Stonehenge & Longleat & Bath oh my!

The kids had parent teacher conferences Thursday - Monday so they didn't have school. I'm happy to report they are all doing well and their teachers seem to like them - whew! Lucas' speech teacher is worried about his comprehension - meaning if they tell all the kids, "It's reading time, get a book" he doesn't always follow along and they need to "guide" him. Personally I think it is more than not - he just doesn't want to do what they are doing! Luckily we had them all scheduled on Thursday so we got a free pass on the weekend.

So Friday we drove in our little family car and here was our first stop: Stonehenge - it's over 5000 years old. It's a little strange when you drive up to it - it's right off the highway - but look at the sky - it was beautiful! It was very open and windy - but I guess there used to be a great forest around it. They have all of these "great theories" of why they were built and how they were used - wouldn't it just be funny if it were just a group of friends that said, let's have a building contest!




On Saturday we met up with our new friends The Hamberlins and went to Longleat - I think you can google it - Basically in the 60's the Marquess of this place had all this land, brought in some Safari Animals and opened up his family estate up for tour to help pay for the maintainence - and wow - if you had as much land as this guy and didn't have the feudal system in place anymore - smart idea!!

You drive your car through the Safari Park - it's so funny at some places where it says - "keep your windows up!" Well - you can see why - like here in the Monkey area - you have to be careful not to run them over - The monkeys enjoyed the treats that fell into our car from the tree at our house - we had about 5 monkeys climbing on our car!!

Sally the Camel has...... 2 humps!

You got to buy feed here - some deer actually stuck their heads right into your car!

This is the Marquess' house - he lives in the West Wing - see what I mean - kinda a lot to maintain! He even has a lake - which we took a boat on - with a small island in the middle with a silver haired gorilla! They also had a bunch of fun things for the kids - rides, a giant hedge maze the kids got lost in - the kids asked if this was going to be the zoo we always go to - umm, no I don't think so - it's about 4X if not more larger than the Oakland Zoo!

On Sunday - we went to Bath - the Abbey was behind us and the Roman Bath House is on the right behind us. They had these great self-guided tour handsets - They had numbers for the kids to punch in as well so they had Kid Commentary - Lucas had to find and punch in EVERY SINGLE one - he was very cute - I think he really enjoyed it!





It made you wonder though - the water was quite green......

It was a glorious day too - here is a picture of our friends the Hamberlins (or at least the kids!) It's fun - they moved here about 2 weeks before us - and our kids match up pretty well. Mason is 12, Marina is 10, Nicko is 6 (but matches well with Ian!) and Emma is 3 - she loves all the kids :) Mark works at Cisco with Mike in a different dept - and they are also in our Ward - what are the odds? HF looking out for us again!

Today I have to get Cman a clarinet - he starts lessons on Wednesday! We're also thinking about going to Garson's Farm and picking our own fruit & veggies - it's supposed to be fun for the kids - and since we still have no TV, still making friends, and I don't want them on the electronics all day I think it is a great option!

2 weeks we meet Auntie Nu in Paris!