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The final day

Yep, all good things must come to an end.  Today was a sunny and windy last day with a more relaxed pace.  We spent the whole day at Loch Lomond.  Glenn drove us up the west side of the loch to Firkin Point.  We walked along beside the loch and watched the waves.  Then the girls went splashing along the shore.  That is when we discovered that they haveworn holes in the soles of their rainboots.  I am looking at it as less to pack.  It also meant unpacking in the middle of a parking lot in order to find the dry socks and shoes.  At least they had fun while getting wet (as opposed to getting wet falling in).  I have to say that the scenery was beautiful.  It left me greatly relaxed.

After lunch we went to the Loch Lomond aquarium and thenada centplayground.  The girls loved the aquarium.  Their favorite parts were the touch tables and the tunnel tank.   We managed to see a few feelings which made it all the more interesting.  It was topped off by long play stints at the park.It  didn’t rain until we were almost at the airport.

It has been a wonderful vacation but I miss bed home, more specifically my bed.  Up early tomorrow morning .  Night.

 

Busy, busy, busy

Isn’t it funny how two girls who area falling asleep in the car are now wide awake?  I am currently hiding in the bathroom waiting for them to fall asleep so that I can start packing.  You see tomorrow is our last full day in Scotland and we will spend the night at the airport so it all has to go somewhere but I don’t want to waste time tomorrow doing it.  Sigh!

okay, yesterday morning we went to Wallace’s monument in Stirling.  While Elspeth and I worked our way up the hill looking at various plants, Glenn and Katrine not only climbed said hill but also all 246(?) steps to the top of the tower. I opted out of the climbing given that it would have involved carrying a child up the winding staircase.  We took the long way down the hill through the woodlot and were luck enough to cross paths withwe rabbit enjoying the sun.  Then we drove to the Falkirk Wheel to meet my cousin Helen.  Upon arriving Elspeth walked into the bottom of a metal sign (I thought she could see it and realized my error but not soon enough forhere to compensate).  I can now say that the Wheel hasunquiet a nice first aid room.  A bit more of a production than necessary but I understand their caution.  Once we had some ice, all was right in our world and we hit the play zone.  During lunch, the girls were super excited to see the wheel in action lifting a boat from one loch to another.  Some ice cream in the sunshinebred ore more playtime.  This time at the giant water zone (more like a giant water table than splash pad).  All of the playing left a lot of time to get caught up.

In the evening it was more family time as we celebrated a cousin’s birthday.  I think that the kids played on the trampoline for almost two hours!  Lots more smilesandbonding.  I love my family.  Have I said that before?  I am truly blessed.  My cousins wife went out of her way to make a large plate of GF sandwiches and even got me muffins so that I wouldn’t feel left out!  It was an awesome surprise and just goes to show how wonderful they are.

This morning we drove though the Trossachs.  We stopped in Aberfoyle to see rare sheep breeds for Elspeth.  Turna out that the real live sheep scare her.  She much prefers her blanket sheep.  Next stopafter a a rather lengthy yet scenic wrong turn, was Loch Katrine.  As you can guess, Katrine was beside herself with joy seeing HER loch!  To be honest, it is rather prett.  Then to see some Hei’lan Coos before lots of park time.  While the girls were at one of the parks playing with Glenn, my uncle took me in to see my grandmas house one last time.  Brought back so very many memories.  Spent many a happy visits there.

Finished the day with dinner with my uncle, a drive through town, a visit with one of my moms school chums and then another trip to the park.  I am tired writing it all down yet the girls are still wide awake”. Oh well.

Stratclyde and the seashore

I know it sounds like an unusual combination but that was our day.

This morning we joined the rest of the clan at Strathclyde Park to cheer on our cousin as she ran in the MND (Motor Neural Disease) fundraising run.  She finished in under an hour!!  Very impressed.  I think that it would have taken me double or triple that time to reach the end.  It also gave us a chance to spend more time with the family.  All of the cousins got dowon beside the water tossing in stones and laughing.  Exactly the type of memories I want the girls to have of our trip.

After a delicious lunch, it was back in to the park to visit the largeplayground.  I get some bad mommy points for forgetting to pack the girls boots and dressing them in new pink sweaters…which are now somewhat browner from the mud.  That said, neither girl stopped smiling the whole two hours we were there.  Even more important,  they consider their cousins as friends.  “you played with your cousins, right Elspeth?” “No!  I play my friend on the slide.”

