h o m e : the city

Despite all of the studying I did (did I mention that I spent the break studying? Honestly, sorry I'm such a brat) I got the chance to kind of do what I wanted, which was to rediscover London on my own. Walk around and just enjoy the sights and sounds of this place. Things that I was so familiar with, but at the same time, didn't SEE for over 21 years!

My favorite aspect of London has to be the architecture. The fact that it is obviously a place riddled with history, yet a the forefront of so much in terms of technology and modern ideals. I managed to get some snaps of some of my favorite places in the big LDN...

(Notice how only a couple of these are actual places. It's mostly just shady alleyways and teeny cobbled streets... but they're my FAVORITE!)

 View of the science museum from my stake center..

But really though. I spent two hours here. Just because I wanted to.

Those tiny cobbled streets I was talking about....

I went on a boat tour along the river Thames with my cousins and had to get these snaps of the Eye

 

Hummingbird bakery. Literally heaven on Earth. Here's the website. Please. You owe it to yourself.

Red Velvet. And something really good. It's chocolate and cheesecake and uhhhh just flipping good. Notice I didn't even wait to take a picture before eating half of it (Thank you Arinola for bringing it into my life)

So the verdict is that I love London. Always have, always will.

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h o m e : friends

Another amazing part of being home was the opportunity I had to spend time with some of my greatest friends! These are just some of the people that have been so amazing and supportive during this part of my life, and I always love being reunited with them.

As I have explained (a billion times) I didn't have as much time as I had wanted/needed with these chums of mine; and there were some (namely my Channing girls) that I didn't get to see at all. Which I hated. BUT. Three short months :)

There were moments like this with MarfaMarf. 

And that one time that the beautiful Cydney Allen was ay MY HOME WARD barbecue.

There was a bit of a cheeky Starbucks date

I was reunited with my old roommate Jamie who just happens to be serving in my home stake!

This is what I looked like after I said goodbye to Cydney for an indefinite time period. Not happy. Literally crying.

This is Ari!!! Making her Brit Journal debut which is completely ridiculous seeing as we've been pretty much best friends since 2003. She graduated from uni this summer, got a job and her own apartment in the middle of the city. What the heck. SO COOL. Ahh it was so good being reunited with her and having the chance to run around the city being a grown up. 

Chazza made me slave away for two days. So that was fun.

That's not true at all!! I was so happy to be reunited with this woman! Seriously one of the greatest people on the face of the planet!! Seriously. 

Eliza. nuff said. How much do I honestly love this woman. Who is now in uni! UNI.

What the weird. We hit up the Covent Garden branch of Five Guys, who is usually the death of me seeing as they cook in peanut oil, BUT I just heard that they only do that with their fries. Good. MickyDees do the best fries anyway. fact.

AANNND I saw this sweet girl!! Sophie has been living in London now for a year! How crazy that three years ago we were living there together and weren't friends until we were in Rexburg, Idaho. But she seems to be thriving in that beautiful city of ours. Also WHAT A BABE.

There you have it. Those were LITERALLY all of the photos that I took wherein I was just hanging out with my friends. These all happened in the space of the week that I was home and not studying ha! 

but like I said, there was so much that I wish I had been able to do, and people that I had genuinely wanted to spend time with! Hopefully all of this can be corrected this December.

h o m e : familly

Ok so before I get back into the swing of a crazy hectic schooling schedule, I think it's a good time to catch up on my trip back home to London. What an amazing time I had! Yes, I spent 80% of my trip studying in the library, but I tried to follow the counsel of Elder Uchtdorf and find joy in the journey.

One of my favorite aspects of London is the fact that my beautiful family lives there! What a blessing it was to be reunited with my mama after a year. This long distance relationship of ours is quite wretched, but it's working out pretty well.

As you can see, we've been best friends for quite some time.

And now we have new additions to the family which have been such a joy. I often feel sorry for my mum because her little arthritis riddled knees are constantly working to keep up with Lloyd and Rosie, but her heart is so full of love for them that it doesn't seem to matter.

We got to take some family portraits thanks to the wonderful Cydney Allen at Afton Photography (seriously she has documented my life for the past 2 years), and here are some of the finished products!!

                   

Back To School

Back to school selfies are hard when it's windy.

You get the idea.

I'm so so excited for this semester and all that it will hopefully bring! I have LOTS of catching up to do pertaining to the London trip, so stay tuned for that. 

Meanwhile, Happy Monday!