Visiting Sarah in Croughton and Aunties Monica and Glynis in London. October 9-16, 2024

10/9 We landed in London Luton and drove to Sarah's.  I've become comfortable with most European driving at this point... but in the rain after dark, still nerve wracking. 

10/10 This is the kids' idea of a European vacation.  They are so comfortable at Sarah's and can spend hours at a time in her daughter Robyn's childhood play room. Sarah and Iain put on Robyn's wedding at their home this summer. In a very selfish wish, I'm sure my kids hope Robyn chooses to wait a while before having kids of her own.  

Barley and Bruin enjoyed plenty of snuggles and child attacks during our visit. 

After a very slow morning at Sarah's we headed to a local garden center for shopping and play at an indoor jungle gym.  We had a nice lunch and ended the afternoon with a selection of cakes. 

We went out with Sarah to do her chores.  The weather was turning cold so the kids got to help put blankets on the horses and donkeys. 

Melissa loves spending time in Croughton.  It is such a cute village and she loves our time with Sarah. 

Something happened and the northern lights were visible allover the northern hemisphere this evening.  We went out at 10:40 with Iain to let our phones take night mode photos.  There was almost nothing visible with the naked eye, but with night mode you could see a little pink and green in the sky.

10/11 Friday we went to Stowe Gardens. The gardens and buildings were built by the Duke of Buckingham, the same person who built Buckingham Palace and there's a direct line from the house behind us, through an entrance arch to the Palace in London. 

Sarah is such a ball of joy.  She was working hard the whole time to help the kids have fun and keep smiling. 

We were standing on a bridge spanning Octagon Lake commenting on seeing the fish in the water and looking for turtles, when Lilian said she'd seen a giraffe. Everyone was really confused... a sculpture, a picture, how had she seen a giraffe?  Well, in the lake of course. Look carefully in the center of this photo to see her giraffe made of leaves drooping from a dead branch.  

Look at these two virtuous women outside the "Temple of Ancient Virtue."

Stowe was the current display of "Standing with Giants: For your tomorrow, the people's tribute."  Each of these big cases had copies of letters from soldiers and tributary poems and articles from modern writers displayed on the outsides.  Each case is used to transport 12 dozen silhouettes.  

The silhouettes are comprised of 6-8 varieties representing each of the services involved in World War II. It was a very impressive display.  I was in a bad mood from listening to the kids beg for treats, but by halfway through the field they were all warmed up with hot chocolate and nobody was crying anymore. 

Friday night Sarah made a full roast dinner for us.  While she was out at the shops we took the dogs for a walk down the lane and into the fields.  Bruin protested when we wouldn't open the gate at the top of the sheep field, laid down and wouldn't get up and follow us.  After trying to move him along, we conceded and opened the gate to walk a little further.  

We left the kids and dogs at Sarah's, and Melissa and I continued through the fields into the village to see the church. Croughton village was named in the Domesday Book in 1086 and the village has been continuously occupied with portions of the local church dating from that time. Melissa and I enjoyed a walk around the church yard and cemetery before returning along the High Street to Mill Lane.  At the bus stop labeled the "book stop" we had a look through the boxes of free books and picked up a few items for each kid to enjoy while on the flight home. 

Sarah and Iain (thanks for the Yorkshire puds) provided a wonderful roast beef dinner for us. Sarah is a wonderful cook.  Everyone enjoyed roast, potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, gravy, cheese sauce, and Yorkshire puddings.  Sarah and I had a conversation about puds, she hadn't picked any up at the store and we thought it was getting late and we'd just eat without them.  Iain came in from walking the dogs and asked about the puds, he was worried that I'd be disappointed to eat without them.  So I begged him, would he please run to the shop and get some, it was just to give him a hard time... then each of the kids had at least two.  So they really were appreciated.    It was another fun stay with Sarah and Iain and we're very grateful for their hospitality.   Even if Iain made fun of my "Chinese" MG hire car.  Oh and Lilian's silly face is exhaustion, it was 9:30 at this photo and nearly 10 when we finally started bedtime.   

