Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire County

Today we ventured out to visit Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire County. It was a free weekend for National Trust sites so we found one close to see. Most castles were made of stone but this a rare red-brick medieval castle built by Ralph Cromwell, Lord Treasurer of England and once one of the most powerful men in England.

It's pretty impressive walking up to the grounds with the moats surrounding the guards house and the 6 story castle.

My cutie kids sitting on one of the old castle walls.

The massive thickness of the walls was evident in the basement. We got the kids to stand up in the window opening.

On one of the floors they had some toys that kids would have played with in the 13th century. Addie really liked the ribbon sticks and Kevin showed her how to play with the ball catching cups.

Every floor had a massive fireplace. Since we are into different fireplaces we had to pose for a picture. There were loads of stone carvings on each but a prevalent one was that of a money back which was the symbol for the Lord Treasurer. Also each floor had loads of stain glassed windows showing the coat of arms for many of the contractors and worksmen who built the castle.

We climbed up 150 stairs to the top of this amazing 6 story castle. One feature I love about this castle that I remember seeing at Kirby Hall as well is the built in hand rail into the stone work.

Here is Addison on top of a grate covering machicolation holes which are common in French castles apparently but not so much in English ones. I guess they used to drop things down through them onto attackers on the ground.

The walk around the battlements on top was really cool. The views were amazing and you could see for miles. We could actually see Lincoln Cathedral in the NW skyline which was some 18-20 miles away!

We let the kids do some running around the castle grounds.

Addison played peek-a-boo with us behind a tree...so cute.

We had eaten lunch at home but we brought along some fruity snacks and cookies to enjoy on the grounds. This is Kevin's new snack he made up for the kids which is a blueberry nestled in a strawberry that I hulled out the stem. They had so much fun with them. The weather was cool, but it has been one of the nicer days we've had so far this year and it's nice to see signs of spring showing up finally.

Hot Sauce???

Again my silly little boy just makes me laugh at how his little mind works. Today for supper we had "naked" chicken strips (essentialy non-breaded home made strips) and Kevin and I used some wild wings sauces to dip them in. Well somehow Harrison "realized" that I had forgotten the Hot Sauce and in the middle of dinner he got up and walked to the fridge and got it out. Then came back to his seat, plopped it up on the table and when he got back in his seat he whined a bit until someone opened it up and put some on his plate. What a funny kid!

Bringing Him Up English

Dinner time is quite interesting these days. Harrison wants to do and eat everything like mommy and daddy. Usually we set him and Addie down with a "high tea" meaning a really early light supper and then we all sit down together for our main meal. Once Kevin and I sit down, Harrison is immediately drawn to one of us and what we are eating. Often he ends up one of our laps eating all of our food. I got a total kick out of seeing him grab both the knife and fork together the other day. Kevin and I have picked up this English habit of eating "backwards" and guess Harry has picked it up too. Eventhough he's American...he'll be my little British baby.

Guess He was Hungry...

As I was working on a sewing project, he came in the dining room chewing on something that had an interesting smell. I asked him what he was eating and he somewhat laughed and ran into the living room. What I found was a plate and an empty container of chicken salad on the couch. I was speechless and instincts sent me for my camera. My son never ceases to amaze me. Guess he was hungry enough and was tired of waiting for me to get something for him that he helped himself to whatever he could find in the fridge...of all the things he could get though...chicken salad????

Simple St. Paddy's Day

We didn't do a whole lot for St. Paddy's day this year which is a real shame because we usually do. Several things lead to our demise though....

#1 we are still in diet mode so eating boiled potatoes doesn't bode well and all other Irish food we like were all banned from our diet

2ndly you can't find a proper corned beef in the UK unless it is Christmas or Easter time as per the meat counter guy at Sainsbury's

C) - no one around here celebrates it at all so we essentially forgot that it was even here.

At the last minute, I decided we had to do something. So when our neighbor girl Gemma came over to have supper with the kids, I got out the chocolate cupcakes I had frozen from Addison's birthday and made up some green tinted frosting. And bless Gemma as she brought over her iPod Touch and played a cupcake making game with Addison and they made special virtual St. Paddy's Day cupcakes.

Visiting the Tower of London

Today we made our first adventure as a family down to London. The forecast called for sun so we thought we would chance it. This time we decided to take the train down and took advantage of the 2-for-1 ticket offer into the Tower of London for our main attraction for the day.

We happened to take the really LONG train down so we had 1 1/2 hours to enjoy each others company. The kids really like riding on the trains and it is really one of the easiest means of transportation....wish we had more trains in the US. Harrison enjoyed a little snack (as he hoards the whole bag of pretzels) as he watches outside.

