On our Cornwall road trip the other weekend, Chris asked Ethan why he was so quiet in the backseat and Ethan said he was "Thinking about going camping and where we'd be going." Ha, the boy is mostly looking forward to a bonfire. Luckily when we go on our first camping in the UK next weekend outside of Brighton, that campsite has a fire pit for each site and allows campfires. However, as I've been calling campgrounds to book our Scotland roadtrip, I've come to realize that most campgrounds DON'T allow campfires. Really?! What is camping without a fire and s'mores? And what are Chris and I going to do after the kids go to bed? Sit in our camping chairs and drink a few beers in the dark? :)
Last week I finished up planning the Scotland roadtrip which is a little of everything--a fancy apartment rental, a hostel room, camping and a hobbit house. Should be good! A trial run camping this weekend will be good to work out the kinks before the Scotland roadtrip. We came to realize that in our packing frenzy, we only brought the 3man tent. We really didn't think it all the way through. Since we need to bring Hailey's pack n play travel crib (or travel baby cot as they say here) we'll probably borrow Sonny and Margie's two man tent for Chris and I and use the 3man tent we brought for the kids. Fitting all of the camping gear (even the minimum) in the BMW is going to be interesting.
Oh, one of the Scotland campsites has a Highland Games that we will just miss by a week. Shoot, that would have been cool! I also kept seeing mention of "midges" which I looked up and they seem to be similar to Mosquitos and common in the NW of Scotland.
The Royal Ascot races and famous Ladies Day is coming up in a week or so. A lot of the royals attend and it is a big fashion scene where ladies really dress up and wear huge (and sometimes outrageous) hats. I thought it would be really fun to go (and an excuse to dress up and get a huge hat) but it turned out to be really difficult logistics, expensive and hard to park, etc. How fun that would have been! Check it out:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/recap-royal-ascot-ladies-day-3723072
We also booked our Greece accommodations for Oct. and a ferry trip to Normandy, France (the ferry leaves right here from Poole) in Sept.!
Ethan got his school assignment for starting public school in "Reception" in Sept. He got into Old Town which is a really good school and a convenient location which is only .6mi. away (handy when walking and close to gym and running errands) but that was the one that seemed pretty regimented. I'm a little nervous about this but we'll see how it goes. Now to get him his little blue school uniform.
I just signed Ethan up for swim lessons at the gym which he'll start this Thurs. Apparently the kids wear red hats during the lessons? I also (after talking to multiple people) got the gym to make an exception (imagine that!) and let me pre-pay in full for 6months by credit card. It felt like a small victory!! The other day I was 10min. late (mostly because people here move at a snail's pace and I was waiting at the library to be helped and then had to wait behind 4ppl to pay at the gym). Anyways I got scolded TWICE by the teacher. I finally told her, "well, I'm here and my kid is in childcare and I already paid for this class so I'll be fine." Sheesh. (Little does she know I roll into R&T or Piyo 10-15min late as the norm and had actually been doing really well by usually getting there during the first song here.)
We have been having some technological challenges here lately. Our DVR type thing has not been working despite multiple efforts and watching a few minute at a time and then waiting a long time for more to load. We really want to watch the Good Wife Season finale. It's killing me! Then there is the iPad which starts typing gibberish on its own (not just like one letter that is stuck or the typing being delayed)-it really kind of creeps me out. Is this place haunted? And then there is the DVD I rented "The Theory of Everything." The DVD player would only let us watch the preview and then nothing more. (Same thing each time we tried.) Handheld DVD player wouldn't play it (UK ones are formatted differently). Finally it occurred to us to watch it on Chris' work laptop. Success! Really good movie but man, way too much work to watch it (luckily the library waived the late fee).
This weekend we ended up just taking it easy at home and it was kind of nice. Sunday Chris and I finished off this Scrumpy's (Cornish apple cider). It went down way too fast passing it back and forth and drinking it out of that little cup it came with. Then we moved on to the Tesco cider from a can which Chris mocked (because it was the grocery store brand and came in a can but was actually pretty good)! Nice little buzz.
The free public garden kitty-corner from our house is now open for the season:
Kinda cool! Seems like a lot of people go eat lunch in there.
And we tried these. The American cookies were not quite right. They just can't do chewy quite right here. Bourbon cookies were ok but strangely addictive.
Hailey loving on her baby:
This butcher with a microphone setup cracks me up (but somehow makes everything look good):
The only thing better than a Scotch egg is mini Scotch eggs:
This.cake.was.Awesome! Only like £3.40 from the bakery on High Street. Dangerous.
Check out what Chris got me for my Bday in St. Ives. They use a coffee tree root and then sear the molten glass bowl to fit perfectly. Inside are all the rocks and shells and fossils we have collected from different places on this trip to keep:
I thought this building had a cool entry:
Hailey shaking it at play group:
H and I also tried out another church playgroup that is on Mondays and that went well. Really friendly people.
The weather here has been blustery and when it started to rain as we were walking yesterday I asked Ethan if he wanted to put on his raincoat. He said, "Well it's not really really really raining so I'll be fine." Spoken like a true NW kid. :)
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