Day 4....

 Still in Edinburgh...got up and walked right up to the castle. Saw this along the way...

Made it to the castle...

 Went on an official tour...and then walked around by ourselves....

 Then we walked over to the National Museum. For some crazy reason I did not take one picture of that. We spent time in there, then walked back toward the hotel. Of course, stopping in a number of touristy-type shops. Then it was back on the motorway heading toward Nottingham. We went a different way back, so got to drive by Leeds and Wakefield where Andrew's family is from...

...and this picture is of Sheffield where MY ancestors are from.

Day 3...along the way to Edinburgh!

We got up early and began our trek to Edinburgh...lots of lovely scenery along the way...

...stopped in Ardwick at this cemetery....

...then stopped completely on the A1 due to this accident by the Cat Inn. We waited for about 30 minutes, when the police finally started going car to car to say that it was going to be hours before they opened the motorway again. We turned around and thanks to my superior map reading skills, found another way to go.

Which led us to some lovely little towns! This is a cemetery/church in Ford....

Lady Waterford Manor.....

Etal Castle....

...and finally back around to the A1, above where the motorway was STILL closed....and on to Berwick upon Tweed!

We wandered along the wall  in Berwick, and a bit of the town....then on to....

Scotland! We got to Edinburgh, checked in, got the LAST of only 9 parking spaces at the Holiday Inn...and began walking about. We walked up to Princes Street...saw the Walter Scott monument, looked up at the castle, bought some junk for the kids, and had soup at Marks & Spencers.

We happened to be walking by a few minutes before a ghost tour of the some of the vaults was about to begin...something I really wanted to do! So Andrew humored me, and we went on the tour. It was awesome. The tour took about an hour and a half, but our guide was also a history tour-guide during the day, so had some great stories about the city. The vaults and the stories that went with them were horrible though...but super creepy and cool too :)

Then back to the hotel for the night. Day 4 is the castle!

Day 2

We went to church on Sunday. The Nottingham 1st Ward begins at 10:10AM. The strange time is because about 50% of the ward rides the bus to church, and the bus arrives at 10:00. The people in the ward are amazing. Andrew went the first time he was over there, and they were lovely to him.They were thrilled to see him again, and embraced both of us with genuine kindness.

After church, we began our drive up to Newcastle upon Tyne, where we were going to spend the night before going on to Edinburgh. At the last minute, we decided to detour over to York. So glad we did! It was foggy and perfect.

We walked along the wall for a bit...

....and ended our trek at this building. It was built in 1400-something, and was the guard house at the end of the wall.

It was dark by the time we were done walking the wall...so we began our trip out of town. That was a BIT difficult due to the dark and fog. We had some difficulty finding the correct way back to the A1, but managed after circling the city a couple of times :) Andrew did an amazing job driving on the left during the whole trip....we finally made it to Newcastle that night.

Day one in England

Andrew picked me up at Heathrow airport at 8am on Saturday. We drove the 2-ish hours to Nottingham, where he's been working.

Spent the rest of the day walking around the city...stopped at Nottingham castle and fondled the Robin Hood statue....

Apparently the oldest inn in England...word on the street is that EVERY English city has an inn that claims to be the oldest in England...ha. This one was built in 1189 A.D.

 Cute cottage....

 Nottingham Castle...

 Had to take a picture of "Grace" church for our youngest...

And the first of, oh, about 9,652 other churches we saw whilst driving about the island...we ended the day with fish and chips, and I passed out at 8pm after being awake for more than 24 hours.

18

Ryan turned 18 years old yesterday. He's deep in the school musical this week, so we barely saw him. We did make time to have his traditional cream cheese brownie from Kneaders, and go to his favorite restaurant; the Deli at Thanksgiving Point. You'll notice that clearly, his older brother adores him :)
I love everything about this boy.
Check back in a few days...I'll be posting from England and Scotland!

October Quotes

"It's like wearing a picnic table." - Grace
"Are there any cars that can fly?" - Grace
"I wonder if you can chew with your mouth closed while running really hard..." - Grace
"Sneeze-salt?" - Grace
"Yeah...like feet-cheese." - Grace
"You'd look like a street-walker." -Kara
"Ok then...Scrooge McBeverage!" - Kara to Jillian
"Ryan says that Lorenzo the sheep works for the mafia." - Jillian
"It's like tasting sweaty feet!" - Grace
"That tastes like Good Earth smells." - Ryan
"I just used a tampon to unclog the sink. " - Ryan
"The feet is like your head."-Ryan
"I thought I shouldn't come to church looking like a hooker." -Jillian
"Tanner has Peter Pettigrew living in his house!"- Ryan
"Like Patie and Kage...I mean...Katie and Paige!"- Tanner
"I bought Jillian a Robin Hood hat!" - Andrew
"I NEED to finish this chapter!" - Grace (I've waited 10 long years to hear her say that!)
"We were looking up unicorn socks." - Grace
"My thoughts sound British." - Ryan (in a sleep- text)
"The plot thickens...get me some cornstarch." - Ryan (in a sleep-text)