June 19-21
We took the weekend to drive up to the North Yorkshire area. We had heard that it was beautiful and want to go see the beautiful coastlines. Jeanne also has an interesting dvd set (the indestructible book) that talks about the history of the Bible. One of the events it speaks on is the miracle at the Whitby abbey. Caedmon was a stable boy who always avoided singing at the nearly mandatory singing evenings at the abbey. But one night when he conveniently excused himself from the singing to care for the animals it is said that an angel appeared to him and told him to sing. He denied but then finally obeyed. He was shocked to hear a glorious singing voice. And not only that he was able to turn the latin scripture into songs that the everyday person could understand. Caedmon was one of the first translators of the scripture!
Anyway, after seeing the DVD several times, it was one of the sights that Jeanne wanted to go to...and we were quite pleased. It was an incredible setting on the coast.
Next we headed off to Robin Hoods bay. Jeanne had heard of a charming tiny village that boasts rocks with fossils "in nearly every rock". Jeanne was eagerly looking forward to breaking rocks open with hammers and seeing all sorts of fossils. But unfortunately we didn't realize that the rocky coastline that we were wanting to explore was only accessible during low tide and we arrived at high tide.
So as an alternative we headed on to Castle Howard and squeeked in before their closing time (a minute to spare!)
It is a castle similar to Burghley House but it boasts being the movie set for Brideshead Revisited.
The gardens were the best gardens we had seen so far here in England. Perhaps it was the beautiful spring season season too that made it seem so absolutely wonderful...
The next day we were able to hit the Robin Hoods Bay at LOW tide! The village was beautiful but the rock splitting was not what Jeanne thought it would crack up to be (pun intended). Fossils were hard to find if at all.
...But the crabs weren't! Madison had a great time collecting crabs in her hands!
She made it up to 10 baby crabs several times and wasn't pinched...until the last batch she collected... one got her. Thankfully it wasn't too hard.
We had wandered a bit of the way up the rocky coastline and were amazed speed of the tide coming in. We were fine but could see how it would be easy to get stranded!
Next came the highlight of our trip (another one)... Eden Camp! It is an ex-prisoner of war camp. The barracks were turned into a museum of all the modern wars.
It of course spends most of the barracks concentrating on WW2 but there were quite a few that dealt with WW1 and various wars.
The amount of information on all of the signs could take a week to read. And there were plenty of visual and audio displays to give you a feel of the time. It also was interesting because it was from a UK perspective! It truly is a must-see for any war-history buffs!
The girls also enjoyed their playground and playing soldier...it's not just for boys!
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Bryce was unable to compete at the regional's due to a conflict with a mandatory test (GCSE). So when the PE teacher submitted his throwing distance to the Independent School Association we were hopeful that he would qualify again for Nationals.
Bryce all spring had been exercising in the hopes of improving his distance. But a big difference was the weight of the shot put. So although his distance got longer it wasn't as much as he had hoped (because the ball was heavier!).
The big day finally arrived! Scott took the afternoon off and we drove over to
The athletes huddled around the record keeper. We knew it would be close. Bryce had his back to us and I whispered to Scott... "video tape this because if he wins he'll give a good reaction".
And a few seconds later Bryce did a cha-ching move with his arm. His distance was 11.05 and the other competitor was 11.00. HE WON NATIONALS! We were all screaming and cheering for Bryce across the field while his team mates came up and patted him on the back and shook his hand.
We took the weekend to drive up to the North Yorkshire area. We had heard that it was beautiful and want to go see the beautiful coastlines. Jeanne also has an interesting dvd set (the indestructible book) that talks about the history of the Bible. One of the events it speaks on is the miracle at the Whitby abbey. Caedmon was a stable boy who always avoided singing at the nearly mandatory singing evenings at the abbey. But one night when he conveniently excused himself from the singing to care for the animals it is said that an angel appeared to him and told him to sing. He denied but then finally obeyed. He was shocked to hear a glorious singing voice. And not only that he was able to turn the latin scripture into songs that the everyday person could understand. Caedmon was one of the first translators of the scripture!
Next we headed off to Robin Hoods bay. Jeanne had heard of a charming tiny village that boasts rocks with fossils "in nearly every rock". Jeanne was eagerly looking forward to breaking rocks open with hammers and seeing all sorts of fossils. But unfortunately we didn't realize that the rocky coastline that we were wanting to explore was only accessible during low tide and we arrived at high tide.
So as an alternative we headed on to Castle Howard and squeeked in before their closing time (a minute to spare!)
The next day we were able to hit the Robin Hoods Bay at LOW tide! The village was beautiful but the rock splitting was not what Jeanne thought it would crack up to be (pun intended). Fossils were hard to find if at all.
Next came the highlight of our trip (another one)... Eden Camp! It is an ex-prisoner of war camp. The barracks were turned into a museum of all the modern wars.
It of course spends most of the barracks concentrating on WW2 but there were quite a few that dealt with WW1 and various wars.
The amount of information on all of the signs could take a week to read. And there were plenty of visual and audio displays to give you a feel of the time. It also was interesting because it was from a UK perspective! It truly is a must-see for any war-history buffs!
The girls also enjoyed their playground and playing soldier...it's not just for boys!
Madison had the opportunity to sing with her school choir in a charity concert at the Royal Albert Hall. She was thrilled at the opportunity. The concert hall was amazing! Jeanne was able to take a quick video before being informed by an over-zealous seating attendant that absolutely no video or photography was allowed... sigh... (the above photo is from the internet).
A sea of green shirts sang and danced in front of an enormous crowd. Saralee and Lawrence were able to come and watch also. In fact, because Lawrence couldn't walk the long distance from the underground we qualified for free handicapped parking. It was absolutely amazing how we were able to park right outside the front door.
Jeanne found out that Rowan Atikinson was soon to leave his role as Fagin in Oliver she decided to try to get tickets. Although Scott's parents were visiting and we had just come off of a long week in Ireland, Jeanne decided to take off for a day of theatre with Madison. It was a Mommy-Daughter date that we will never forget. The tickets were hard to find at the time though. But looking on Ebay she was able to find two Saturday matinee tickets for a reasonable price. It was great to see a Mr. Bean adaptation of Fagin.