Our morning consisted on looking for post offices that would allow us to do our biometrics testing to carry on our work permit process. We hit two dead ends and found out that we didn't have the proper paperwork to allow us to even do it at the post office. Looks like we'll have to make another trip to London soon. Needless to say we did get to see the "Old Town" station and got back to Camden Town so it wasn't a completely wasted morning. The really fun part of the morning though was that 3 of the main tube lines that we wanted to travel were all down so we spent about an hour trying to the Tower Hill where the Tower of London was at...I can tell you that is very difficult when both the District and Circle lines aren't running (since those are the two lines that stop right at Tower Hill). Anyways we had to do a bit of walking to get to the castle but we did get to see this really cool old style double decker bus along the way.

Again we have to thank William the Conqueror for building a massive stone tower at the center of his London fortress in the 1070's so that we had something to go see today. Of course Ol' Bill has constructed many fortresses that we have enjoyed seeing during our time in England. The Tower is quite impressive in it's size and the function that it served for so many years as a medieval palace, prison, and home of the Crown Jewels.

Of course before we entered the castle the kids wanted to partake in a very English tradition of eating ice cream in the freezing cold. Our 60 degree F weather turned into 40's weather and cloudy but they still wanted ice cream which they have everywhere!

Addison even let Harry have a little bit.

Here are the kids in front of a very old canon displayed next to the "White Tower" which I guess happens to be one of the most well preserved 11th century buildings in Europe. Back behind the tower are the Waterloo Barracks where the Crown Jewels are stored. The same guards that stand near Buckingham and St. James Palace are also stationed at the door of the barracks and you can get right up close with them.

Some other interesting fellows that we met were some of the Yeoman Warders. There are 34 men and one woman who cover various duties at the Tower such as watchman, looking after visitor safety and conduct guided tours. Each Yeoman has at least 22 years of military service, have reach the rank of warrant officer, have been awarded the long service and good conduct medal and be between 40 and 55 years old. They all live in what they call the Casemates which are small flats on the castle grounds. I had always wondered why I saw a swingset and climbing frame on the east side of the grounds from the outside...some of them have school aged children who live at the castle as well. All of the guards were quite nice and Addison really too a liking to one named George...she looked all over for him after we left the tour group.

We got to see a lot of cool interactive displays that showed how the castle was used as a defense mechanism. This helmet probably weighed about 5-8 pounds.

Our kiddos on the castle wall with Tower Bridge behind them...what a pair!!! They are finally getting the pose thing down.

Kevin showed Addison how to use a medieval cross bow...wow, the guys who used these things had to be pertty darn strong to pull the bow back.

This metal knight showed Addison how to stand guard on the east wall.

This block and axe were actually used for 4 of the executions held at Tower Hill. Not sure though if it was the exact one used for Anne Boelyn or not but could have been.

This was one of the executioner's masks....creepy!!!

Here we are in the Bloody Tower which was thought to be the place where the Richard III allegedly had his twin nephew's stored and murdered as they would have been heir to the thrown after the death of Edward IV but they were declared illegitimate (but he had to make sure they wouldn't come after the crown you know.)

A replica of Henry VIII's armor....as you can tell he wanted to make sure the "crown jewels" were well protected.

After we went through the Tower of London we did a little walking around just to see what we could see. One thing we did smell was hot roasted candied nuts and they looked and smelled amazing. I made the mistake of asking one of the guys around the Tower if I could take a picture of his nuts...yeah, you can guess where that went. I did replay by saying "Thanks, but tempting."

We took a little walk through St. Catherine's Dock which is a very "posh" part of London. Home to many exuberantly large yachts and boats. I thought this sign was interesting..."Boat Owner's Only" and then behind it are these really old sailing ships looking to be several centuries old...I asked Kevin who he thought the boat owner's were for those.

This was classic...an entrance to underground pay toilets in the middle of an intersection in a pretty busy road just up from the Tower of London.

With two sleeping kids in the stroller we headed back to King's Cross to catch our train. We are quite a site heading down the escalators in the Underground and especially when we have to carry the thing up and down stairs, but you do what you gotta do.

We caught a bit of supper before heading home. The kids and Kevin got some McD's but I had to endulge in a chicken and veg pasty from the West Cornwall Pasty Co. One of my favorite English foods is the pasty and the WCP Co. had moved out of King's Cross for a while due to renovations and I was so happy to see them back!!!

