England Trip Part I

My parents are here visiting for a few weeks so we decided to snatch the opportunity to make a trip to England without the crazies (or, in other words, our three boys.)  Five days is not long enough to see everything we wanted but we sure saw A LOT!

I had to take a photo of Hyrum driving on the wrong side of the car.  It was totally crazy driving on the left side of the road, at night, in the rain...I'm so glad Hyrum was doing the driving!

We stayed the night in the town of Avebury.  This town has a much larger stone circle than Stonehenge but is less well known.  It was really cool to walk around the fields with the sheep grazing near 3,000 year old stone monuments.

This picture is probably one of my favorites.  I love old graveyards and then to have this beautiful old church as well, I was in "medieval club" paradise!

Next stop, Stonehenge.  I really enjoyed this stop.  I wasn't expecting it to be so amazing but it's really a cool site.  The stones for this structure were brought from hundreds of miles away.  They were placed in very specific spots.  But why?  I think that is why this site is so cool, no one really knows why this structure was built and it's neat to make up your own theories.

Next on the tour, Salisbury Cathedral.  We almost missed this stop because we were trying to condense our trip so we would have more time in the Cotswalds but I'm so glad we stopped here.  This was a beautiful Cathedral with an amazing steeple, "Britains tallest spire", the worlds oldest clock was on display here PLUS they have an original copy of the Magna Carta.

This is a great photo Hyrum took of the interior of the Cathdral.  I love the Cathedrals reflection in the baptismal font.

On to the Cotswalds.  This group of villages is what most people think of when they think of England.  Beautiful thatch roof cottages, narrow lanes, green meadows.  I think the fog and clouds only added to the atmosphere.  

The best thing to do in the Cotswalds is to take advantage of all the public walking paths.  These paths connect all the villages and they go right through private fields with horses, sheep and cattle grazing.  Farmers have rights to use the land but the general public have rights to walk through the land.  It was so cool, we kept having to go through all different sorts of gates designed to keep livestock contained but allow foot traffic through.

We ended our day in Stratford Upon Avon.  We had tickets to go to a show put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  The play was about the making of the King James version of the Bible.  It was a wonderful play and I'm so glad we got to see something put on by the RSC, even if it wasn't a Shakespeare play.

The next morning we walked around Stratford a bit.  This is a picture of Shakespeare's grave.  He was buried in the same church he was baptized in as an infant.  They even had the baptismal font on display.

We left Stratford and drove 2 hours to Cambridge.  This town was probably one of the highlights of our trip.  It was amazing to walk around the college that was home to so many amazing thinkers, 88 Nobel Laureates, plus academics from Isaac Newton to Alfred Tennyson to Charles Darwin.  So much beautiful music, wonderful writing and scientific thinking came from Cambridge, it was a real treat to walk through so much history. 

I had to add this photo.  The University of Cambridge has 31 distinct colleges, each with their own colors.  I thought it was cool to see all the uniform socks lined up for sale in the store window.  We debated getting the boys Cambridge t-shirts to start brainwashing them young:)

We took a tour of Cambridge with a guide and that was very interesting.  I'm glad we spent the time and money to do that because she gave us so much history and so many fun stories we couldn't have picked up just from walking around the town on our own.  We stayed for the Evensong services which were held in the Cathedral of Kings College.  

This is a photo of the Cathedral at Kings College.  Check out the worlds largest fan vaulted ceiling!

What an amazing experience!  The Cathedral is simply amazing and the sound from the singing just echoes throughout the entire place and almost vibrates within your own chest...yes, Cambridge was a highlight of the trip.

That night we drove back to the airport, dropped off the rental car and took a train into London...more to come in the next post!

Twins Again!

This past week and a half I have had so much fun watching a friends little boy.  He is a little younger than Julian but they sure had a lot of fun playing together.  I kept having flashbacks of my days with little twin 2 year old boys.  Here are a few shots of the fun things we did.

