April 21, 2008 Our trip to Knaresborough Castle & Ripley Castle

Ripley Castle (1st two) and church (above)


Ripley World Famous Ice Cream (above)

Knaresborough Castle (ruins) and Village (below)





It was a rare sunny day here in Hampsthwaite and Bud had the day off so we decided to visit two local castles. The first was the Knaresborough Castle Ruins and the second was the Ripley Castle (which closed just a couple moments before we walked into the ticket off so we couldn't go through-but we did walk along the castle wall and saw some of it).

Attached are a few pictures of what we saw and links to the two towns if you are interested in learning a little more about the area and it's history. We really enjoyed both places...oh while at the Ripley Castle we stopped in to sample World Famous Ripley Ice Cream! Has anyone every heard of this place?!?!? We hadn't...Turkey Hill, Bryers, Ben & Jerry's you bet, heard of them ate them-delicious!!! Ripley's Ice Cream, Believe It or Not (pun intended) was not that good. Read their site and once you try it-you might think differently. I think someone had their vanilla and coined the phrase "plain vanilla". Maybe it's a British thing, who knows. We weren't impressed...but you can bet if you come to visit us we will take you there so you can be the judge!

Enjoy the pictures and the websites! Above the pictures are Knaresborough, then Ripley Castle...
http://www.ripleyicecream.com/
http://www.ripleycastle.co.uk/pages/home/
http://www.chromavision.co.uk/yt/knares.htm (Knaresborough)

Fountains Abbey April 22, 2008

Today we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather here and Bud's day off, and go exploring! We ended up at Fountains Abbey. It's so beautiful!! We had a great time walking around the ruins of this old Abbey the monks built in the year 1132-that's over 800 years old!!! It's amazing! I attached a link to their website so you can read about it if you are interested. (it also saved me from tying a lot of stuff).
Hope you enjoyed the pictures we took!

http://www.fountainsabbey.org.uk/

Update on the kids...

Liam had his 6 month appointment 4-17-08 and he is 17 pounds and 28 inches long!! I can't believe it. The doctor said that he is great health and keep doing what we are doing! A few weeks ago Liam decided to start sitting on his own...if you put him on the floor in the sitting position he will stay there with a toy for about 10-15 mins. He still hasn't any teeth but one step at a time I suppose.

Audrey will be 5 years old in 16 days!! I can't believe it...but then again every year on their birthdays I can't believe another year has gone by. This year, like last Audrey refuses to turn another year older. Funny, but I thought that didn't start until your mid 30's or early 40's! She said she likes 4 and wants to stay 4!

Logan is potty trained!!! Yippee!! You still have to ask him to go pee and poop and he wears a diaper at night (to be safe-since we just started all this seriously this Monday). So I think our bills just went down $15.00 every two weeks on diapers. Now we need to work on Liam. Just being cheeky as the kids say-that's one of the sayings they have picked up on here. It's cute.

Pictures soon to come, the computer room was/is the last room we are working on. Hopefully we will have it done tomorrow.

Have a great weekend.

WE ARE IN OUR HOUSE!!

It's been some time since I have posted anything-sorry about that. We moved in April 1st, our shipments came in on the 1st and then on the 2nd. We were busy setting up beds, unpacking cookware, dishes, etc. Busy doing laundry, dishes....oh and taking care of 3 children!

Remember when Paul Revere yelled the "British are coming!" ? Well, I'm sure the Americans had time to get ready. The British aren't a hurried bunch of people when it comes to customer service! We requested phone and internet service a week or so before we moved into the house and the equipment finally made it on the 9th of April! Well, at least we are connected to the outside world.

Things are going well and we all really like the house we are blessed with for the time we are here. I know God had his hand in it because the drapes she left match our furniture in the living room and the dining room table fit in the eat in kitchen!! Our bed spread matches the curtains in our bedroom...etc. It's the little things that make me feel like we done good!

Our van arrived safely! Thank God. It's in the garage now getting it's British makeover. It needs to have they headlights adjusted (we are going to be driving on the other side of the road and the lights need to point another way). It needs fog lights-front and back and UK plate.s (which are long, thin and yellow-if you ever wondered).

Hope everyone is well and we look forward to hearing from you!

Our new car

Well sort of...

it's a picture of the type of car that we just got last night (3/21/08) same color even! It's a European car, stick and steering on the "wrong" side. I found it online and called them-they wanted 300 pounds for it. Not a bad deal, it's a 1994 Rover 400 Hatchback 75,000 miles. So roughly that's about $600 in American currency.

With 270 pounds cash in hand, Bud went to look at it, just to make sure it was a good deal. He took the checkbook for the remainder amount they were asking. The guy told him it was his golf car and that he rarely drove it...obviously! He also didn't want to bother with a check so gave it to Bud for cash in hand. So we got the car for roughly $500!! Great Deal!

Last night it snowed and was pretty windy. Bud got ready to go to base to take care of things and when he went out to the car, there was a construction site fence on it! They are remodeling a house near us and some stuff fell over and knocked over the fence onto our "new" car! Go figure. A guy helped him get it off and there appeared to be no damage...thank God.

He drove it to base and gave them the information to get through with his new car. He then had to have it registered and while they are doing that they checked the MOT, which is a sort of registration. The police officer ran the plates and found the MOT had expired and took the car. They told Bud that he couldn't drive it until it was inspected. So he had to leave it there (on base at the police station) and take the base bus home!

Well it will be a great deal! When we can get it inspected, have a valid MOT and have it insured we will enjoy our new found freedom.

A bit of history and mystery

It was brought to Bud's attention recently that the park near our cottage in Harrogate has a famous hotel in it. It's the Old Swan Hotel. Click the link below to find out why...

http://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk/oldswan/murder/agatha.htm

I think we will have to walk the other side of the park and investigate the hotel now.

Changes to the B & B:

Due to some technical difficulties I'm taking the calendar off the blog until I can figure it out better. So I guess random visits are okay now! If you are thinking about coming over email me or post a comment in this section for others to see.

Sorry!