Hidcote Gardens

The following day, on our way home, we stopped at Hidcote Manor gardens to stretch our legs, have a bite to eat, and tour a beautiful English garden.

Bath

After being blessed with 3 days of gorgeous weather, I suppose it was inevitable that we would eventually have some rain....and boy did we get it when we went to Bath...how appropriate! We spent most of the day at the Roman Baths, and then wandered around through the city a bit to get soaked. How amazing that the people living in Bath had know idea that they were living above a Roman city until a little over a hundred years ago.  They are still finding more rooms and buildings underground that will someday be open for people to see.

The Roman Bath museum, not only showcase the bath house, but also artifacts from the neighboring temple and the outdoor altar. It was so amazing to see such old artifacts from a time when Jesus' disciples were spreading the good news.  The pagan temple was build around 60-70AD, and the surrounding bath complex was built over the next 300 years or so. 

The mouth of the spring

 Pieces of the decoration on the front of the temple.

In front of the main bath



 

After the baths, we explored the city a bit and got drenched!

In front of the Royal Crescent

 



Stonehenge and Avebury Prehistoric Stone Circles

On our way back from the music festival, we spent a couple nights in the Bath area.  On our way to Bath, we stopped by Stonehenge and Avebury, 2 very mystical stone circles, just 4 or 5 thousand years old.  It was a gorgeous, sunny day.

I found Stonehenge to be quite mesmerizing, out in the middle of a wide open field. So old, so mysterious, so much that we don't know...

A short drive away, we found Avebury, which is a much larger stone circle with a small village in the center.  The stones are very large, and spaced very evenly apart.  We enjoyed a lovely afternoon and ice cream within the circle, and walked among the sheep in the stone laden fields.

Big Church Day Out

For our first music festival experience as a family, we couldn't have asked for a better one.  We were blessed with a rare 2-days of glorious sunshine and temps in the mid 60s.  We arrived in West Sussex, down on the southern coast of England in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday.  The festival was held on the grounds of Wiston House, which was a beautiful venue.  Here is a photo of Mia standing with Wiston House in the background.

Anyone who really knows me, will know that Christian music is a HUGE part of my life.  So as you can imagine, I was quite excited about this festival.  So many bands that I listened to in the US were coming and some British and Irish artists that I've fallen in love with over the last 2 years were there too!  I was most excited about a relatively new band called Rend Collective Experiment and they did not disappoint.  Through our church here I've also become very familiar with the songs of Matt Redman, and it was such a treat to have him be the final act of the weekend....finishing of course with 10,000 Reasons.  

We all had a fabulous time and look forward to attending more festivals in the states when we come home.  Hopefully we'll be able to get some friends to come along next time ;-).

 Here are all the girls, sporting our new BCDO T-shirts...a lamb with big headphones on!

 One of the early acts on Sunday...Jars of Clay!

Derbyshire Well Dressings

Over the last week we've had a chance to see some well dressings in our surrounding area. A well dressing is a decoration for a well, usually consisting of wood and clay adorned with flowers, seeds, rice, and other natural materials, in a mosaic fashion.  Many well dressings are biblically themed, but many are also themed after artists, stories, etc.  The first set of well dressings I went to were in Tissington, which I was told were not to be missed.  One theory of how the tradition began in Tissington was after the Black Death of 1348-9.  Although the population in the rest of England were ravaged by the plague, in Tissington all escaped, and the immunity was ascribed to the purity of the water supply.  It became the custom to decorate the wells in thanksgiving.  Another story about the Tissington wells comes from the severe drought of 1615.  Despite the severity of the drought, when thousands of cattle perished and crops were lost, the five wells of Tissington flowed freely and the surrounding district had cause to be grateful for the unending supply of water from the village. 

I found Tissington to be a lovely little village, and the well dressings were moving with their beauty and messages.