Julian and Connor both love trains so they had lots of fun all week with this train set.

Playing at the park

Riding the train to Bayreuth

Having fun at the playground

All time favorite part of the day...bath time!  Julian really liked having a friend to play with in the tub.  

Connor was here for his birthday so we celebrated with cupcakes that he and Julian helped me make earlier in the day.  He was happy, he licked the frosting off about 3 cupcakes but then he didn't want to eat the actual cupcake.  (When Julian saw that Connor got to blow out candles he really wanted his own candles, so he got two candles on his cupcake as well.)

So there you have it.  It was fun having this cute little guy around the house for a few days.  His blonde hair and blue eyes fit right into our crew.

Halloween Bust

This year was not our best Halloween experience ever.  The boys were all excited about trick or treating, even Julian because his favorite movie at the moment is Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin movie.  We made the boys do their homework after school and then we had dinner around 5:30.  They headed out to the American housing area by 6:00 PM, we thought this would give them plenty of time for trick or treating.  Unfortunately most houses had run out of candy by 6:00 and so the boys had to walk forever to find just a few houses that were still passing out candy.

While Hyrum drove the big boys up to Netzaberg, I chose to walk the babies to an American housing area here in Pressath.  Unfortunately only ONE house out of the 10 in the area were passing out candy.  Poor Julian stood on the doorstep all excited for a treat and when no one answered the door he would say, "try next house."  Our temporary baby, Connor (who we are babysitting for a few days) fell asleep after just 5 minutes in the stroller, so I guess he didn't mind too much that no one was home.

After all is said and done, I still think the boys had a fun time.  They came home with a few treats and at this age I think that is still pretty exciting.

Emerson and Townsend both wanted to be ghosts this year.  It was great that they were happy with old sheets, their Mom is no seamstress!

This is a shot of the boys walking around Netzagerg in search of candy.  I had to add it because it's kind of spooky how they look like real ghosts...OoooOoooohhhhh

RSP reunion Part III

Our final hurrah was a trip to Prague.  After our rushed visit around Rothenburg and Munich we took our time on Wednesday morning sleeping in, taking long showers and enjoying a fabulous breakfast, courtesy of Hyrum.  That meant that we didn't get on the road until about 10:00 but it was a rainy, cold day so we were uninspired to get moving.

The guest house we stayed at in Prague

Did I mention it was cold and rainy?

Our first stop was Wenceslas square.  This entire street was lined with building from the art nouveau period.  I was so amazed by the architecture, I think my friends got tired of hearing me say, "oh my goodness, look at that building and those sculptures and those windows..."

I had to add this photo.  This is what I looked like all week.  Me and my travel book guru Rick Steves became good friends while I tried to guide my guests around the different cities.

The astronomical clock in the old town square.  It was a real bummer we kept missing this clock chime the hour.  I guess that gives us all a reason to come back and visit Prague again!

Posing on the Charles Bridge

Legend has it that if you rub St. Charles while making a wish, that wish will come true.

We wandered around in the cold looking for the John Lennon tribute wall.  It was fun to see parts of Prague we may not have seen if we knew where we were going BUT it would have been more fun if it wasn't so cold!  Pam and Duke, showing a bit of love.

Sara and I wanted in on the love action:)

Nothing beats a warm trdelnik when you are walking around Prague at night.

We enjoyed a fabulous dinner at a restaurant our hotel manager recommended.  After dinner we hit the sack early.  When we woke up it was still really cold but at least it wasn't raining.  Our first stop was the Prague castle and St. Vitus Cathedral.

The view of Prague from Castle Hill

In 1618 Protestant rebels stormed the castle and threw two Catholic priests out the window.  This incident helped spark the 30 years war.  Pam was willing to play the part of the Catholic priest while Sara and Duke tossed her out the window:)

A shot from the back of St. Vitus Cathedral.

This Cathedral had some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I have seen here in Europe.

