Sunset in the Inner Circle of Stonehenge

I think for the whole rest of my life this will remain a special evening. We somehow found the holy grail of family adventures.  Everything conspired for us.  It felt so good, we were so grateful.

We had an ok time at Stonehenge before.  Not spectacular, but we were content to check it off our list.  Our friends had brought their children to a special access tour of the inner circle during the winter and though the special access was incredible, the screaming and tears of the freezing morning was not a happy memory for them.  So they organized another special access tour for their family, this time during spring sunset with friends with kids.  We were offered a place first but after a lot of deliberation we passed.  It wasn't good timing with other things that were going on.  We told ourselves that we had already been and we knew from the beginning we have time and resources to do many wonderful things once but not twice.  I regretted that decision but let it go (as much as I ever do any of my regrets, which is to say I lost sleep over it).  Then a few weeks before the day my friend texted and said one of the families with three children had to drop out and did we want the spot?  Only 30 people are allowed in for the special access hour, so she needed to keep numbers exact--lucky us!  I hung on to that spot like crazy and was it worth it or what?  So, so worth it.

There were twenty children under the age of eight running around Stonehenge.  The adults began with some anxiety because it is strictly forbidden to touch the stones.  However, the children were very good about being careful around the stones and played mostly in the grassy lawn around the circle.  They played tag and hide and seek, picked flowers and got piggy-back rides from their daddies.  The sounds of happiness and joy in being alive echoed through the ancient stones.  It was more beautiful than I can say in words.

Even the guards enjoyed themselves.  Luckily they were pretty chill in the first place, it seemed.  They rarely have any children come to these after hours, by permission only tours.  They said they've seen some interesting ceremonies and things, but mostly people just stand around and quietly look at the stones.  The children brought the place to life again.  (I imagine, in my silly imagination, that this  poor old place has felt lonely and dried up for a long time.  The children truly were a breath of fresh air.)

I spent a few minutes of our hour taking pictures of my important people and a few more getting some shots you can only get in the space (no special lens necessary) because I knew I would want them later.  For the most part, though, this was a time and place I was able to be mainly present and enjoy the being, rather than scrambling and stressing about photo shooting.  I watched other people (several professional photographers in the bunch) getting perfect angles and working their film into art.  I enjoyed watching but was glad most of my memories are of the sun coming through the stones, seeing the lichen growing naturally on them, feeling the height of the massive monument like you can't from far away, sensing the centeredness of the place, hearing the children laugh and play but not really seeing them (the older ones anyway) as they had the most epic playdate ever.

Oh yes, this evening made Stonehenge more than just a bucket list check off for our family.  So grateful.

Aunt Janeil Comes to Play

Collin's sister, Janeil, was world traveling in Ireland this spring and we were so happy she decided to hop from one island to our current island.  She was so much fun to have to play and explore with us.  We showed her our neighborhood and she watched the kids at their swimming and football lessons.

She made a Cinco de Mayo pinata with us for "school" (really, we just played the whole week!) and we almost got blown off Primrose Hill by Mary Poppins-esque gales of wind.

We took the train from Paddington Station to Oxford for the day and she had some nice quiet time inside Christ Church while we walked outside and made more of our dandelion video.  We got lucky enough to see a mama fox and her four playful kits (though I'm no nature photographer and you likely can't see them in the third shot down.  The pretty spires of the Christ Church chapel are a nice background anyway.  ;)).  Janeil and I decided we're ready to go back and explore more of Oxford next opportunity (perhaps sans children, cute as they are).

We went to colorful Notting Hill and marveled at treasures on Portobello Road.  Then an extra adventure trying to find the police station to return some lost and found keys.  Since we were sort of close to Holland Park at that point we went to show one of our favorite little hidden gems of a park at eat lunch with peacocks.

One afternoon we picked up Collin from work at his building.  Then I learned Janeil isn't the biggest fan of heights (it's a family thing, apparently!) when I dragged us all to the 37th story of the 20 Fenchurch building to the Sky Gardens.  (Sorry about that again, Janeil . . .)  Janeil and Collin goofed around and I listened to their laughs and saw again their joy in each other's company.  I prayed and prayed that our children will be blessed by sibling friendship like Collin and I have been with our siblings.

We stayed up very late talking.  Collin and I introduced her to Sherlock (I'm ready to watch all over again for the who's-counting-anyway-th time).  We ate some of our favorite London treats.  We planned and carried out operation Mother's Day gift for grandma (a tea cup and tea time treats--wish we could be there for the party!) at Covent Garden and chased pigeons.