It was lovely and sunny after dinner and it seemed like a waste to come back to our hotel and call it an evening so we headed out for a drive along the Firth of Forth (an inlet on the east coast of Scotland).  The girls were excited enough about having to cross a large bridge on the way over but I swear that their eyes almost popped out of their heads when the saw the even longer bridge we crossed on the way back.  We stopped between one bridge and the next in a small town.  The tide was out so we all clambered out of the car and walked along the seashore (never expected to write about being at the seaside on this trip).  Theyrustled about picking up stones and various shells.  We discovered that seaweed makes Elspeth nervous, much as grass did when we first came home.  The salt water smell in the air reminded me of out east.  As Glenn said, it was the type of Scotland that his dad would have loved to see.

 

Family Day in Callander

Today was a much slower day with the fOcus on family.  Although those we have loved and lost live on in our hearts, there are times when their memories move to the forefront.  Today was such a day. Stopping in the cemetery drove home missing the funeral and being part of the celebration of grandma’s life.  Seeing both girls giggling and bonding with some of the family reminded me of how much joy they would have brought her.  At the same time, the presence of this sorrow can also help you to recal the good times.  Upon arriving at my uncles he got us drinks and biscuits.  The same types my grandma plied us with growing up.  To visit grandma was to get spoiled with crisps and sweeties.  Hearing them laugh with their family reminded me of a birthday party I shared over here with my cousin years back as kids.  Going to Callander was very much like going home as a grown up.

The girls had none of these thoughts.  They were to busy enjoying themselves.  We hiked to the Bracklin Falls and saw the new bridge.  Then climbed down to what is left of the old one.  They threw sticks for my cousin’s dog and we all got soaked in the raibeautiful ally’s were beautiful.  Well worth the wall.

We ended the day with some shopping on mainstreet and some more visiting before driving to Thornhill for dinner.  In Thornhill, the girls got a charge out of seeing various “dummies” dressed up as part of a town celebration.  Their favorite was a mermaid although they were disturbed by its lack of facial features.

Stirling Castle

We did do other things such as pick up our car and walk through a mall, but today was about visiting the castle.  (we did spend some time getting settled into the new hotel.  It for pretty much what we expected.  Now that we are here, and knowing how much we used our kitchen in London, I wish that I had paid more and gone for an apartment style hotel.  Thatsaid, what is done is done and we have a good location so move forward positively.).

Both Glenn and I have been to the castle before but it was fun watching it come alive through the eyes of a child.  Katrine noticed the fortifications right away and it was neat seeing her connect some of them to descriptions from the Magic Treehouse book series.  Elspeth preferred to enjoy the views.  “Oh look!  Mountains!  I see mountains!”. During the last renovations a hands on children’s section was added.  That was one of our first stops.  The girls tried out replic harps and drums, watched an animatronic jester, dressed up as medieval princesses among other things.  They had a grand time doing it too.  Theaffaire they were kids, racing through the cobble stone courtyard, twirling in the middle of the grand hall orclimbing on top of the cannons to see the view.  To top it off, the sun was shining.

After a delightful dinner, we took a family walk by the river.  The walk actual involved more running and squealing thaactual walking but it was a lot of fun.  Once my toe stops hurting I am hoping to drift off to sleep (no tv with only one room).  Tomorrow we are heading in to Callander.

Meeting Family in London

The rain held off today and allowed us a nice day out and about.  We began with a walk through Kensington Gardens.  I would love to say that we got to run and play but the large Princess Diana playground was closed for maintance.  We did see the Peter Pan statue before cutting our visit short and heading to Paddington Station…to visit Paddington Bear of course.  (That was mostly for me although the girls enjoyed getting some Paddington books.)

Then it was off to meet my Cousin Lil who I haven’t seen since our wedding.  It was wonderful to see her again and it was made even better by the fact that the girls connected with her right away.  Together we enjoyed lunch and then did some arts and crafts.  More specifically brass rubbings in the crypts of a church and then drawing paintings at the National Museum.  It was very relaxing and then hard to say goodbye.  I wish that she lived closer.

Before heading back to the hotel we had to make a stop at King’s Cross so that Katrine could get a photo taken going through the wall at platform 9 3/4.  To say she was excited is to put it mildly.

Tomorrow we head to the British Museum and then train it up to Scotland.

