Wonderful Magical Paris!

What an AMAZING time we had! This is such an awesome place. It ended too soon and we're definitely going back someday. It was clean, beautiful with wide boulevards to stroll next to the Seine river, and plenty of crepe stands EVERYWHERE! Scott and Daniel had a bad case of the stomach flu but we managed and still saw most of what we wanted. There are lots of pictures here because I'm still so excited about it!

 Chartres Cathedral (pronounced shart) Chartres is about an hour S.E. of Paris

Town of Chartres

Versailles Palace (pronounced versi)

Versailles

A room in Versailles Palace

The back

The boys on a carousel

A bridge near the Eiffel Tower

Notre Dame Cathedral

A great big sister (Laura) playing eye spy inside Notre Dame

 From the top of Notre Dame

Notre Dame on the left overlooking the Seine

Side view

Back

Waiting for the batobus (water taxi). They just posed like this on their own!

On the batobus

Arch de Triumph

The Lourve

Just so we can say we saw it!

La Sainte Chapelle (pronounced shapel)

Inside Sainte Chapelle. The whole church had these walls.

Stourhead Gardens

Classical English Garden built by Henry Hore. (just a rich land owner) It's supposed to look natural but has replica's of Greek temples and ruins built to look like  ruins. It's a "show" garden. It's spectacular and scenic even though it's really not. Like furniture you make look antique even though it's not or pre-washed denim jeans that are made to look old but are brand new. Fake/natural. If that makes any sense!

 

I just can't resist!

OK...I'm jumping ahead a week and will get back to last week another time. On Wednesday we went to Stourhead Gardens which is sooo beautiful. we were able to hike around the lake and see replicas of Greek temples. One of which is the Apollo temple. (I'll write more on Stourhead later too) It was the very place where, in the 2005 movie, Mr. Darcy expresses his love to and proposes to Elizabeth Bennett. I was just as giddy as the students. the picture I posted is at a distance because there was scaffolding.

THEN...we drove to Jane Austins house and Winchester Cathedral where she is buried. She has two markers there. One is the original on the floor with a beautiful and loving inscription written by her brothers. Try to read it from the picture. Remember the S's look like F's. It's quite emotional. The other was put up on the wall after she became popular.

While we were going through Jane Austins home, which is a memorial itself, there was a guest book. One of the guy students wrote, "I hate your books." What an immature, disrespectful, tacky, geek! He was reprimanded greatly by the female students who saw it. They scratched it out. I wanted to tattle so bad. I just told Scott, but I wanted to tell Susan. She's the classic lit teacher.

Anyway, I love Jane Austin so this was such a treat. A fun day!

Incidentally, Daniel is starting to speak British! When we are on the tube one of the stops is called Marble Arch. When they announce it, it sounds like Moble Ach. Now Daniel will say, "Mommy, we're going to "Moble Ach." It's so cute!

"Apollo Temple"Where Elizabeth was proposed to in the 2005 movie

    The Bridge Elizabeth (Kiera Knightly) runs across after she declines Mr. Darcy

Gadfield Elm Chapel

Benbow Farm and Malvern Hill

The farmhouse was used by Wilford Woodruff and Malvern Hill is where he used to go to pray and he also brought Brigham Young and Willard Richards here to meet.

Welsh Countryside

Seeing the countryside is such a treat for me! London is a fun place to VISIT, but I could never live here. Brick, stone, fumes, crowds, and rushing around to catch buses and trains with five kids. Don't get me wrong. I love being here and feel blessed to be able to see all these awesome places and live with great people. It has definitely been a wonderful experience and I look forward to the rest of our time here. I guess I'm just not a city person.  These pictures were taken from inside the bus.

I love this one!

Caerphilly Castle in Wales

I know I'm behind in my blogging. Sorry. I'll try to do better. Caerphilly castle was definitely the highlight of our trip to Wales. This castle was the first of it's kind in the whole world. It was built in the late 1200's and next to Windsor, it's the largest in England and almost in the world. It's considered to be a revolutionary masterpiece. It was built to not be taken over or destroyed. It has a huge water (lakes and mote) defensive system and multiple walls surrounding the inner areas. It was designed and built so well that it was never destroyed (until gun powder) and the Welsh just packed up and left and England won. As you can see the one tower is leaning. A cannon got that. Gun powder made castles pointless I guess.

Another reason this was a fun day was because it was Ryan's 11th birthday.  What a fun place for a boy to celebrate! He LOVED it! There was plenty to climb on, although I don't think you're supposed to, and tons of imaginative play. Everyone sang Happy Birthday on the bus and, in addition to his regular gifts, he was given $$ to spend at the castle gift shop. We had cheesecake at home as a family and I made cupcakes for the whole group after we got back.

You can see Daniel wearing his pajama pants because his jeans were so thick with mud from the previous day. He didn't seem to care and managed to fall in mud again at the castle! Boys, boys boys...

 Scott explaining the castle's defense system