English Countryside

When we originally talked about Summer travel plans England was not on the list but after meeting up with Mallory and Kurt in Iceland we decided to put it on there.  Jared and Lyda both loved Ireland last year so that was added too.  We are so glad we went.  We didn't go into London at all this time around so it made for  a very different trip than last year.  We arrived early Saturday (with all our luggage) and were met by Mallory at the airport.  She is the kindest.  She drove us to another airport closer to her house so we could pick up our rental car.  We wanted to pick it up from the airport we would be flying out of.  After that we parted ways for the day, Mallory heading home to put the finishing touches on the birthday cake for her sweet 2 year old and us to Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle was great! I completely see why it is so highly ranked as things to do in the area.  The grounds are beautiful, the house is large and fun to walk through, very Downton Abby like, they have a huge trebuchet, a live show portraying the War of the Roses with actors on horseback, a show/talk about falcons and restored walls you can walk all around.  There is probably more we just ran out of time. It was great to learn some history and enjoy the grounds.  It was a cloudy day with rain off and on but we were lucky enough to get enough breaks in the rain to enjoy it. I really liked walking around the walls and enjoying the views.

Jared could have stayed in this room all day. 

These wax figures are done by the people at Madame Tussuad's.  They were very impressive.  I have never had a strong desire to go to one of those wax museums and now really don't need to. 

The massive Trebuchet (catapult)

The War of the Roses reenactment. 

We headed to the Grovers and made it just in time to enjoy some birthday cake with the Grovers and company.  We were so exhausted but couldn't just go to bed.  We didn't have that much time with the Grovers as we would be busy during the days so we stayed up chatting and catching up.  It was just like old times.

Sunday we attended church with the Grovers and then the Flakes, some other friends from Charlottesville met us and we headed off to explore Cambridge. He attended Cambridge and took us on an excellent tour.  It was really nice to visit with them and hear personal stories from Lincoln's time there.  The colleges were old and beautiful and full of history. I loved seeing all the cool architecture. The main street was adorable and we ended our time at Cambridge with punting.  It was the highlight of our day in Cambridge.  Mark and Lincoln worked very hard but there were plenty of near falls and run ins with walls and trees.  They offered to let me try numerous times but I was not interested.  After exploring Cambridge we attended an organ concert in the Eli Cathedral.  It was beautiful but we did have a hard time staying awake.  We left just a little early and headed to the Flakes house to enjoy dinner with them.  It was fun to spend the day with them.  They were always so kind and supportive to our family.  Especially to Mark as their Bishop.  Their daughter Eileen was in my preschool class and Sister Flake is such a cool person.

I rocked my rain boots with my church dress all day. 

Lydia is standing next to a boat called "Grace".  Each of the boats had a name that tied into the number three or a set of three because of TRInity College.  There was once called "Fluffy" for the three headed dog from Harry Potter, behind Lydia is one called "Lithium" or Li 3 on the periodic table.  It was fun.

Famous Venetian Bridge

It is not easy. Mark did awesome!
And crashed us into a weeping willow dipping into the water.

A professional Punter.  Many college students take people on tours for their part time job. I am sure they strongly dislike people like us who have no idea what we are doing. 

Eli Catherdral. This cathedral was massive and had lots of interesting designs done in all kinds of shapes. 

Monday we wanted to go to York but got a late start, ran into horrible traffic (standstill for almost an hour) and had to switch our plans. We ended up in Lincoln an old medieval city instead and managed to find some cool things to see.  I wish we could have made it to York but we did have the most beautiful weather that day which made exploring the city really pleasant.  It was helpful to only go as far as Lincoln because Jared and Lydia really wanted time to play with the Grovers and this gave them more time for that.  We started the day at the massive Lincoln cathedral, walked around their cute downtown called "The Steep" because it is a long steep hill and ended at the Lincoln Castle. I wasn't as excited to go to this castle since we had just been to Warwick but it was still perfectly nice.

This Cathedral was particularly fun to visit because you could go into all kinds of rooms.  Not just the usual main room.  They had a fun scavenger hunt for kids to do and a cool library with tons of old rare books on display. 

This window was gorgeous and we got the bonus of being there on a sunny day at the right time so we got to see the colors of the windows on the pillars and floors which I love. 

The "Steep"

Found some delicious ice cream with fun flavors

Lincoln Castle: Mark really wanted to walk around the walls.  So we humored him and were treated to some beautiful views. 

