Doug & Ginny

Family Time

2010-08-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-25T13:32:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

"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

2010-03-21T12:43:00.000-07:00

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.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2009-12-20T12:01:00.001-08:00

Ginny found this little Christmas tree way back in the middle of October. We got some strange looks and comments from people in the shopping center who thought it was a bit early for Christmas decorations. Anyway we thought it turned out just right.

Since we had to leave Ginny's 70 nativities at home I told her she could buy an English one here. We were quite surpised at how meager the selection is here. We finaly found this one that was designed by an English lady then imported from China. We are still going to count it as our English nativity.

We got a gift certificate for a free Christmas plant from the garden shop where we bought the nativity. We have had it for a couple of weeks since this picture was taken. The orginal blooms are still there plus it has added a lot more.

A kind couple in our ward gave us this advent calendar along with a pile of gifts. Each day we open a scroll. It alternates between a suggestion for something to do for someone else, a Christmas scripture for us to read, and a gift for us. We have really enjoyed it.

Last night it started snowing and now we have two or three inches on the ground. The people here say that they haven't had this much snow in many years. It makes us feel right at home.

We wish you all a very merry Christmas as we celebrate the birth of our Savior.

DUNHAM MASSEY

2009-12-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

One of the other couples in the mission invited us to go to the Dunham Massey estate to see the winter gardens. The gardens has been advertised to be quite spectacular this time of year. It was a beautiful sunny day, a great day for an outdoor excursion.

The main hall was closed, only a gift shop, a restaurant and the gardens were open.

They have a lot of great wrought iron here in England. This gate was very impressive.

The gardens, however, were not impressive. Some greenery, lots of gnarly looking trees without leaves, not much else.

They have a herd of deer that live on the grounds. We were able to get close enough to take this picture.

We did find one blue iris.

First Thanksgiving in England

2009-12-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

The Saturday before Thanksgiving we visited the Wedgwood china factory and store where we bought this plate. We wish we could afford to by the whole set.

On Thanksgiving day and the day after the mission had a sports day. The missionaries had a great time letting off a little steam.
Sister Bullock, the president's wife baked cookies while the missionaries played. The smell of baking cookies drifted through the church and made everyone extra hungry.

Thanksgiving dinner consisted of subway sandwiches, fruit, muffins, water, and, of course, homemade cookies.

The Elders that help us out in the office were invited for a real Thanksgiving feast at the home of a member of the ward. The wife is from America. Unfortunately, they called the night before and cancelled because the mom was sick. We felt sorry for them so we invited them to have dinner with us. It wasn't a real Thanksgiving feast since we had to work that day, but they brought a pumpkin pie and we had an enjoyable evening together.

THE DUMMY RUN

2009-11-08T12:15:00.000-08:00

On Halloween our ward had a picnic and bonfire at the home of one of the members that was located in an area called the Peak District. Having never been there before, and knowing that we would be traveling in the dark, we decided to make what our Bishop calls a dummy run. That is we drove out in the afternoon just to make sure we could find it. It was a beautiful autumn day and the scenery was gorgeous.
The roads were extremely narrow but we did find a place to pull over so we could take some pictures

My ineptitude with the camera definitely does not do the scenery justice but you can sort of get an idea of what it looked like.

There are miles and miles of these rock walls surrounding the pastures. They are constructed without mortor.

This sheep was wondering just what we were up to. The green hills are dotted with white sheep. I always thought that sheep went around in flocks but when they graze the spread themselves all over the pastures.

COLOURS

2009-10-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Notice the proper British spelling of the title.

We wanted to get a picture of the beautiful fall leaves. We took this picture just outside of our office.

Speaking of colour. Ginny found a hairdresser who has a shop just across the street from our flat. Ginny was worried that her hair would not turn out like it does at home, but as you can see it turned out just right. Notice the blue colour of the pots and yellow pansies. I bought those to have the colour of the sky and sunshine during the winter, when we don't have much of either.

IMAGES OF CHELFORD

2009-10-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Here is where our flat is located. The three windows to the right of the door on the left belong to us.

We had our first real English meal in this pub. It was built about 1720. Ginny had fish and chips and I had rack of lamb.

There is a little pathway by our flat. Doesn't it look cool. At the end of the path you find...

this. A real potato field in the process of being harvested. It made us feel right at home. There is also a dairy near by and when the wind blows just right you get that good dairy smell just like we would get from Cannon's and the farmers slow the traffic down by driving their equipment up and down the road.

We went to a Zone conference in a chaple next to the Preston Temple. Hopefully, soon we will be able to go to the temple for a session.

Finished at the MTC

2009-09-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

We couldn't find this sign on our first day so we had the picture taken on one of our last days. The MTC experience was great. The first week was intense but very spiritually uplifting. The second week, when we were learning office procedures, was more laid back. Anyway, we finished up on Thursday but do not fly out until Monday, leaving us a long weekend.

Where's Waldo???

Yes we are in this picture. This is the crowd at our first Devotional. One of our group took the picture before he learned that we were not supposed to take pictures here. Asking for forgiveness is sometimes easier than permission. The speaker that evening was Elder Sysbrowski (not sure if I spelled that correctly). Elder Hinckley was the speaker at the devotional during our second week. Both were excellent and inspiring meetings.

FIRST WEEK AT THE MTC

2009-09-04T17:51:00.000-07:00

This is a picture taken with my third cousin, Elder Benson. We got talking in our Senior Missionary class and found out we were related. We also discovered that their son Nate and our son Joe are both in the MBA program at BYU. Small world we live in.

This is a couple we met and felt such a connection to in such a short time. We haved enjoyed getting to know them and will be sad to go our seperate ways next week.

This is almost all of the Senior Missionaries that came in this week to study and learn with us. What a great group.

This was our smaller study group and Sister Pinegar, the young one, who was our teacher.

It was an amazing week. We came in very apprehensive and were very well taken care of. In the scriptures it says, Mine is a house of Order. We felt that very much in the MTC. Step by step they helped us learn how to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and made us feel like we could actually go out and do it. It has been a great experience.

Our First Day

2009-08-31T15:50:00.000-07:00

Here we are, after all our worry and preparations, at the front door of the MTC.

We had to take the traditional picture in front of the world map so we could be like our boys. It was sort of like the first day of school. We had orientation and were given some homework. It was shorter than we expected. We were done by 4 o'clock. Most days we will be done at 5 o'clock and we have the weekend off. We will be done with our training a week from Thursday and fly out the following Monday.

Our Flat

2009-08-19T20:29:00.000-07:00

These are some pictures of the flat we are living in on our Mission in Manchester, England.

Our trip to New York with grandaughters

2009-08-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here we are in front of the Empire State Building.

This is the bathroom at the American Girl Store. We thought it was so cute Hannah and Maiya had a place to put their dolls.

Maiya and her doll having dessert at the American Girl luncheon. The dolls had their own little chairs and tea set.

This is Hannah and her doll having an appetizer.

We went to see the Broadway show "The Lion King". The costuming and sets were amazing. So was the acting.

This is our rickshaw ride through Central Park.

Maiya and Hannah visit the Statue of Liberty