps.'

Then off to M&M world because everyone simply had to experience it. Apart from the aborted evacuation of the building (let me tell you when a fire alarm goes off at M&M world, the people there know how to organize and clear out the place in an incredibly efficient manner), we had a great experience. Miranda, Lucy and James enjoyed creating their custom coloured bags of M&Ms (did you know you could get them in silver and gold?), Liam found a T-shirt that he liked, and Julie picked out some M&M themed silicon trivets that spoke to her.

If you could judge a personality based on the M&Ms they would choose
this would be Miranda.

This is Lucy!

We then headed off to the London Eye for our afternoon appointment. Now the thing with booking an appointment for the London Eye is that you're not really booking a time to get on the ride, but rather you're booking a time to get into a long line to get on the ride. Understanding this, we gave ourselves plenty of wiggle room before. However, soon after we stepped into the line, a man with a clipboard approached us and asked if we'd like to be moved to the front of the line for a "capsule experience" that would entail us taking two trip around the circumference. Obviously I was a little suspicious. You've got to pay big bucks for the fast pass experience and two times around seemed too good to be true. It turned out there was a catch, but a relatively minor one at that. They were experimenting with some new interactive guides in one of the capsules and they wanted to see how people interacted with them. It was a pretty spectacular view and James was very appreciative of the opportunity it afforded him to sit down for an hour. There's a lot of things we've been doing over the past few days, but sitting down is not one of them.

We then passed by Trafalgar square to see some of the Canada day celebrations. It was quite the party, and, judging from the pavilions set up around the square, our national identity is pretty wrapped up in our hockey and our beer. Maybe that's why I've always struggled to fit in.

Canada Day at Trafalgar Square. The beer's to the right.

Dinner at Sophie's Steakhouse!

From Trafalgar Square we made our way to the Covent Garden area where Mom and Mike treated us to a great dinner and a performance of the Lion King. About seven or eight years ago, while we were living in Arizona, we bought tickets to a travelling company version of the show, so I wasn't all that excited to see the production again. I remember being impressed by many of the puppets, but I also remember being a little bored at different points in the show. It was a completely different experience seeing it here. The show didn't start until 7:30 and with the full day we had before, I honestly believed it would take a miracle to keep James awake through the show. Well, it turned out the show was the miracle (I'm sure the constant stream of sugar from Grandpa Mike's Tommy Tucker didn't hurt either). He didn't nod off once during the play, though as soon as it was over, he made it perfectly clear that his legs were no longer functioning and would I be so kind as to carry him just a little bit more. Note to self, 4 year olds aren't too big for strollers.