Adam & Mitzi on the train into London.

A couple of the kids on the escalator going down to the Tube. It's been good for them to be exposed to different cultures.

The kids at the Lions in Trafalgar Square.

Everyone waiting at the Tower of London for me to get the tickets.

The Beefeater telling us the history of the Tower of London.

Everyone but Adam in front of Tower Bridge.

The girls waiting for the BBQ at the restaurant.

Everyone in the Tube station waiting to head back to the hotel.

On the train we had a nice sunset on the wat back to the hotel.
7-27-10 Tuesday
Adam asked me to write in the blog while he takes a shower so here I am. We stayed in a hotel just outside of London. It was very different to be in a hotel instead of a house! The kids didn’t have much room to move around but since there was a lot to see it didn’t matter much. We started the day off with a train ride to Paddington Station where we caught a tube to London. It was fun to see the kid’s expressions as they were in the subway with people all over the place; they have seen people who were very needy and it has been good for them to realize the many blessings they enjoy. We got a bite to eat in one of the many small cafes in the subway and then we went to see Trafalgar square, from there we got on a double decker bus and saw the rest of the sights of London. Blah, Blah, I can’t remember the names of any of them but I’m sure they were great- Ha! By this time I have seen so much stuff I can’t remember too much of that day other than that we went to the tower of London and had a tour by a beef eater. I am not sure why they are called that? I will have to ask Adam. After that, we had BBQ in London! A weird combination to be sure, but it was some of the best sauce I have ever had, (other than Melvins in Gallup NM )It was even weirder hearing country music in the background and seeing prim and proper Londoners in their suits eating ribs with their hands! It was fun to hear English again, even if we did not understand some of the words, que for line, lift for elevator etc. We are learning a bit of German, French and Italian. The kids assignment is to learn 10 words from each language, it is quite easy because we are immersed in it. You have to know some of the language to get along ok in the small towns we have been in throughout Europe. They don’t have as many English speaking people as the tourist spots. We are trying to teach Mitzi how to count to 10 in French. It is good that Adam has learned some Italian, Brad some German and me a bit of French. We each have a tiny idea what is being said. Well Adam is out of the shower now and I don’t know if he will approve of my writing but oh well. I told him he will just have to accept what I wrote, Ha!

The old school house hotel we stayed 2 nights in just outside of Swindon.

Megan playing in the park in Bath.

Brecken and Brad on the teeter/totter/spin around thing.

The Sky Ride blocked off all the roads in Bath.

The kids on the Royal Crescent.

All kids by one of the painted lions in Bath.

The music in the Pump Room in Bath.

The kids eating a fancy English Tea in the Pump Room.

A street performer.

A lion in flowers in Bath.

The bridge and waterfall on the river in Bath.

We ate dinner at the Chippy Mr. Cod.
7-26-10 Monday
Today we are headed to Windsor. Originally I thought we were going to have to try and fit Bath and Windsor into the same day, so I didn’t feel quite so pushed for time. We had found a sign for a place called Butterfly World, and I thought Mitzi especially would like it, so after we left the hotel, we went there first. It turned out to be really cool. They have all these shops there. They had ones that were like scrapbooking store, others that were like Color-me-Mine back home where you can color ceramics, one that you could make candles at, etc. They were all around this central play area where kids could play. Ian and Mitzi loved the play place. There is this cool little battle area which is filled with nerf type balls and air cannons at both ends and you can shoot balls at the people on the other side. Ian loved that. He didn’t want to leave. They stayed there and played for almost an hour while Kindra, Ashley and Megan shopped in this miniature store that had little furnishings for doll houses. Then we went into the butterfly house and saw tons of pretty butterflies. You could even pick them up and hold them. After Butterfly World, we drove to Windsor. Windsor is an imposing castle. It’s also a royal residence and where the Queen prefers to stay on the weekends if she’s in London. It’s just on the outskirts of London. The girls especially liked the dollhouse that was a gift to one of the queens that depicts Buckingham Place with all of its furnishings. Brad liked the armory that had all kinds of old knights armor, swords, old guns, and such. After Windsor we made our way to our hotel in Slough. The hotel is right next to the train station, so we’ll take the train into London tomorrow.

We are saying goodbye today to the French bunnies.

Kindra & Mitzi on the ferry.

Everyone on deck saying goodbye to France for now.

Brad and the while cliffs of Dover.

Me and Mitzi with the Dover cliffs in back.

Stonehenge is still just a bunch of big rocks.

The girls on a bench in Sandy lane.

One of the many thatched roof cottages in Sandy Lane.

Another cute cottage in Sandy Lane.

I've heard of free range chicken, but I hadn't heard of free range children before.