10/12 See you again soon!

"On the way" to London, we stopped at the Cotswold Wildlife park.  We enjoyed most of the day there, nearly 5 hours.  

The park had so many animals. Including some really special finds.  Like a nursing baby rhino and a nursing baby camel. 

A quite active and very loud lion who was herding one of his lionesses around for a while. 

Since it is England, even the zoo has a manor house. 

And 99's... for nearly 4 pounds! America needs to get the recipe for British soft serve.  It is so much better than ours. 

The play ground was a blast.  The kids really enjoyed just running around exploring. 

Cute!

Also cute!  We had to rush to make it to the penguins before closing time... but it was nice to get this close. After the wildlife park we drove to our hotel, the Doubletree, near Heathrow.   

10/13 Sunday morning we went to church at the Staines ward.  WOW!  In Elder's Quorum we had at least 14 nationalities and languages represented (amongst about 20 brethren) and Melissa had the same experience in Relief Society.  They were passing around a flyer for an upcoming stake culture night where they were expecting food from over 60 countries.  After church we took the kids to Windsor Castle. 

Please don't look at this picture, apparently photography inside the castle is prohibited. 

Melissa enjoying the garden. 

It is nice that the guards are so well behaved.  Lilian did not want to be in front of the soldier. 

After the castle, we went to Auntie Monica and John's.  We visited for 30-40 minutes until Auntie Glynis arrived.  Uncle Brendan is battling cancer and receiving chemo so we couldn't go to visit him and risk exposing him to foreign germs.  We walked to a Turkish restaurant near Monica's.  The adults enjoyed wonderful food, but the kids all opted for chicken nuggets or sandwiches and barely ate.  It was after 7 when we ate, so again, Lily is exhausted. 

It was very cute, for the walk home Auntie Monica used her cane in one hand and kept her other on Hannah for support. Auntie Glynis on the other hand... wobbles too much so she prefers to walk un aided. 

It was fun to see my aunts again and the kids really enjoyed visiting also.  However, the aunts paid for dinner!  Monica justified it by saying that if she'd felt up to feeding us at home she would have paid, so it made sense.  As I continued to protest she finally agreed that we would owe them, and we could pay next time.  She did make us promise not to wait too long, as we now owe them dinner. 

10/14 Monday morning we headed in to the city... with morning actually being noon.  As we were so slow to leave our hotel, the tube wasn't at all busy. 

So the twins got to practice a little gymnastics on the ride in. 

We headed to the Natural History Museum. 

The museum held quite a few different displays from last visit... but still was full of dead animals.  Lily has become really sensitive to the taxidermy.  We spent about 2 hours in the museum. 

Then we headed in to the Gloucester Road tube station.  We just missed the lifts down, so the kids asked if we could take the stairs. At the bottom of the 87 step circular stairway we found this sign, "This stairway has 87 steps. Do not use except in an emergency."  We headed back to the hotel and just had a lazy night with a movie and pizza.  The kids had spotted a Domino's across the street. Interesting, since we live in Blanding, Domino's is actually a foreign food we can only have on vacation. 

10/15 I was awoken before 6 AM with a message from United telling us our flight would be delayed and we could try to rebook.  All the rebooking options would take even longer the simple delay, so once we were all up at 8 AM (thanks United for waking me earlier) I just told Melissa that we could dawdle. So we had a slow breakfast and didn't feel too rushed in packing. We went to a local park for an hour after leaving the hotel. 

And took some time to play in one of the airport playgrounds too. 

Then had a severe meltdown when it was time to leave to find our gate. 

By 4:45 PM we were airborne and heading back to the US. 

We had a wild night at our hotel arriving after 10 PM, then everyone woke up by about 4 AM, so we changed, repacked and were among the first to breakfast at 6 AM. 

We stopped to play at the river in Glenwood Springs, CO on our drive back to Moab.  Grandpa Aurich met us at the Moab Airport to drop off our rental car and we drove back to Blanding.