Girls Day in London - Legally Blonde, The Palms, Nabu

Today I went along on an amazing girls day out in London with some fabulous ladies that are part of our ISE group. Thanks again to Sarah for organizing the show and train and Becki/Miranda for picking our places to eat. It was a cold but sunny day in England and we hopped on the fast train down around 11AM Sunday morning.

Once we got to King's Cross we headed down all new path to the Piccadilly line and down newly renovated escalators to catch the Tube.

Here is Laurie, Becki, Miranda, and Sarah waiting for our Underground train. We are sooooo hungry!!!!

We ate lunch at the luxurious Palms Restaurant which was actually started in New York and made it's way across the pond. The attraction of this place to all of us is that they actually fly in beef from the United States to serve. The menu's actually say that they are USDA approved!!! It is normally a very, very expensive place to eat (40 GBP for just a steak), but they have a set lunch menu that is much less.

So I only paid 15 GBP for these amazing fillets and the best roasted tomato soup I have ever had. Now a very small diet Coke in the old style Coke bottles runs you over 3 GBP but it was all amazing.

Another thing that blew away some of the girls was the fact that they offer "RANCH" dressing with their salads which is unheard of in any restaurant in England.

As you can see it's a pretty posh place with white linen table clothes and amazing decor. Here are my tablemates: Madison S., Anisa Z., Kim Z. and me (of course)

Across the table sat Miranda, Becki, Sarah, Laurie and Jeanne. In the background of the picture you can see faces painted on the wall. The whole place has celebrities painted on the wall and some cartoon murals...I guess it looks like a typical New York style restaurant.

We had some pretty amazing staff help us out and when they brought out the dessert tray we all ooohhhhed and awwwhhh'ed over it. Unfortunately we tried ordering dessert but then realized we only had 45 minutes to eat, pay, and get to the show which was IMPOSSIBLE to do!!! So sad but we would have been much sadder if we couldn't get in the show. We rushed as fast as we could to the Savoy Theatre and made in with two minutes to spare! (Good thing we skipped dessert)

The show was absolutely AMAZING. I didn't know how they were going to turn the TV movie into a musical but it was brilliant. So funny and the characters were very animated. Apparently three of the cast are actually pretty famous outside of the show - two being from the British kids show Dr. Who and one from band call Blue.

The gal who played Elle Woods was amazing!!! She had an amazing voice and so perfect for the part. The best scenes were the "Bend and Snap" number and the UPS guy who was hilarious throwing in an Ace Ventura line.

I love going to shows in London and the few times I have gone I ask myself why I don't go more. Sarah was able to get us Stalls seats for only 30 GBP for a Sunday matinee which was great to allow for a whole day to get out with the girls. I did check in with Kevin to see how Harry was doing and to see if I could stay with some of the gals for supper and he was so wonderful to say "have a great time, love you" I love those kind of texts!!!

A few of us did stay for supper at the famous Nabu. It is a high end Japanese restaurant that is so protective of their celebrity status guests that they don't allow you to take pictures inside. Well that didn't stop us from snatching a few pics of the amazing food here.

We let Becki do most of our ordering since she frequents this place more than any of us. She picked out some great sushi for us to split and here I am eating steamed and salted "soybeans" in the pod. I kept laughing because I could just picture my past as I would be walking out in soybean fields looking for weeds and bugs to kill and now I was eating them in a super posh restaurant in London. A great day and evening that created memories for a lifetime!

He Helps Put Away Dishes

Harrison loves to help me do loads of things around the house. Today he was very anxious to help me load and unload the dishwasher. He is so funny because he kind of knows where everything goes. For certain kitchen gadgets he knows that go in the drawer he will open it and toss them in there. For the tupperware he puts up on the counter where I normally do and for all the glass and breakables I catch them before he gets too far. It is a wonderful habit that he has that I hope continues on as he grows older.

Afternoon at Sacrewell Farms

Today after preschool, we met up with Molly and Lauren at Sacrewell farms for the afternoon.

As always, Addison loves to feed the sheep. It is so funny to listen to her talk to them, telling them that they need to share and that everyone gets a turn. Then telling the sheep that they have had enough as she leaves to feed the goats.

Lauren wasn't as keen on feeding the sheep, but she built up some courage with the help of her friend Addie. Again I wasn't on the ball and forgot to bring along the kids' wellies. I thought things had dried up but forgot my own "farm" days that you should always be prepared. Needless to say we did get pretty muddy and with my kiddos' ability to trip on air we had quite a few tumbles in the mud.

After feeding the sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and bunnies and visiting the horses we stopped in quick to see the baby chicks. They were getting bigger now and soon the baby lambs were going to be showing up at the farm. So I guess we'll have to go back soon so we can help feed them.