Saltburn-by-the-sea

It's Labor Day and what better way to celebrate our hard work then to have a relaxing day at the beach! Today we went to the beach at Saltburn-by-the-sea (this is the actual name of the town and not just its location).
Isaac and Luke loved the running up and down the beach. They built sand castles and stomped on them. I got a chance to climb the grassy hill nearby and do some exploring on the rocky part of the beach. Dionne enjoyed relaxing in our American flag beach chairs and wished she had brought a book to read.



We rode the Saltburn Tramway to the town at the top of the cliffs. The ingenious tramway uses counter-balancing water tanks to move either tram car to the top or bottom. The design of the car and stained glass windows made you feel that you had just step back in time to the 1880s.


On the home front, Luke has been having some nightmares about monsters. He also has been referring to himself as a dragon lion. It was about this age when Isaac called himself a water buffalo. So we now have a water buffalo and dragon lion living in our house along with a monster that hides under Luke’s pillow.

Grandpa & Marmee Visit Part 3: Rome, Italy

For the final week of Grandpa and Marmee's visit, we all went on vacation in Rome, Italy. As soon as we exited the plane, Dionne sang hallelujah for the warm weather.

And now, without further ado, my tips for vacationing in Rome:

1. Avoid long lines at the Coliseum and Vatican by joining a tour group (Stan, who thinks he looks like George Clooney, does a pretty good job).

2. Posing for pictures with Roman soldiers will cost you five euros.

3. Waterglobes and other souvenir trinkets will cost double in the airport than they do from a street vendor.

4. If the Rome Fiumicino airport loses your luggage, you will get it back in two days after it is routed back from Malta.

5. Only children are allowed to sit on the marble ledges in St. Peter's Basilica.

6. And finally, water from the fountains is good for drinking, but bad for splashing other holiday travellers (two and four-year-olds should be restrained).

Colosseo

Palatino

Arco di Tito

Vatican

Trinita dei Monti (Spanish Steps)

Pantheon

Grandpa & Marmee Visit Part 2: England

On the second part of our travels with Grandpa and Marmee, we came back to England for some medieval fun.
A few tips when travelling in England:

1. Stay up-wind when juggling torches.

2. Make sure you have wellies and a jacket before storming any castles.

3. Be careful...ginger beer can be addicting.

4. And finally, never give a two-year-old a sword (plastic or otherwise) while your trying to watch a joust.

York

Scarborough

Grandpa & Marmee Visit Part 1: Scotland

We finally had our first visitors...Grandpa and Marmee. For the first few days of their visit, we travelled up to Scotland to visit the highlands of the Campbell Clan (Marmee's cousins).

Here are a few tips when travelling in Scotland:

1. When making hotel reservations, Inverness should not be confused with Inveraray and are not located near one another.

2. Catch the water cruise at the Clansman Hotel on Loch Ness instead of in the city of Inverness to have plenty of time to explore Urquhart Castle.

3. Fill up your gas tank before taking the back roads in the highlands (if you're on low fuel, pray you make it to Kinloch Rannoch to fill up at the Post Taste store).

4. Avoid following campers too closely on said highland back roads in the rain due to flying debris.

5. And finally, check yourself for ticks after a walk in the heather.

Loch Lomond

Loch Ness

Highland Heather

Edinburgh Castle

The Fountains of Rome

Josh's parents came to visit us for 2 weeks. They are our first visitors in England. We had a really fun time with them and were sad to see them go. While they were here we toured Yorkshire, Scotland, and Rome. My favorite place we went was Rome, so this is where I am going to start our series of blogs related to their visit. And, my favorite place in Rome was Trevi Fountain. It was a beautiful site, and the boys loved getting wet. We stopped at Trevi Fountain 3 times. It was relaxing to listen to the water fall and fun to people watch. As we walked around Rome, every time we saw a fountain we stopped for the kids. It was a great way to cool off and feel refreshed.

In the square where Trevi Fountain is, there were a couple of men dressed up as Romans, so we thought it would be fun to have our picture taken with them. We didn't realize until afterwords, when they asked us for 5 euro that this was their business. I should have gotten a clue by the huge money sack attached to the dark haired Roman's outfit.

This fountain is outside the Pantheon. I thought Rome was really romantic looking at night, when all the lights came on.

This drinking fountain was at Palantine hill. The location of the first palaces of Rome. This is where the word "palace" is derived from. Parts of the palace of Ceasar Augustus still remain.

This fountain is in the square of Vatican City.

This is a drinking fountain right outside Vatican City.
There were many fountains around Rome and they were always a welcome sight for all of us.

Strawberry Pickin' in Birstwith

We kept passing a sign for the strawberry farm in the nearby village of Birstwith, so this Saturday we finally stopped in to do some strawberry pickin'.

The day was just beautiful and the boys had a great time. Some sticker weeds were mingled in with the strawberry plants, so it made it a bit difficult to reach in and pick some of the juicy strawberries.





At one point, I looked inside of Luke's basket and pull out a strawberry that had a bite taken out of it. Then I saw another with a bite taken out. It turns out that all of the strawberries in his basket had a bite taken out of them!

Next we walked to the rows of raspberry bushes. The raspberries were large, ripe, and ready to pick. We plucked them off their stems easily with one hand. I haven't seen raspberries this large in a long time.


With the reasonable prices at the farm, it pays to pick everything yourself, especially while spending the time together as a family.

We made one more stop at the store for some vanilla bean ice cream. When we got home, we all ate ice cream and berries for lunch until we were ready to pop. The raspberries, especially, were melt in your mouth awesome. Isaac was worried that he would eat them all, but he got full pretty fast and we have plenty for tomorrow. Anyone else have some fresh fruit stories to share?