It was such a fun week.  When can we do it again?!  (And this time remember to take more pictures with Aunt Janeil!)

Dandelion Wishes

Locations:
Kew Gardens
Oxford Christ Church Meadows
Avebury Stones

Baking Cookies

My capstone thesis is complete and submitted.  Whew.  Done.  Checked the box.  Moving on.

In the middle of the long winter we went to a friend's house and spent the morning baking cookies and shooting a whole card-worth of video clips.  I made myself wait and wait until the semester was winding down to pull them up and edit.  I was excited to finally put those clips together into a little glimpse of baking with kids (with an organized, professional food-blogger!).

My friend Sheena is a tasty cook and talented food blogger at sheenabates.com.  She also has a new print shop, lewieprints.com (her London print is so cute!).

(It was fun to be part of a sort of unofficial collaboration.  ;) )

Kew Gardens Bluebells

Bluebells are a thing here.  I think they are wherever they are lucky enough to grow.  People make excursions to see them and perhaps try to spot some of the fairies who must live among them.  I'd had Kew Gardens on my Saturday-exploring list for some time and when I found out they were one of the most accessible (without a car) places to see bluebells I knew we had to make the trip sooner rather than later.

I was not anticipating how cool the green house was (or one of them, at least--we didn't have time to explore the other).  After seeing a banana tree and a rubber tree we walked up a spiral staircase to a walkway around the perimeter.  Since visiting, Davy has--all on his own!--made his own recreation of the greenhouse with an empty plastic grape container he pulled out of the recycle.  It was that impressive an experience.  :)

The colors, the colors, the colors.  Unbelievable.  

The tree walk at Kew Gardens is way up there, above the height of the tree tops.  We took a glass elevator up and then walked along the paths.  The moment when Eliza realized how high she was above the ground was pretty funny.  She stopped stock still in the middle of the walkway, frozen for a second.  Then she looked down, down, down.  A minute later she was fine, running full speed ahead.  For that split second, though, you could tell she was disturbed by her situation.

Go team Lambourne!

Cambridge and Canterbury Cathedral

A couple weekends ago some friends were out of town and let us borrow their car.  Whoot whoot!  What a blessing to walk a short distance, have car seats perfect for our kids already installed, and head out to explore without the headache of renting an automobile.  I was about to keep going on about this, but then I remembered that no more than two hours ago my family ribbed me for being too verbose.  They said they just scroll through to look at the pictures.  And only if those pictures have children in them.  ;) 

So anyway, first stop, Cambridge.  I have fallen completely under the spell of the university town of Oxford.  I could definitely visit Cambridge again, but I don't know if I'm quite as entranced.  Yet.  Again, open for further exploration if given the chance.  Davy looked at the statue on that building in that picture up there ^^ and said, "Hey, is that Henry VIII?"  I asked how he knew that and he replied, "He just matches a picture of that guy I have in my head.  Was he even a good king?"  What a boy, that Davy-dear.

We went to the university's art museum that was a most perfect-sized had a truly remarkable collection.  The treasures in there!  We loved walking by the river Cam and seeing the punters on the water.  We saw goslings with their mamas that entertained us for a long time.

Then we visited Audley End House and were blown away by its grounds and beautiful house.  (English Heritage membership is one of the best membership purchases we've ever made!)

 

 

Davy says that smelling flowers makes him sneeze.  I don't think he has seasonal allergies but maybe? 

Then Canterbury Cathedral.  Wow, wow, wow.  I've seen pretty churches.  I've seen big churches.  This one was just more.  So much more I didn't even know how to take pictures of it.  I just wanted to mostly be present.  Of course, even saying that, there ended up to be a couple on my phone.  And playing in the cloisters I did feel relaxed enough to pull out the camera.

I may have gotten a little emotional about the cloisters.  It was drizzly outside, which made the space all the more magical.  To be in those long corridors with a misty drizzle in the center--gives me spine-tingles just remembering. 

And finally, after the third try, I had a willing subject for a rapeseed field picture.  It was a quick jaunt out of the car and back, in more drizzle, but Davy was a good sport.  The fields of bright yellow, patch-worked with the bright green fields and stitched together by hedgerows.  That's my current dreamy view of English countryside. (Can I get myself into a hot air balloon somehow?  That would be a fun adventure over pretty England!)