Kids were sick

This week Eliza got a little stomach bug for 2 days, I got it for an evening and then Fenton has had it now for 2-3 days and David is down with it. It has been hard to stay in all day everyday this week but we have watched a lot of Dora.
There is nothing quite like little kids that generally don't snuggle who all of a sudden need their mom and snuggle all day. It is very sad to see, but I love being the mom to whom they snuggle. I hope they feel better.

driving on the wrong side of the road

I think with last weeks exertions to the castles, it gave David the travel bug. He was desperate to get into the mountains since it is fall and the coulors are beautiful. We have had a tradition to go to North Carolina and visit the Blue Ridge Parkway and camp and go to the Woolly Worm Festival but with North Carolina so far away, we headed to the Lake district.

We rented a car on Friday night and David drove. After the first 20 minutes of trying to figure out how to drive on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the street he did farely well, at least he didn't make any fatal mistakes. We tried to find our way to Costco because we have been desperate to go there and we can only go when we have a car or someone takes us. We got lost, ok I gave wrong directions. We only went the wrong way for 12 miles before I realized that we were not getting closer to the city.

We left the next morning to head to Keswick, about a 2 hour drive. The drive was beautiful. The colors, the sheep, the pastures, the stone fences everywhere. The most unbelievable part of the day happened on our drive. I turned on the radio, which is random because rarely do we listen to the radio, and generally not to commercials. We were flipping through the channels and I hear someone talk about being in North Carolina. I thought that was random because we are in England, but maybe there was a North Carolina in England, who knew? So we kept listening. They continue to say "So if any of you are in North Carolina this weekend, which is highly unlikely, there is a little town called Banner Elk and they have a festival called the Woolly Worm Festival where they race caterpillars up a 3 foot rope. There are 20 lanes in a heat and generally 25 heats. The winner wins $1000." They continued to tell about the festival that we attend every year and would have been at if we were in America. We could NOT believe it. Here we are in England hearing about our little festival and tradition that we have kept in America.

After our shocked expressions left our face we continued to drive.

Keswick was great. We visited the pencil museum as Keswick was where they discovered lead to use in pencils. We went to their little shops and market and I loved it. We drove up the lake went on a little hike to a waterfall. We continued on the road to Grange where we ate ice cream and took some great pics.

We headed back that afternoon because we had to return the car by 5:30. It was a great little get away but I am not expecting any more until after finals when we can really relax

Here are some pics.

David's midterms are over

David's midterms are over and we had a chance to be together on a Saturday. It was so fun. Two couples in the ward and their kids were kind enough to drive us up and see a couple of castles new the area. We had so much fun. There were 5 kids running around and we enjoyed the good weather and the amazing architecture. We visited Alnwick castle which is where parts of Harry Potter were filmed. We didn't go inside but had lunch on the lawn of the castle. We walked through the little town and stopped at the historic bookshop that was in the old train station. We found a bible from 1807. The kids favorite part was the toy train above the bookshelves. They watched it go around and around. The whole store would know when it was coming by the joyful glee coming from our corner. My favorite part was the fireplace with the warm glow of the flames that greeted you as you walked in. It was a great atmosphere.

The second castle we visited was Bamburgh castle up the coast a bit. IT was breathtaking. David and I went inside with the kids. Eliza kept saying she needs to be the princess. The castle was built nearly 2000 years ago and there have been additions to it to make it so awesome. Both castles had occupants, the Duke of Northumbria and the King of Northumbria.

The castle had an amazing view of the coast. It was just nice to be together and enjoy this new land at such a beautfiul season.

starfall

starfall is a website for little kids to learn their alphabet and read and has a few games. Eliza loves it and calls it waterfall. I was impressed how well she does it on her own. watch her little finger and she manuevers the mouse....

book of mormon stories

Eliza loves this song now. I think she is ready for Primary.