Some of the many flowers in Castle Combe.

Lots of neat cottages and buildings in Castle Combe.

Castle Combe is basically one long street of cottages.

A view over the bridge and stream at Castle Combe.

A knight's tomb inside Castle Combe. Notice the date of 1270. Wow!

Ashley and Ian liked the doors just their size.

All of the family leaving Castle Combe. What a day!
7-24-10 Saturday
OK, so I haven’t really written in our journal/blog now for about 3 weeks. It’s amazing not working you’d think I’d have all day to do things, but between bike riding, getting everyone up and running for the day, traveling, seeing everything, cleaning, laundry, and everything else that needs to be done, the day is sometimes gone without me writing. I keep telling myself I’ll start catching up tomorrow, and tomorrow comes and is busy and gone, and I’m another day behind. So I guess I’d better start catching up or I’ll lose the chance. Today is actually Sunday the 25th, but I thought I’d write about yesterday first before I start trying to catch up the earlier days. I figure the most recent is the freshest in my memory. We need to leave on Saturday to head to England, and our ferry was leaving at 11am. It’s about a 2 ½ hour + ride from where we were staying just outside of Blaru to where we catch the ferry south of Calais about 30km. I figured we needed to be on the road by 8am at the latest to plan for traffic, any missed turns, checking into the ferry, etc. With us needing to leave at 8am, that put a lot of pressure on us to get up early, have most of the cleaning and packing done the night before, and take quick showers, finish the cleaning and packing, and hitting the road. I got up at 6am, hit the shower, and started getting ready. I let Kindra sleep until about 6:30, and let the other kids sleep until about 7am. I was a little worried about making sure we left this place very clean and in good shape, as the French lady was a little anal when we checked in to stay at her place. She had me leave a $1200 deposit, had charged an extra 13 euros per bed, and was charging for any electricity, etc. We hurried quick, and we were just wrapping up when the French lady arrived to make sure the place was left in decent shape and return our deposit if it was. We had re-made the beds, laundered the towels and everything. I think she was very surprised. We hit the road quickly and I drove as fast as I dared as we didn’t actually leave until 8:19am. The GPS unit I’ve been using estimates your arrival time, and is fairly accurate. I find I can usually make up a little time on the freeway (not much), and usually lose a little time in the cities with lights. I wanted to arrive at the ferry port by 10:30, and when we hit the road, it was projecting 10:39am. I was a little worried. I worked it down to estimating about 10:34, but then needed to stop for gas and use the restroom. When I started again, it was back to 10:39 as out ETA. When we finally got there we had to check in with the ferry company, then pass through French control and show our passports (which all but mine were in a back buried under a ton of others, so I had to dig them out), then show our passports again at the British control, then finally drive onto the ferry. I’m pretty sure we were the last ones on the ferry and it was about ready to leave. We went upstairs and I had brought a picnic type lunch for us to have. After a bite to eat, Kindra went back to the car to try and sleep, and a couple kids went back to the car to watch movies. I wandered around and found that they rent cabins for the trip over for 12 pounds. I think I’ll rent 1 or 2 cabins for the trip back so we can try and sleep for a couple of hours. We saw the white cliffs of Dover appearing on the horizon and then got closer. They are pretty impressive and probably at least a couple hundred feet high. We finally made it off the ferry and started heading towards Stonehenge. We were staying the night not too far from Stonehenge (about 30-40 miles) and planning on seeing a number of sites I knew from my mission around that area. It was originally estimating 2 ½ hours drive from the ferry to Stonehenge, but we hit lots of traffic, tried to detour around the traffic, hit more traffic as we got closer to Stonehenge, and it ended up being closer to 3 ½ hours. After the early morning and the drive to the ferry, everyone was starting to get pretty wiped out. We stopped at Stonehenge for a few minutes. We didn’t pay to go in. You can view it from one side of the fence for free, or pay about $10/person to get 30’ closer. The view is virtually the same, and in any case you are just looking at a bunch of big rocks. I know for the kids though they had heard about Stonehenge so they wanted to see it. We then drove to a place I had found on my mission called Sandy Lane. Sandy Lane is a little village in the middle of nowhere that is extremely cute. It only has about 12-14 buildings not counting garages and they are thatched roofs except the pub and 2 cottages. It’s extremely quaint and not what most tourists ever see. Certainly worth seeing if you are at Stonehenge as it’s only about 20 minutes away and is actually probably neater than Stonehenge. We stopped and got some drinks then went to Castle Combe. Castle Combe is another extremely quaint village totally different than Sandy Lane. I’ve never quite figured out, but there isn’t a castle at Castle Combe, so I’m not exactly sure why it’s called that. The village has these very old row houses with doorways about 5 ½’ tall and stone roofs. It winds down from a church to the bottom of the little village that has a picturesque bridge with a little stream. The church was really cool and we wandered around it. They had a tomb of a night from about 1270 and an explanation of his tomb. For instance his sword was partially out supposedly meaning he met a violent death. His legs were crossed, his feet were on a lion, and other things that were very symbolic. He supposedly went on 2 crusades. We then decided to go find our hotel, and I realized when I looked at our confirmation sheet to find the address that the dates were off. Our confirmation was for Sunday night, not Saturday night. Somehow I had got off 1 day, so we didn’t have a hotel for the night. We decided to go to the hotel anyway and ask if they had a room for tonight as well. They didn’t and they checked a couple places and couldn’t find a place for us. The kids were getting tired so we decided to go to McDonalds and use the WiFi there to try and find a place. At McDonalds the internet was very slow and I wasn’t having much luck. I finally found a place that looked like it probably would have 2 rooms for us, wasn’t too far away, so I called them, and they did have 2 rooms that would sleep us all. We went and found the hotel which is just outside of Swindon which is one of the areas I served in on my mission. I told my wife I should have brought the addresses I stayed in while on my mission. It would have been interesting to drive by and show the kids where I lived when I was on my mission. Kindra decided to stay in the room while I went out with the older 4 kids to try and find something to eat. It was just after 9pm when we went to find something for dinner. We finally found a “Chippy” in Swindon that serves fish & chips. The kids were extremely impressed with the fish & chips. When I asked them how they would rate the fish & chips, they all said either 9 or 9 ½ even though didn’t think they were the best I have had. By the time we made it back, it was almost 11pm, which figuring in we gained an hour coming from France was midnight in France. No wonder we were all very tired by the time we went to bed.

