Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Camping on the North Yorkshire Coast

We spent a memorable weekend camping along the North Yorkshire coast a few weeks ago, in a large caravan park nestled along the cliffs between Scarborough and Filey. While our campsite left a little something to be desired (think no trees and directly adjacent to the playground), the view just about a hundred yards away was pretty spectacular.


Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Savoring our First British Summer

I'm having one of those weeks... Little Arrow has been grouchy and is barely napping. I picked Big Arrow up from his summer day camp yesterday, only to find him sitting on a bench with a raging fever. Naturally, as tends to be the case in our family, my husband is away on his first business trip since we moved here. So I get to juggle all this by myself for the next few days.

So I sat down tonight, after bedtime duties dragged on for over an hour, and just wanted to see something that would make me smile. And make me thankful for this experience. Cue the family photos on the beach montage.


Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Biking at Rutland Water

One of the reasons that Stamford was recently named the best place to live in Britain is due to its close proximity to Rutland Water. This is Europe's largest man-made lake, and is also a large nature preserve. (For my Hoosier readers, this is the equivalent to living a few minutes from Lake Monroe). There are tons of outdoor recreation opportunities available here, from cycling to fishing to sailing.

On Father's Day, we decided to rent bikes and pedal our way around as much of it as we could in a few hours. I couldn't really take pictures and ride safely (especially with Little Arrow strapped in a seat on my bike). But this is generally what most of our ride looked like:


Thursday, July 4, 2013

That's One Way to Meet the Queen

On our first day trip to London, we convinced Big Arrow to leave lovely Hyde Park by telling him we were going to see the Queen. We thought he'd think that sounded exciting, and we were right. Of course, we were merely going to walk over to Buckingham Palace and check it out. There was no actual invitation to meet the Queen. (But I check my mail daily, Your Majesty, if you're reading...)

So when we arrived, Big Arrow was very amped up. And then he did what any right-minded 4-year-old does when approaching a gate like this.



Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Penguin Pie and an Honest Mistake

I should preface this post about penguin pie with a few disclaimers.
  • My husband and I are fairly adventurous eaters.
  • I'm very gullible.
  • Earlier in the day at the same festival where the purchase of penguin pie took place, a vendor was selling kangaroo burgers. If such a thing as kangaroo burgers exist, then doesn't penguin pie seem plausible?