Family Time

On Friday, August 6 our two daughters and their little ones came for a brief visit. After a long flight Stephanie and her baby son Ammon, and Danna and her 18 month old daughter Adalee arrived. We shoe horned everyone into our little apartment and then spent the next ten days enjoying each other.

Addy and Grandpa getting reacquainted.

Touring the beautiful gardens at Tatton Park

Don't you just love the size of those leaves? Look closely and you can see Stephanie hiding in the background.

Ammon was happy most of the time.

Addy and Grandma strolling thru the fernery at Tatton Park

At first Addy wasn't too sure about the carousel ride at Tatton park but she got happier as the ride progressed

We were able to take two days off from our office work to see some sights but on Monday, Wednesday and Friday they had to entertain themselves. Addy enjoyed a small wading pool that we purchased and we kept Ammon happy with some of his favorite toys hanging from one of our chairs.

Tuesday was Chatsworth House day. Some of the scenes from the movie Pride and Predujice were filmed here. It is a beautiful estate with fantastic grounds.

Sometimes touring can be exhausting work.

Thursday was Carnaerfon Castle day. It is a large castle in Wales built in the 1200's. Addy loved peering out through the archer slits.

Saturday was shopping day. This is the entrance stairway for the food court at the Trafford Center Mall. We also had to make a quick stop at Costco.

It was a great time and we appreciate Danna and Steph making the sacrifice to come. We know that flying with little ones is a miserable experience but we hope the time we were able to spend together was worth it.

Joe & Jeff Visit

In May our sons Joe and Jeff blessed us with a visit. They were with us on two weekends. The first weekend we had them for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On Friday we visited some castles in Wales and on Saturday we revisited Tatton Park. On the second week end we went to Buxton for a swinging good time in the tree tops.

In Tatton Park we helped two little girls feed this cute family of ducks.
These were some interesting plants that may have been brought from Africa. The owner of Tatton Park visited Africa a number of times and my son Joe said they looked some plants they had seen there. They get really tall by the end of summer and children like to play under them.

This is one of the art pieces they have in the park. Boys will be boys.

They have a maze made of hedges in the park that we all went through and this is what's in the middle of it.
Here we are in the fernery again. I still love that hot, humid place.

Joe & Jeff riding cannons in Caernarfon Castle, Wales.

Behind Ginny and Joe is the circle in Caernoarfon where Prince Charles was crowned Prince of Wales.

The following are pictures taken at Conway Castle which is also in Wales.

These are some pictures and video of our trip to Buxton where we went to a place called "Go Ape". It was a fun place to zip line and rope swing through the trees.

Knutsford May Day Celebration

For over 100 years the town of Knutsford has had a May Day celebration. They have a big parade and crown the May Day Queen and dance around the May Pole. Children apply to be certain characters in the parade and if chosen, they get a costume fitting. They can work their way up to more important positions such as the crown bearer and queen as they participate each year and their families have to help also. The May Day Queen has to be 12 years old. In the parade as you will see, there are all kinds of characters. It begins with the town cryer ringing his bell. They have costumes representing lots of countries. America is represented by the cowboys and Indians. They have Robin Hood and his band, Wizard of Oz, a bridal party. They also have children dressed to represent all kinds of flowers. The little girls in blue were the bluebells. Along with the flowers there were butterflies, bees and lady bugs. There were also several bands and even bag pipes. It was a fun day.

TATTON PARK

Tatton Park is an estate in Knutsford where our office is located. I don't know why it took us so long to go see it. We drive by it several times a week. Anyway we spent a few hours on a beautiful Saturday strolling through the gardens in the sunshine. The gardens are quite spectacular as is the hall but we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

Don't know why this huge rocking horse was here but is looks cool.

This is the fernerie. It is quite warm and humid in here so the plants will thrive. Ginny loved it in here. She was finally warm.

The Japanese garden is gorgeous. We just got to look at it from the outside. If we took the guided tour we would be able to walk through it

SPRING

"Oh, to be in England now that April is there"
Before we left on our mission, a friend quoted the saying above which is the first line from a poem by Robert Browning. From the time we first got here, everyone kept telling us that Spring was wonderful with all the daffodils in bloom along side the roads everywhere. They were not wrong. Even though the weather is still cool and rainy and not much sunshine, we are enjoying the flowers all along our way. Hope you enjoy a little taste of it here. If you double click on one of the pictures you can see them a little bigger.

London

We had the opportunity to go to London this week. One of our missionaries has had some health problems and it was decided that she would finish her mission working at the London Temple and Temple Visitor's Center. Our mission president asked us if we would be interested in taking her to her new assignment and then if we wanted we could stay overnight and see some of the sights in London.
After leaving our car parked at Heathrow Airport we jumped on the subway and headed into the heart of London. We had purchased some tickets for the play Wicked and booked a hotel room nearby on the internet. Our subway exit was just a few blocks away. We found a place for dinner and really enjoyed the play.

The next day we booked ourselves on the hop on hop off tour bus that goes to all the London sites.

Our first stop was Trafalgar Square, where they have a statue of my Great, Great, Great Grandfather, Lord Horation Nelson on top of a tall column in the center of the square.

The next stop was the Tower of London where they keep the Crown Jewels. It also has quite a gruesome history of famous executions. Off with their heads!!!

This is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge. London bridge is quite modern and boring.

Our final stop was Westminster Abby, the Houses of Parliament, and Big Ben where we learned that Big Ben is not a clock but is the large bell in the clock tower.

It was a quick trip and we didn't get to see a lot but we were grateful for the break and were able to create some fond memories.