It was a rainy day

The first in a seriessupposedly.  I know, big surprise when one is in Britain.  It provided us with the perfect excuse to spend the day indoors at two museums -Science museum and Natural History museum.  The girls had a lot of fun at both.

The Science museum had a good mixture of interactive displays and information displays.  Katrine was in heaven surrounded by all of the information.  Especially when she got to see astronaut food Nd space diapers.  (Nope, potty humor is not just for boys.). Elspeth of course preferred the hands on areas but also went wide eyed looking at early bikes and lawn “momers”.  There was even an exhibit for Glenn on code breaking.  I got to see the model I made in grade school, well I think Scott actually made it, to go with a science fair project I did on the moon. Seriously, there was the exact same model in adisplay cabinet except it had a better paint job and gold leaf (I claimed it before it was painted.)

After about three hours we were all sciencesout so we headed next door to the next museum and the dinosaur exhibit.  On the way we passed through the bird section where Katrine saw a dodo bird and broke into song “Finding a dodo bird, driving our sister insane”.  Gotta love those text to text connections.  Both girls enjoyed the dinosaurs but near the end it was clear that Elspethwas done so she and I came back for nap and the other pair spent two more hours at the museums exploring whale skeletons and minerals mostly.  Once Gain, Katrine was in heaven.

Tomorrow is a special day to me because we will be meetin my cousin Lillian (my Nana’s mother’s sister’s daughter’s son’s wife, you got that straight?). I haven’t seen her since our wedding so I am very much looking forward to it.  I can hardly wait for her to meet my girls.  So I guess it is off to bed so that I can look well rested tomorrow.

 

Good bye Paris

After a final visit to the boulangerie it was off to the train station for us.  We figured out that we were suppose to be leaving from the first floor so we walked from one end to the other….not our train.  Okay, find employee and use my French one last time to find out where the heck the train was on the first floor when we had walked the length of the station and not seen it.  Oh.  Turns out that we were on the ‘ground’ floor and needed to schlep everything up the stairs to the ‘firstfloor rot.  We did so thinking to ourselves “this is the second floor damn it.  Now we are in a rush.”. Still made the train so in the end not a big deal but frustrating.  When we take the next leg of our journey we are going to plan on arriving even earlier to help compensate for this possibility.

Going through the French countryside was beautiful.  I loved the small towns and green fields, as well as the many fields of bright yellow flowers which I believe are mustard plants.  The Chunnel portion of the ride kinda unsettled Elspeth.  She had difficulty reconciling that it was suddenly dark.  It all sorted itself once we were back outside.  Glenn and I had hoped that Elspeth would nap on the train.  No such luck,  yet another day with a tired girl.

After checking in to our hotel it was off to ride the tube and do walkbys of Buckingham Palace (“Does the queen really live there?”), Westminster Abbey (“hey, that big prince’s wedding was there.) and the Parliment Buildings.  When Katrine saw the London Eye she was so excited.  “It’s the big ferris wheel from Phineas and Ferb!”. On the was, we went through St James Park only it turned out to be Green Park which made sense as there was an awful lot of grass.  Turned the mistake into fun by showing the girls how to roll down a hill.  It was great to see a mistake  reading a map turn into a big batch go giggles and smiles.  As we continued onward, we did end up traveling through St James Park (We had turned left at Queen Victoria fountain instead of right.).  How happy were the girls to see the birds – pigeons, geese, and many varieties of ducks.  Pointing, naming them and chasing them.  I remember feeding the ducks when I came to London with my family as a kid.  I wonder if thgreater the grand kids of those ducks?

We grabbed the tube again to the Tower of London.  Not to see the tower but to see Tower Bridge.  It was scheduled to go up today.  This only happens about twice a year.  I knew it was something that both Glenn and Katrine would enjoy and I thought that Elspeth could get into it once things got started. However, the timing got moved up Nd the bridge had both raised and lowered by the time we arrived which left us with nothing to do but get dinner and head backhot the hotel.

Even more walking with fountains and gold

Today was a Versailles day.  We began with the gardens which weregorgeous!  Topiaries, hedges, statues, fountains. All breathtakingly beautiful.  A light snack by the Grand Canal and it was off to see the world of Marie Antoinette.  I had hoped to see the whole of her world but it was simply too much.  The girls enjoyed the gardens around the two Trianon palaces.  They coolected pebbles, chestnuts and flower petals.  Admired fountains.  Sat onbenches.  They enjoyed the smaller palace as well and I have to agree.  It was a highlight of the day for me.  It felt almost like a grand home as opposed to a palace.  No gilding just lots of windows and clean stone work.  Marie Antoinette’s bedroom was oh so pink which got rave reviews from the girls.  However, by the time we exited they were oh so ready for lunch which was to be had back at the canal so no visit to her farm or fantasy gardens this go round.  That said, our lunch picnic in the suMoore than made up for it.

