July turned out to be even better than June, and there wasn't even a birthday celebration (for me) involved.

I'll just say it: I went to London. It was absolutely fabulous. Sure, I came back today totally exhausted -- I've been up for 40 hours straight -- but it's totally worth it. I would not trade my experiences of the last five days for all the sleep in the world.

We stayed in the former County Hall, right on the Thames. We could see Parliament and Big Ben from our window.

As far as what we saw: Tate Modern, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Harrod's, Buckingham Palace, the original Hard Rock Cafe, Hyde Park, the National Gallery, a classical music concert in St. Martin in the Fields church and two West End shows.

I'm even more exhausted just thinking about it all. I promise to post pictures and put a link here.