Bath and Stonehenge

On the way home we stayed in a English city called Bath. Bath is known for it's Georgian architecture and Roman Baths. What a fantastic city. I loved it! We visited the Abbey, saw the Royal Crescent, the Circus and Pulteney Bridge and did some shopping. As we were there the night before our eighth anniversary my parents offered to babysit yet again so we could have a night out. It was the nicest anniversary we've ever had and will be hard to top. We went to the spa for the twilight package which included access to the three pools fed by the water from the natural hot springs, four scented stream room, foot baths and a dinner/drink. We then toured the Roman baths at night and finished with dessert and a drink. Yee haw! Thanks Mom and Dad!

On the final stretch home we stopped at Stonehenge as it's not far from Bath. Below are some pictures with captions. This also ends the saga of my summer blogging. It has been one the best and busiest summers ever and we won't be soon to forget! L

The Highlands

We next headed up to a tiny town called Contin in the Highlands. From there we did trips to Ullapool and Isle of Skye and generally just enjoyed the beauty of the area. We also took the kids to a water dome in Inverness for some fun. It is truly a beautiful untouched place. Although we were told we'd be rained out and devoured by midges, we had lovely weather and only saw midges once (teeny tiny flying bugs that bite). Mark and I were dying to camp but were not set up to do so. Simply fabulous. Here are some pics again with captions.

Edinburgh and Area

The last week of July and the first week of August we drove up to Scotland for a holiday with my parents. We first stayed in a self catering place in Edinburgh. We visited Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh Castle, shopped the Royal Mile, did a "haunted" night tour of the vaults (areas underground that poor people ended up sleeping/living), took a day trip to some of the surrounding sites and of course took the kids to a place called Almond Valley which was fabulous for kiddies. Here are some pics. I have captioned some of the pictures again in the album. L

The Magic Porridge Pot

Brought to you by Lochlan...

London

After the wedding Mark and I flew to London. We rode the London Eye, toured West Minister Abbey, Tower of London, saw a couple of shows and attended a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. Although we didn't meet the Queen she was only 10 ft from us, we toured the gardens not usually open to the public and were served afternoon tea (sandwiches,cakes and of course tea). A truly unique and wonderful experience. Here are some pictures, unfortunately none of the tea as no cameras were allowed.

Dan and Victoria's Wedding

A week after my sister's wedding we were lucky enough to attend the wedding of a longtime friend of Mark's. Dan's wife is Swedish so that is where the wedding was held. My Mom and Dad were nice/brave enough to watch our children so we went sans kids. We spent our first day/night in Stockholm and then headed to Lovstabruk where the wedding was held. We then had one more day of touring before our plane left that night. A great weekend! It was really cool to take part in a Swedish wedding and everyone was extremely friendly and spoke great English. Here are some photos, I put some captions below some of the pictures so that you would know what your looking at, however they don't show on the slide show, just in the album. It kind of reminded us of Canada (the land in the rural areas).