Even the front gates at Versailles are impressive.

I wasn't that impressed with the Hall of Mirrors. Too gaudy for me.

I preferred the hall with all the pictures of battles.

Here's one with Napoleon.

Kindra helped Mitzi fill up a water bottle. Mitzi is very indepenent and likes to do things for herself.

Time to start cleaning up and packing the van. We have a ferry to catch tomorrow.
7-23-10 Friday
I got a good long ride in this morning, then we decided to head back to Versailles as the palace itself was closed when we went on Monday. It’s only about a 30 minute drive. I wasn’t that impressed with Versailles itself, but some of the others really liked it. It was too way over the top for me. I did like the long hall/room though that had the pictures of all the military battles. I thought that was pretty cool. We got back home before it was too late to start getting the house cleaned a little and start packing a little. We have to leave tomorrow really early for us, around 8am in order to catch our ferry to England.

Mont St. Michelle is pretty impressive as you drive up to it. You can see it for miles around.

We had a great picnic after we parked.

Ian and Mitzi had fun playing soccer.

I thought all the old hanging signs they had on the buildings were pretty neat.

All the kids on top of the mount.

The girls taking a little rest.

Ian and Brad especially liked the tanks we saw in Normandy.

Brad has been pretty funny at times, and one thing this trip has allowed us to do, is build a stronger bond with him, as he's been a little difficult at times.

Brad was pretty disappointed we weren't able to go in the museum, but still liked the tanks we found.

7-22-10 Thursday
Today we took the long trip to Mont St. Michelle and Normandy. We left fairly early for us, but still later than I would have liked. It was about a 2 hour drive to get to Mont. St. Michelle. It’s amazing how it rises up out of the surrounding flat bay. The water was all out, so it didn’t look like an island. We stopped in the little town before heading across the dike/road to the mount itself and picked up picnic stuff. We drove over and found a good place to park. After spreading out a blanket, we had a great picnic. It was very relaxing with the kids running around and playing soccer. Then we went into Mont St. Michelle itself. It was interesting how around the abbey (I think it was called an abbey), all of these little merchant shops opened up to service all the pilgrims who made the trip. It continues to amaze me how they used to build such monumental churches, castles, and other such things hundreds of years ago without the use of power tools, and other modern equipment. The abbey itself was huge as we went from room to room, especially figuring it was build on an island in the middle of nowhere. After visiting Mont St. Michelle, we tried to hustle to Normandy as Brad wanted to see one of the museums there. He is really interested in WW II. We got to the museum almost an hour before it says that it closes at 6:30, but they said they don’t let anyone in after 5:30 and we had got there about 5:40. We still visited the gift shop, and Brad and Ian thought the tanks they had out in front were really neat. Although it was a lot of driving today, it was a great family day and I think most of us thought it was one of the highlights of the trip. Brad said Mont St. Michelle was one of the neatest things he had seen so far.