Kat Family Adventures

If you’ve been paying attention to the news at all, you’re aware that the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is this week. In England there are a ton of events going on in honor of this event and I’m pretty bummed to be missing it all. I’m one of those that finds the royal family to be very fascinating, though I didn’t always feel that way. When we were stationed in the UK in 2010 and the news of Prince William and Kate’s engagement came out, everyone was so excited in anticipation of the wedding. At first I didn’t get it, I thought it was kind of silly to treat a wedding like such a huge event even if it was for the royal family, however some friends invited me to tag along to London for the event and parade and I figured why not? As the date approached I became more excited and by the time April 29^th rolled around, I was beyond stoked. I had royal wedding fever.

The crowds were insane. Millions of people were there and it was nearly impossible to get through to certain parts of the parade route. At one point my good friend and I had to break away from our group to find a different spot to watch the parade because at the time I was 17 weeks pregnant and too nervous to shove my way through hundreds of people. I really thought we’d get trampled. So we wandered on and found an amazing spot on a balcony and we saw everything firsthand.

It was magical. I know that probably sounds really lame, but it had a way of sucking you in no matter how hard you fought it. By the end of the day I felt like I was part of a Disney movie. The atmosphere was eerily enchanting. You’d think having that amount of people in a relatively small area, some who were not fans of the royal family, that something awful was bound to happen. I know there were some protesters but I didn’t see a single one. All I saw was a group of people united by and entranced by the love Prince William and Kate share. Their vows were played over loudspeakers in real time and as they were spoken, millions of people were silenced. Once the ceremony finished, everyone cheered and rejoiced and joined together singing their anthem.

My friend Sarah and I in the middle of a shut down Westminster Bridge

I’ll never experience anything quite like it again, and I still feel really privileged to have been there. So I’m really bummed to not be taking any part in the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. But I hold the memories of the Royal Wedding really close to my heart and I just really wanted to share that today.

Congrats Queenie, 60 years is pretty damn cool.

*All photos are my personal  photos