Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth opened Parliment on the 15th and I was so excited to see her. I got there early and saw the whole parade. They pulled out all the stops and it was truly an event to see. They had all the bands and guards and horses in all of London... or maybe just Buckingham Palace. I got a few pictures of the soldiers in their funny hats and big guns (I thought Luke would like that), and I got the queen and the crown and all that for Halle and the rest of the girls. Nate couldn't be there (he does go to class pretty regularly) so I took a million pictures for him which I am now passing on to all of you!

This is the Queen in her fancy carriage. She was moving pretty fast so the pictures are a little blurry.

This is Prince Phillip, The Duke of Edinburgh. He is the Queen's husband but not technically the king because he is not in the right place in the blood line, although he is in the blood line (they are distant cousins, but not that distant). He is not generally very friendly with cameras and I am getting the stink eye from royalty, hee hee.

This is a closer shot of the Queen and her fancy tiara. She wears this on the way to Westminster Abbey, where she opens parliment, because the real crown is very heavy (about seven pounds, a lot of weight for an older lady's head).

This is the carriage that carries the crown to Westminster Abbey. I don't know who the people are but the crown is cool. If you look close you can see the scepter being held by the man in the grey suit. This holds the world's largest cut diamond which you can see up close at the Tower of London, when they aren't using it, of course.

These are soldiers in the Royal Army. They are holding real guns with big dagger bayonettes at the end. These are all real soldiers and many of them have been serving in Iraq with our boys. When you see them up close they look like teenagers. They are all so young but they really don't respond to you at all unless you cause a scene.