 

Last weekend, we took the kids to the well dressings in Etwall.  Most of these dressings didn't seem to be actually decorating wells (as far as I could see), and they were primarily secular in nature. The girls got to try their hand at pressing the flowers into the clay, which was a lot of fun.  Here are a few that we saw in Etwall.

 



Southern Spain Holiday - April 2013

For one of our last few adventures while here in Europe, we decided to go to Spain again, this time the Southern coast.  We were desperate for some sun, since Spring came a bit late this year in England, there are some neat things to see on the southern coast, and I just love getting to use my high school Spanish again!

We started our trip by spending a day at the resort and enjoying all the activities.  The beach at the resort wasn't that great, but thankfully there were many other activities and nice pools on the property.

We even got to play a little bit of volleyball! Alexa is an amazing blocker!

 

That evening we drove to the nearby city of Marbella to explore the narrow streets of the shopping district and have some nice Spanish food.

One of the things that Mia loves about Spain is that they serve sugar with milk (hot or cold)!

 

On Sunday, we decided to go on an adventure to the Rock of Gibraltar, which I never realized is a British territory.  So we had to use our passports to get onto the peninsula.  The neat thing is that the air strip in Gibraltar crosses the only road in, so as we drove onto the peninsula, a plane landed ahead of us and then we drove across the airstrip!  We headed straight for the Nature reserve on the rock, where wild apes live.  And yes, they are completely free and wild.  As we approached the entrance to St. Michael's Cave, we were quickly greeted by an ape who jumped onto our car and was hanging onto our side mirror.  A bit shocked, I carefully closed my window because I really do think he would have come in.  As we parked our car and walked to the cave entrance, we saw a few apes along the way (they tend to hang out where people are).  I moved along walking on the footpath and noticed something tickling the backs of my legs....a freaked out a bit when I looked behind me and saw that it was an ape running along behind me grabbing at my legs.  Thankfully, my reaction scared him away a bit. 

 

At the entrance to the cave, there were a few apes to watch, so we posed for a few pictures. While I was posing, the ape next to me saw that my purse was open, so he reached over to see what was inside.  Luckily I was able to pull away before he took anything!

 

St. Michaels Cave was pretty amazing.  It's probably the biggest cave I've been in, with the most rock formations that I've ever seen. The pictures don't do it justice, but you can probably understand how this blows other caves out of the water.

After St. Michael's cave we walked uphill to the top of one of the peaks of the rock. There we saw many more apes, some amazing views and had some interesting experiences as well.   On our way up, Alexa had fallen maybe 15 feet behind the rest of us, and suddenly we heard her cry..."Mommy!!!!!" We looked back and an ape was grabbing at her waist, before we could even react, he pulled something out of her pocket....a granola bar!  Needless, to say, Alexa spent quite a while in her mother's arms after that, but she soon got over the trauma of it all.  On our way back down the hill, she found the wrapper from her granola bar on the side of the footpath.

 We later found our way to some tunnels that were created in the rock for military purposes over the last couple hundred years.  Very interesting, and amazing to know that some famous American leaders spent some time in those tunnels during WWII.

 The view from outside one of the tunnel entrances...you can see the air strip in the background.

Couldn't resist this photo.  The owner of the bike was not too thrilled with this little guy that dreamed of cruising on the road.

We had a great time in Gibraltar...it was definitely a very unique experience that will be a highlight of our European adventure.

On Tuesday, we went to the beautiful town of Ronda, about an hour north of us.  This gorgeous bridge divides the old and new parts of the city.

 After a quick lunch in a café, we enjoyed some special dark and white hot chocolates, which were especially thick, and quite delicious.

We enjoyed walking around the city, stopping in lots of shops, and exploring the Peinado museum, which included some paintings by his friend Picasso.  I was pleasantly surprised by how much the kids enjoyed that museum.

 

The rest of our time was spent primarily at the resort, enjoying the

 SUNSHINE!

A fun filled week in Spain, some fabulous memories!