That night Mallory, Rebecca and I went to the Pub for a girls night.  It was one of my most favorite things from this trip.  They are truly such great people to be around.  They both mentioned (multiple times) how much they missed Charlottesville and what an amazing place it is.  It made me appreciate Charlottesville more which was good for me.  I love it here too but to hear others talk about it made me happy we are here.

We ordered fun drinks and for our "pudding" (dessert) a huge ice cream sundae.  It was massive.  It had 8 scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, a huge cookie, 2 twix bars, M&M's and whopper like candies.  It was not the best ice cream but still tasted great and was fun to eat.

The reason we got a late start Monday was because we were still trying to get tickets to The Harry Potter Studio Set.  We tried for over 3 weeks, checking every morning to see if there were tickets available and could never get any.  Large tour groups buy them out and if they don't sell them they release them back to the studio so its possible you can get them day of, its just very unlikely. They don't release them until 8:30 the day of so we had to wait around till then and kept refreshing the page.  We finally called it around 9:30.  Mallory had asked me weeks before we left if I had gotten them and I had no idea they sold out so far in advance!  I mean the book is 20 years old!  But we made plans to try again Tuesday our last day in England.

Boston

To get to England this time around we decided to fly out of Boston.  The flight arrived early in the morning and our flight out didn't leave until the evening so we could have a whole day exploring.  I looked at the weather before committing to this plan and saw that the high was going to be 84.  That seemed like an amazing temperature to me for Boston in the last week of July.  We made both our flights and had a fun time wandering around the city.  Transportation was free from the airport to the city center which was a great bonus.  We went ahead and took the risk of checking our luggage so we would not have to carry it with us all day just hoping we would make it on the same flight as it to England.  (We did.) It was very touch and go as to whether or not we would make the flight but stars aligned and we were able to get out that evening.

Our first stop was donuts.  Nowhere special just a shop near Trinity church and the Boston Public Library.  We had  been up since 4:00 and were hungry! We did not go in the church but did tour the library.  I had read online that it was a great library to visit and was not disappointed.  Many claim that this library is the most beautiful library in America.  It is said to be the first free, publicly supported municipal library in America.  It's so great that tours with a guide are offered and cost 100$.  They also sell out quickly.  I looked real quick and they are booked for all of August.  We did not plan to take a tour just check it out our self but that shows how cool this library is.  It has 2 wings, one being more modern (1972) which is where the children's section is located and the original wing that opened in 1852.  They have an amazing collection or rare works from medieval manuscripts and colonial maps, to Mozart, and first edition Shakespeare.  They also house all of John Adams personal collection. We walked through both sections and felt like we were in a museum. There are beautiful tapestries and paintings and amazing architecture.  There is an Italian style courtyard between the 2 wings and while we were there a small orchestra made up of teenagers was warming up. We also saw a teenager in her ballet clothes having a photo shoot there.  It was such a great stop.

                                                Trinity Church (1877) in the background. 

Bates Reading Room

Children's Section.  

They would have stayed there reading for much longer than we allotted. It had a lovely view.

Another bonus of the library is that some very popular food trucks park right around the corner from it.  We stopped by a Taco Food truck we had looked up online beforehand and had a delicious fresh lunch.  We found some steps in the shade and ate right there.  Boston has a very active food truck
scene and we were impressed with the trucks we tried.

Next up we spent some time in the Boston Public gardens where another food truck on our list was parked.  We walked across the park enjoying the green space, watching the swan boats and even came across a large splash pad for Jared and Lydia to cool off in real quick.  It was great.  

The ice cream was delicious and the cookies baked to perfection. 

After our treat we started walking the Freedom Trail.  This is where we spent the majority of our day. Quincy Market and Paul Revere Mall which are not official stops but right next to official stops were  our favorite ones.  We had showed Jared and Lydia some brain pop videos about Boston and The Revolutionary War before we left and it provided some great background for them.  We did not go all the way to the end by the USS Constitution because that was just a little too far to walk but we did spend some time by the waterfront watching the boats and enjoying the ocean breeze.  It was a lovely day.

The trail is really easy to follow and the stops are all interesting and there is such great architecture.

Paul Revere Mall

In love with my new phone!  The camera is legit. 

Boston Massacre site

Clam Chowder for this soup loving kid. 

This was my 3rd time going to Boston and was by far the best experience.  I went in 2003 and was so hot and miserable and exhausted.  We stopped in for a half day with Sue back in 2015.  We were on our way up to Maine/Vermont to check out the Fall colors and walked around the Public Gardens and Boston Commons in the pouring rain.  I was not impressed.  This time I felt like I could finally appreciate the history and architecture.  We had a really great day there.