DaytonDailyNews.com

LONDON — The three Centerville friends, Janet Moland, Chris Drake, and Michelle Garel, who sang and danced their way to a 5-day all-expenses paid trip to London to attend the premiere of MAMMA MIA! The Movie, left Thursday for London.

The contest was sponsored by Pond's Institute, the hand cream maker, and thanks to voters from near and far, the Centerville women beat out the other four finalists in the contest.

They're apparently living the high life across the big pond and have e-mailed what's happening.

The premiere is Monday, and they get to be on the red carpet with the stars, so there's a possibility TV cameras might catch them with Pierce Brosnan, Meryl Streep, or Christine Baranski, stars of the film.

• Saturday, June 28: 3:55 a.m. Can you imagine...the three of us were at Selfridges (London department store) for six hours yesterday and we have not been able to spend all our money! (They each had $1,000 to spend) We all have fabulous dress and shoes (I even got Prada shoes and Michelle has a Jimmy Chue — not sure of that spelling -!!) and we have to go back today to get some jewelry and other accessories. We just need somewhere to go when we get home to show it all off.

Dinner last night was at the Boxwood where the Hell's Kitchen chef is. There is always great wine and our hosts from the U.S. are wonderful young women. Tonight is "Chicago" and hopefully some sightseeing this afternoon. The sun is shining and we have sore mouth muscles from grinning! Janet, Michelle and Chris

• Saturday, June 28: 6:09 p.m. So the shopping continues. Do you remember when you would go to an arcade and do the ski-bowl and the tickets would spew out...then you could turn in the tickets for trinkets and candy. That is what it felt like today. The money had to be spent and we just started forgetting the value and spent the arcade tickets!

Now Chris has a Prada bag and I have a Dior! Do we have to insure those??? And wait until you see all of Michelle's Savorsky (again, not sure of the spelling) jewelry...unbelievable! I have some really incredible hand made (in Egypt) earrings unlike anything I have ever seen at home.

Then this afternoon we finally did some real sight seeing. Chris took a a bus tour and since Michelle and I had both been here before, we set out on foot and discovered all kinds of fun things — street performers, gelato, and our first fish and chips of the week.

After a quick turn around we headed out to dinner — with our own driver, of course, and then to the production of Chicago. (In our minds the WSU production was better) but we still enjoyed it greatly. Our driver was awaiting us when we exited and now I think we may get to get a good night's sleep. We don't have to be anywhere until 10 — and then it is the Red Door Spa for manicures and pedicures. The pampering never ends...we may be hard to live with when we return.

Oh...the weather is anything but London...sunny, and warm, at least so far. I guess in our fairy tale world it would never rain.

Good night, until tomorrow...Janet, Chris and Michelle

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2341 or kullmer@DaytonDailyNews.com.