What if the brooms really fly?

As mentioned before, the boys are huge Harry Potter fans. We are in the middle of the fourth book and I can't seem to read enough in a day for them. We've been making plans to go to the Harry Potter experience north of London. The boys are saving their pocket money for the big trip...which we are thinking will be this fall. They have discussions on what they will see and purchase all the time. Today, they are hoping the broomsticks will actually fly so they can play Quidditch.

After our time in Dorset, we set off for Cornwall to enjoy more sea and time together. We happened to stay in Newquay...the surfing capitol of the UK. It had a really relaxed vibe and we had a cab driver with a surfer dude English accent, blaring techno music throughout our ride, which still makes me giggle, dude. Many people told us we had to go surfing when we told them we were heading to Newquay. We both thought to ourselves, we'll save that for our next trip to Hawaii... I did, however, have this vision that we would explore a number of quaint seaside villages and see a variety of National Trust sites, however, we aren't in the US and traveling in a car isn't quite as easy, so we stayed most of our time in Newquay and enjoyed the beach and the surfer dudes. The scenery was quite stunning, we found some cheesy mini golf & go karts, which always is a hit with the boys, we read our books, played catch, and the boys ran and explored the countryside.

On our way home we stopped in the fishing village of Fowey and enjoyed the scenery and shops. The weather turned from beautiful and sunny to rainy and blustery in a matter of hours, but luckily we are learning to always have extra layers close by.

We're underground!

We just returned from what appears to be our last road trip in the UK. Jer says any more traveling done in this country will be done via the rail. I'm quite a fan of the road trip, so we'll see if I can't talk him into it again before our time here is up. We travelled to Devon and Cornwall, the SW coast of England. As we travelled through the country roads, anytime the land went above the boys windows, Walter would say "Hey, we're actually underground!"

We spent Friday evening in the tiny country village of Broadwindsor at a beautiful B&B. After exploring (and flipping through) the quaint streets a while, we found ourselves a gem of a pub with its own Skittles alley that they opened up just for us. (Grandpa Harala be warned, the boys have plans to build one with you one day.)

Saturday we spent the day on the Jurassic Coast in Lyme Regis looking for fossils. Lyme Regis is where the first (scientifically researched) dinosaur was found. We've seen the ichthyosaur at the Natural History Museum in London, so it was fun to now see the place where it was found...by a 12 year old girl! We found quite a few ammonites and belemnites and a few others that I don't really remember. The walk I signed us up for was meant to last two hours, however we didn't leave the beach for at least five and only because I was parched and hungry...the boys would have kept going! We learned what to look for, bought ourselves our own geological hammer, and plan to see what we can find a bit closer to Hove.

Full of Ammonite fossils

Like the Masters?

Jeremy took Friday off and played in a golf tournament. In the evening Owen asked where he was and I reminded him he was at the golf tournament. Owen smiled and said 'Like the Masters?' I said, 'yeah, sort of.' Jeremy turned up while Owen was at cricket, with two trophies, one for longest drive and the other for 2nd in the overall tournament. Both boys were quite impressed, however Owen could not stop asking about the trophies and tournament and you could see the fire lit in his eyes.

On Saturday we headed up to London to explore the British Museum. Owen had received a letter from Sunny Hollow mentioning the Rosetta Stone, so we were anxious to see it in person. We spent around 5 hours in the museum and saw one fifth of the museum at best. It is so vast. The visit has inspired our family to start a metal detector fund so we can do some exploring and excavating ourselves...hopefully we'll find an old sword or helmet or anything more than garbage!

I like climbing trees.

We went to Stamner Park on Sunday and I think Owen spent more time in trees than on the ground. Here is the proof:

Where's Owey?

About the cutest smile in the world.

Can you read Harry?

The boys are head over heals in love with Harry Potter these days. They ask me to read at all hours of the day. I'm thinking there will be a post related to a Harry Potter walking tour soon...

We enjoyed another beautiful day exploring Sussex on Monday. It was a 'bank holiday', meaning there was no school and no work and lots of family fun. We finally joined the National Trust and headed to Nymans for an afternoon of geocaching and admiring the gardens, followed by pizza at the pub across the road. It was a lovely day indeed.

Do you think you could climb a tree with me holding on to you?

Owen was trying to figure out if I was as strong as a koala bear tonight when I tucked him in.

We had an absolutely beautiful day today. We've all been taking turns being sick for the last week and today, we were all finally feeling like ourselves again. The one plus about being ill is remembering how amazing your body is when it is well again.

We started the day with a visit to the sea front to experience Audible Forces and a beautiful walk along the sea...which is never complete without a stop at the skate park. The boys lucked out and ended up visiting the ice cream truck, too!

Did I mention Walter is now missing BOTH front teeth?!

We ended the day with a bbq with some friends at a wood sculptor's home just north of Brighton. It was a magical field full of sculpture, giant handmade games, an outdoor kitchen, a super amazing rope swing surrounded by bluebells and lots of space to explore. The boys were in heaven.

W & his best mate, Rudy, eating homemade pizza from the outdoor pizza oven...delicious!

I think I even got burnt today! Where am I?!

Do you ever get so excited & you don't know why?

Another sweet quote from Walter. I think this was a question a few days before Easter.

Also, another post that was meant to happen a few weeks ago...

So dying Easter eggs is not a tradition of the United Kingdom. The boys & I found a recipe and did our best to make our own dye. Its pretty darn easy, except warm colors didn't seem to work. It might have been the brown eggs we were using! :) Regardless, we had a blast decorating and dying them.

The Easter Bunny found our home in Hove, too! Such an exciting morning hunting for baskets and eggs!

Or, are we ordering pizza?

A few weeks ago around dinner, Walter asked me "Mom, what are we having for dinner?" Then he paused for a few seconds and added "Or, are we ordering pizza?" I think that is so telling to my first term working! The most challenging piece of it all is keeping groceries in the fridge & planning dinner for sure!

I'm a bit behind with some posts from a very dear visitor we had. Jeremy's childhood friend, Eric Gerold, came to visit us over Easter. Eric recently lost his wife to cancer, so we felt blessed to have some time with him. Jer & Eric played many holes of golf, despite the uncooperative weather. Eric kept reminding us that the golf courses in Minnesota were covered in snow, however, so they didn't complain too hard.

While Jeremy was at work one day, the boys & I took Eric to Bodiam Castle. We all had fun with our pretend bow & arrows as we climbed through the castle on the look out for the enemy.