Thursday, July 24th.  Our LAST DAY TOGETHER in Europe.  24 hours later, I would fly from London to Glasgow to meet up with my dad and friends for a week of WATCHING them play golf.  And LouAnn and the kids would pack up and fly home to Texas.  So how to squeeze the most out of the day?  When the travel-weary momentum was already carrying us down the homeward hill?

We started – here’s a shocker – by sleeping later than we intended to.  The first order of business was to witness the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace.  In the blazing (well, for the UK it was blazing) heat.  By the time we got to the Palace, the crowd was 10 deep at the gates and the Changing was still 20 minutes off.  And it was the last day of the trip.  Needless to say, the standard deviation of our enthusiasm within the family was LARGE.  But we all had fun.  I cracked jokes nonstop to keep Jack giggling and made fun of the other tourists, while LouAnn, Ellis, and Georgia earnestly struggled to acquire a good view of the proceedings.  I have to say that some of the air gets let out of the regal Queen’s Guard balloon when you see so many REAL guards standing around with machine guns.  Climb up on the fence to get a better look and it’s THOSE guys who yell at you to get down, not the guys with giant black muffs on their heads.  The Changing itself was confusing.  Did the guards out front ever actually change?  There seemed to be a lot of extra guards marching around, a lot of guys marching in LATE, heavy stomping in seemingly-random diagonals…..

From the Palace, we made our way to lunch – this time down a hidden alley at an actual BURRITO restaurant.  Think Chipotle with a  London twist.  This neat little alley was straight out of the first Harry Potter movie – what was that alley?  ANYWAYS, this was Harry Potter’s alley.  With a burrito joint.

Five days in London, and we hadn’t GLIMPSED Big Ben, Parliament, or Westminster Abbey.  So off we went.  Westminster Abbey was fascinating.  SO many famous dead people buried RIGHT THERE.  Kings and Queens, poets, authors, statesmen; surely some of them must be buried upright, given the limited space.  At least we spent TIME in Westminster; Big Ben got barely a nod.  This group was ready to move on, but it was a CONTENT readiness.  A kind of sleepy, road-weary satisfaction with a summer well-spent.

That night’s show – the fourth in four nights – was the stage adaptation of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.  How fun!  Parts of it were brilliant – (the staging, Charlie, the scenes where each of the other four kids were identified on TV), and parts of it were very UN-remarkable (Willy Wonka!, the whole second act…)  I loved the discussion we had afterwards.  Our theater kids picked up on ALL of it.  They were amazed, critical, discerning, thoughtful…..

The final night!  We made our way (how many TIMES in this blog have I written, “made our way”?) back to 34 Lancaster Gate for the last time.  The rest of our final night together was rather un-ceremonial.  We did nothing to truly MARK the end of these two incredible months; but perhaps we had been honoring it all along.  Packing of bags, the struggle to stuff WAY too much into bags.  The effort to leave the apartment SOMEWHAT in one piece.  We fell into bed as we did EVERY night – exhausted.

This trip cost a lot of money.  And I never regretted a CENT.  We had acquired things money can’t buy.  Unity.  Patience.  Endurance.  Empathy.  Joy.  Laughter.  Recognition of beauty.  Appreciation for it.  Flexibility.  I saw in each of these four incredible people things I had never seen before.  We all matured, in different ways.  We drove foundation pilings deep into bedrock, creating memories that will be with us forever.  We all gained a deeper appreciation for the breadth and majesty of our creative God, and by knowing Him better, we came away knowing ourselves a bit better.  What a privilege!

Are they really CHANGING?

LouAnn’s a TROOPER.  But haven’t we learned that by now?

Harry Potter’s alley!

London burritos!

Look kids – Big Ben!

Jack’s “incredulous” face.  This is usually associated with some completely unreasonable request from his parents.