After lunch?  Well, more fountains of course!  Both girls are quite fond of fountains so they were happy as clams.  Katrine also insisted on seeing the orangerie where Elspethdesperately wanted to pick an orange.

Then it was off to see the inside of the palace.  We were able to walk right in.  No extra long line up by three in the afternoon.  It was smooth sailing until about the hall of mirrors.  Stunning murals on ceilings, gilt work every where and the views from the windows -stunning.  The hall of mirrbelieved up to expectations.  As Katrine said, “Over the top!”. By the time we hit the royal bedrooms and dining rooms we seem to have caught up with multiple tour groups.  People pushing…okay it’s crowded I can deal.  Then someone started patting Elspeth on the head from behind while we were being pushed forward.  I was able to channel my anger and escape by shoving my way through (apologies to those I rudelyshifted butI pleaseI understand that it was for my child).  That was the final straw.  I mean, what type of person just reaches out to touch a child?  It is wrong on so many levels.  Thankfully Elspeththinks it was “mama touch my hair when I scared”.  We left.

Glenn asked to have galettes again for his birthday dinner.  We went to a different place this time but that is another post.  On our way back tot the hotel we walked through Les Jardins Luxembourg.  I had hoped that the playground would be open but it was closing as we arrived.  We did manage to catch the last sarosel ride of the day much to the girls delight.  I have never before seen a suspended carousel (no bottom floor, the horse simply hang from the ceiling).  The riders on the outside were each given a stick.  As the carosel turned they could try to hook metal rings off of a pole with their stick.  Katrine actually managed to hook a pair while Elspeth, well she just waved the stick about.

And so our time here is drawing to a close.  One morevisit to the boulangerie for pastries tomorrow morning, some French cartoons and then we are on the train to London.  I have enjoyed Paris but I do believe that my feet will enjoy some rest tomorrow before the next round of walking begins.

Walking, a tower and Monet

That is what we are doing.  I am hoping that it will paseason and I will suddenly look good in shorts!

We began our day riding the subway to the Eiffel Tower.  I have ridden may different subways in different countries but this was the first time that I have ever seen a double decker subway.  Thatmade it kind of interesting.

What is there to say about the Eiffel Tower?  It is tall, brown and every bit as cool as in the photos we have all seen.  Oneneat thing which we had Katrine do was mail her postcards there.  They will bear the Eiffel Tower stamp cancel.  Small but different.  We walked along the Champs de Mers a bit to get a better view and found a small playground.  The girls ran off some steam while wewere able to admire the tower from an angle where the crowds were blocked by trees.  The steelwork was not as there but it was actually prettier.

Then we crossed the Seine and headed to the Champs Elysses.  We were suppose to hit L’Arc de Triomph first but I made a slight planning error with maps and we ended up about halfway along.  We still saw the arch just not up close.  However, we found a great crepe stall and Glenn and the girls enjoyed a nice lunch.  Elspeth also enjoyed watching the sparrows searching forcrumbs while Katrine watched the crepes being made.

We enjoyed aleisurely walk through Tullieries Gardens with a stop at L’Orangerie to see Monet’s paintings.  Inever knew that Waterlilles could be seen in surround.  I have only ever seen a framed print.  It was WOW to walk into a room and be surrounded by his painting.  Took my breath away.  A highlight of the gardens for the girls were the carousel and playground.  All of that smiling and laughing left them in need of ice cream (did I mention that balanced diets have gone out the window?)

Then the Louvre.  There are pluses and minuses to visiting the Louvre with a stroller.  Plus, get in right away!  Minus, the stairs, and there are A LOT of them.  We saw the main highlights that we had picked before leaving but it was difficult to do the museum proper justice as  neither girl was terribly interested most of the time.  That said, Elspeth liked the mummy section while Katrenjoy referred the Mona Lisa and spyhix.  If we were redoing today I would do it in reverse order so as not to have as much disconnected for the children at the Louvre.

Right now we arerelaxing in the hotel before heading out for dinner.