Day 10 - Church, Framlingham, Aldeburg

September 13, 2009 - Almost done now! Today we went to church at the Thetford Ward,

...stopped on the way to see the North Sea at a town called Framlingham, where we saw the castle below,

...saw the North sea (It was very cold and windy, but very pretty. The shore was made up of millions of pretty rocks, each with different colors and patterns. We each grabbed a bunch to bring home with us),

...then had some authentic sea-side fish-and-chips! Yum! (Ashley chickened out and only ate the chips!)

Day 9 - chocolate time!

September 12, 2009 - At this point in our trip, we drove back to Mildenhall Air Force Base to stay again, and began to stock up on cookies and candy to take home to our families. Unfortunately no pictures here, just a lot of shopping and packing!

Day 8 - Haworth, the home of the Bronte sisters

September 11, 2009 - Next we moved on to a village called Haworth where the Bronte sisters lived and wrote. Some of their most famous books were Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. We toured their home, now a museum and walked around the country side to see the heather-covered moors.

The town of Haworth

The Bronte Sisters' home

Ashley and relaxing in a field of heather.

Gorgeous scenery

Heathcliffe's gravestone used in a recent film.

Day 7- Alnwick, a.k.a. Hogwarts Castle

Doo-do-doo-do-doo-do-doo-do-do-do-do-do-do-

Can't you hear the theme music just from looking at this picture?!

September 10, 2009 - This was a very exciting day for me. My Mom and sister were nice enough to agree to drive almost 3 hours out of our way to see the castle where Harry Potter was filmed with me. This was one of the few spontaneous, unplanned things we did. We just happened to see this in a sight-seeing book and decided to go. I loved it! I am a huge dork, I will admit. I am a big Harry Potter fan. I'm really more a fan of the books, but I like the movies too. I felt even more dorky when our "Magical tour guide" looked straight at me every time he asked a Harry Potter trivia question, because I was the only one who knew all the answers! So now, the next time you watch the first or second movie, you'll have to refer back here to my blog to compare pictures! (I did with when I got home - we had all my pictures on the computer screen, and kept pausing the movie to compare!)

Ashley and I about to enter the castle!!!

There were a couple cats wandering around that made the castle seem even more like we were walking onto a set of Harry Potter - I named this one Professor McGonagal (she's the teacher who turns into a cat)!

Ashley and I trying our hands at brass rubbings. I was unfortunately not very good.

Here we are with our Magical Tour Guide.

This shot is from the first movie when Harry and his classmates learned to fly on broomsticks, and Harry ends up chasing Malfoy all over this part of the courtyard.

This shot is also from the first movie, when Hermione overhears Harry and Ron talking about her and she rushes past them.

This one is from the second movie when Ron flies his Dads car into the Whomping Willow.

This is the Forbidden Forrest - and the site where Hagrid's Hut was.

Okay, so I hope you all don't think I'm an obsessed freak now - but seriously, if you haven't read the books, you are missing out! =)

Day 6 - York

Okay, I hope I have not lost everyone reading our family blog. Am I boring you with my endless supply of pictures from my trip? I'm getting pretty bored myself! Let me just say we are getting close - bear with me, and I will soon be back to blogging about the rest of my family and the cute things my kids do, instead of picture after picture of me in front of different castles!

September 9, 2009 - We took a little drive in our rental car to York and listened to our Phantom of the Opera CD, singing along of course - probably very entertaining to people in cars we were zooming past (if they could see us - Mom really liked her fast Audi), and also listening to Ashley read "Wuthering Heights" to us in the backseat. She had a very entertaining reading voice, she even used the British dialect to make it more interesting. One of the most memorable moments of the trip for me, was interestingly enough not at a cool historic landmark, but in the car listening to Ashley read the part of a servant in the book named Joseph. I don't know how we lived to tell this tale because Mom and I were both laughing so hard, we were crying, and she was driving at least 75 miles an hour at the time. But it was so funny, that even though we were probably in mortal peril at the time, we didn't care, we just kept on laughing. Ask Ashley to read it for you sometime!

Anyway, we checked into our B&B, then toured York all day, did some shopping and eating, and saw the cathedral there, York minster.

Our B&B - The owner happened to be right out front washing his car as we pulled up. . . or tried to pull up, I should say. There was only parking along the street, so Mom had to parallel park (not so easy when the steering wheel is on the wrong side!). He looked pretty amused watching us, then finally came over to help direct us into the spot!

This is in downtown York - the streets are so cute and narrow - and apparently unsafe for clumsy Americans to walk on. We all tripped quite a bit on the cobblestone! I believe this shot of Ashley was taken in the famous "shambles".

York Minster - another gorgeous cathedral. This one was actually one of the most interesting places we went. When we went inside we noticed there was an underground museum, so we decided to check it out. Unfortunately, there were no cameras allowed, so I don't have pictures. I guess in the 70's, the foundations of the cathedral began to give out and large cracks started appearing on the structure. So digging began to build a new foundation, and some very cool discoveries were made. Apparently the current Cathedral was built right on top of 2 other, older structures. One was a smaller cathedral built in Norman times, and when it was leveled to build the larger York Minster, the same foundation was used. That's why it was not strong enough to support the current building. Then underneath that, they found bits and pieces of an ancient Roman fortess. It was really interesting. There were whole walls found intact, with paintings on them, and pottery and tools, and throughout the museum, there were models showing how the 3 buildings would overlap if they were all here today. Anyway, I'm probably boring everyone again. I just found it fascinating! I'm almost inspired to go out in my backyard and start digging to see what I can find!

This wall was built, according to our free guide (my Mom) was built by the Normans a looooong time ago. I think in the 5 or 600s, but again, she was a free guide, so....

Then that evening, Mom took a little break from walking and relaxed at the B&B while Ashley and I went on a very entertaining "Ghost Trail" tour of the city. Our guide was very funny and we were in a group of about 50 people, so it wasn't very scary, but it was fun.

What I missed back home =(

September 7, 2009 in America!
Rewind back to Labor Day! Here are some photos of the kids with Tristan and Teresa at the Ballon Classic. I was super sad to miss this tradition. Our family hasn't missed a year yet! I'm glad the rest of them could go, though. And it looks like they had just as much fun with Grandma!

Day 5 - Cambridge

September 8, 2009

We headed to Cambridge University to blend in with all the smart people. I think our IQ's went up just from being there! The campus was beautiful. We looked around a little, had lunch, and went "punting" on the River Cam with a tour guide who told us all about Cambridge.

Cambridge - The one in the middle is King's College, ooh, and Mom got a parking ticket right in front of this historic building!

Here we are having lunch at a favorite place of Mom's.

This is the Cam river - I loved the Willow trees that hung down to the water!

And here are Ashley and I being "punted" on the Cam River. It was very pretty and relaxing.