The Golden Lane.  This is where the goldsmiths and metal workers lived during the building of the castle.

For a time, writer Franz Kafka lived at number 22, Golden Lane

We had to get home by 5:00 so that Hyrum could leave for a meeting.  It would have been fun to hang out in Prague for another few hours but I feel like we got a great sample and it made me want to go back for more!  It was tough coming home and having to be a Mom again.  I had to do homework with the boys, get dinner on the table and do bath time...I think I would rather be on vacation:)  I let the boys stay up until 9:00 so that we could all play a game with my friends who would be leaving the next morning.

Here we are playing Doodle Dice.  Townsend won but Duke was a pretty close 2nd!

The week had flown by and we found ourselves once again at the Nuremberg airport.

It's always sad to say goodbye, BUT...

...It's fabulous to have great friends and wonderful memories!

Until the next RSP reunion...Love you Sara and Pamela!!!

RSP reunion Part II

I have to give a very big THANK YOU to Hyrum who took the week off of work so that I could travel with my friends.  I am so glad I got the chance to spend time catching up and having fun...thanks Hyrum for being the best stay-at-home Dad ever!

Monday we headed out of town, our first stop was Nuremberg.  We only stopped to tour the Nazi Documentation Center museum and the Nazi rally grounds and then we were on our way again.

Duke, Pam, Sara and Rachelle outside the Documentation museum.

Pam and Sara inside the museum listening to their "nerd packs" aka: English translation to the exhibits earphones.

Standing on the platform at the Zeppelin Field, famous Nazi party rally grounds

Back in the car we made our way another hour to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  I love this cute Medieval city.

This is the super cute guest house we stayed at in Rothenburg

One of the best things about Rothenburg is you can walk around the old city wall. 

Sara, Rachelle and Pam on the steps of St. Jacobs church in Rothenburg

Definite highlight of any trip to Rothenburg is the "Night Watchmans Tour"  Here we are posing with the tour guide.  I highly recommend this to anyone visiting Rothenburg.

Man, those German guest houses sure know how to treat you to breakfast!

On Tuesday morning, after the fabulous breakfast, we packed back into the car and drove to Dachau concentration camp.  I had never been there before and we didn't have much time but I'm so glad we made that trip.  Dachau was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazi party and the only concentration camp that was in operation during all 12 years of Nazi rule.

I couldn't resist this shot.  We did a lot of driving over a 6 day period and these two were usually asleep after just a few minutes in the car:)

The words on this sign say "Work Makes You Free."  What an ironic sign at the entrance of a concentration camp.

They had rebuilt some living quarters so you could see what it would have been like.  It's so strange to imagine that some people could do this to other people.

I loved this sculpture.  The artist arranged the people to look like barbed wire fence, it sure made you feel for the prisoners that lived here in Dachau.

This Madonna and child statue was actually kept in the Catholic priests quarters within the concentration camp.  Dachau had the highest number of Catholic priests of any concentration camp.  They were imprisoned for their ethnicity or because they spoke out against the Nazi regime.

The crematorium.  This room gave me the creeps.  You wonder about the people that ran these ovens and how they lived with this reality for 12 years.

After Dachau we drove into Munich, about 30 minutes away.  We just missed the glockenspiel show by about 3 minutes!  We walked around the old city some and enjoyed fabulous bakery treats but the real fun started when we headed to the Hofbrauhaus.  Good food, good music, good company.  What else do you need?

The New Town Hall on Marienplatz in Munich.

Sara being silly by one of the fountains in Munich.

Yeah, Pam and I got some funny looks for drinking water in one of the most famous beer halls in all of Germany, that's just how we roll:)

The food at the Hofbrauhaus is very traditional German food.

It was 9:00 by the time we finished dinner but it's never too late for a scoop of gelato!

After our gelato we drove back home for the night.  It was good to come home and sleep in my own bed again but we were off for another adventure on Wednesday...stay posted.