September was a busy, fun month for us.  Because there are so many photos, I decided to split them up into multiple albums for September.

We started the month with a nine-day trip to London, England.  We actually left the states at the end of August, but no matter.  We all converged on Houston where we met up and got ready for our overnight flight to London Gatwick airport.  Gran had already spent the night in Houston on her way back from Hawaii.  With Katrina having just hit Louisiana, she decided not to try to fly back in and out of Baton Rouge, so was stuck with her tropical Hawaiian wardrobe for the London trip.

We arrived in London on Wednesday morning and discovered the importance of packing lightly as we took the train and underground from the airport to the hotel.  Not all of the stations have elevators, so we had quite a bit of fun navigating stairs with all of the luggage.  We also discovered that London can be quite HOT in late August.  After getting settled at the hotel (Marriott's London County Hall in Westminster), we had a wonderful walking tour of some of the London sights followed by an early dinner at the Sherlock Holmes pub just off Trafalgar Square.

On Thursday (Sep 1), we hopped on a train and headed out of London to tour Stonehenge and Salisbury.  At the Salisbury Cathedral, we saw one of the three remaining originals of the Magna Carta.  We finished with a nice late lunch at "The New Inn" pub, with a pretty garden overlooking the cathedral.

Here are the pictures from the first part of our trip.

Friday brought another train trip, this one to Oxford and Christ Church College.  Since both Sue and Rachel are Harry Potter fans, we decided to go see the great hall at Christ Church, where parts of the films were made and which provided the inspiration for the hall at Hogwart's.  After getting our HP fix, we returned to London to celebrate Andy's birthday with dinner at the hotel.

There is a tour bus kiosk just outside the Marriott, so we bought tickets on Saturday morning and headed out for a guided sight-seeing tour in the morning.  At lunchtime, we met up with Kay Knapp (formerly one of our Air Force Academy cadets, now a Lieutenant stationed in Germany) and her boyfriend JD.  They flew over to Germany to visit with us and tour around a bit.  We had hoped to see Westminster on Saturday but arrived too late for entry after our relaxed meal.  Instead, we walked through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, where we saw Kensington Palace, the Peter Pan statue, and enjoyed ice cream at Marble Arch.

On Sunday we continued our London tours with a stop at the Tower of London followed by a boat ride on the Thames back up to Westminster.  From there, we took the tube over to Marble Arch to take in the Sunday afternoon tradition of Speaker's Corner.  Sue decided to get in a bit of solo shopping while the rest of us continued on to the British Museum.  We closed out our day with a "flight" on the London Eye, a newer London attraction located just outside our hotel on the Thames.

Click here for pictures from Friday, Saturday, & Sunday

We returned to Westminster Abbey on Monday morning where we finally succeeded in gaining entrance and signed up for a guided tour with one of the vergers, which was simply fabulous.  The verger was quite taken with both Katie and Rachel, and paid them lots of special attention, even allowing them to each sit in the Queen's reserved chair in the cathedral. ("Quickly now, while nobody's around....")  We were all quite taken with the Abbey, and agreed that of all the cathedrals we toured in England, this was hands-down the most impressive.  Kay and JD left us at the Abbey to catch their return flight to Germany, but we continued on to St. Paul's Cathedral where Rachel, Katie, Sue, and Andy climbed to the top of the dome for an aerial view of London.  Monday night Sue and Andy took time out for a private date and Sue treated to a fabulous dinner at Simpson's on the Strand in celebration of Andy's birthday.

We were back to the countryside on Tuesday, with a train trip to Canterbury and Dover.  At Canterbury, we toured the Cathedral and then continued on to Dover to see the White Cliffs and Dover Castle.  There's really not a lot to see in Dover, so we probably could have skipped this stop, but we did get a nice long walk out of it!

Wednesday was our final full day in England, so we decided to head out on the train again, this time for the city of Windsor and Windsor Castle.  We toured the castle, saw the state apartments, the miniature doll house (fascinating) and the Queen's private rose garden (open to the public for only about one month a year, so we lucked out).  We had a nice sidewalk lunch at the Highlander pub, then returned to London to pack up and get ready for our flight home.

Photos from the last part of our London trip can be seen here.

Toward the end of the month, Sue, Travis, and LeAnne flew down to Colorado Springs for a weekend visit.  We had promised the kids we'd go gold-panning, so we started out with a trip to the Mining Museum where everybody got to try their hand at prospecting.  Later that afternoon, we headed for the Pikes Peak Cog Railway and took a trip up to the summit where the Johnsons got to experience breathing at 14,000 feet above sea level.  We had a great trip and saw deer, marmots, and big-horn sheep.  Click here for pictures from their visit.