Day Two: Conwy Castle

Not far from Llandudno is a lovely castle! After breakfast we were able to take an open air double decker bus that drove us around Llandudno and took us to Conwy and the castle. Here are some pictures from the morning.

Here we are approaching the castle. Isn't it lovely!!! This castle was built by Edward I. It was really fun to see this in person because the third book of the trilogy (Here Be Dragons series I have already told you about) talks a lot about Edward I and Llewelyn ap Gruffyd (The Welsh prince at that time).

The castle was truly beautiful! It was built right off of the bay to utilize ships and gain an advantage during the war. It was also built into the geography of the hills. You can see at the bottom that it is built right on top of the rocky terrain!

There were Welsh flags flying in the castle. It was amazing.

It was so fun to be there and walk around. I love imagining what it would have looked like when it was first built. I have never been this close to a real castle before! It was so cool!!!

The scenery around the castle wasn't bad either....

Isn't it just perfect?!?! The weather was amazing for us this day. Sunny and 70's with a slight breeze.

After we we walked around the castle we explored the town. That was fun! It is still surrounded by a castle wall built by Edward I. So much history and beauty to be found!

Walking along the city wall!

After a late lunch we took the bus back to Llandudno and had to literally drive through the city wall to get out of the city. So cool!!!

We then got our bags and boarded another train that took us to a small town called Betwys-y-Coed at the base of the mountains in north Wales that we would be staying several nights at. Trying to get our suitcases off of this small train was no small feat. An older Welsh gentleman may or may not have commented on how huge our bags were. It was so embarrassing and hilarious. We had a lovely walk of shame dragging them behind us through the entire small town. The suitcases were the bane of our existence.

But we finally made it to the bed and breakfast!

During dinner at a local Welsh restaurant (which was delish) Dan spent time deciding what big hike we would be doing the next day.

After dinner we went on a small hike on a trail in town. It was so pretty and made us very excited for our next day...hiking in Snowdonia!

Day One: Wales

Here we are driving to South Carolina to drop our kids off with Dan's parents. They were so amazing the whole time we were gone. The kids had such a wonderful time with them. Thank you both!!!!

We had a direct flight from Atlanta to London.

We landed in London after flying all night. After we got through customs we tried to pull money out of an ATM and my card wasn't working. My phone wasn't working. We were tired and feeling very foreign. After we got those all resolved we had to navigate the London Underground to get to the right train station to take us up to the town we were staying that night.

We embarrased ourselves multiple
times during those hours (running INTO a train station gate, realizing very quickly that we overpacked and looked ridiculous, almost
missed a train, couldn't find a place to sit on a train, the list goes on). It was so humbling! We speak the same language how could this be so difficult?!?! Hahah.

After several switched trains we got on the one that would take us to our first stop: Llandudno. We were so relieved to be on this fairly empty train!

Here are some views from
the train.

Country side on our left and the seaside to our right. It was so beautiful.

We didn't know what to expect from
this town. We absolutely loved it. It was such a quaint seaside town in north Wales. We got checked into our hotel and walked around. We found a pub and I had a beer. Im not a huge beer drinker but I felt like I needed to do this! :)

After dinner we walked along the beach and just took it all in.

It was such a peaceful night. It was exactly what we needed after 24 hours of straight traveling.

Absolutley breath taking!

After a good night sleep we were ready to explore more.....

Across The Pond

I have been so slow in writing these blogs. I think a big part of it is where do I start?!? And how do I shift through hundreds of photos and tons of feelings to share our vacation? Well I think I am ready. LOL!

So I'll start at the beginning. For my husband and my 10 year wedding Anniversary we traveled to England and Wales!!!!

When we started to approach our anniversary we both knew we wanted to do a big (kid free) trip of some kind. We threw out all kinds of ideas and places and nothing seemed to feel right. Then one day, I asked Dan if he really wanted to know where I wanted to go. Being the amazing husband he is, he said, "YES!" To which I replied: "Wales!"

Side note:
I know that seems like a very random bucket list place. But over the last few years I had read a historical fiction trilogy (my favorite kinds of books) about Welsh Princes. It takes place during 1100's-late 1200's. These books cover the time when Wales fought to try and keep their independence from England. Anyway, these books are very well done (in my opinion) and I found myself rooting for Wales. Haha. After I read the first book called: Here Be Dragons I google imaged Wales because I truly had no idea what it would be like and was blown away! All that to say those books are so good and I really wanted to go and see Wales.

England has been on my "to go see list" for a long time. If you know me at all this will be no surprise. The Beatles. The Beatles are why I really wanted to go to England.

Back to the story:
After I told Dan that and showed him a few of my google images he was game. So we found childcare (thanks so much Papa and Gigi!!! We couldn't have done this without you!!!!!!) and planned our trip. I think this post is long enough so I will have other posts with pictures. But the hardest part was getting started so I needed to just write this one!

Last side note:
My husband truly went on this trip because he knew how excited I was about it all. He likes The Beatles (now) but let's face it he could have died happy not seeing their childhood homes. Wales wasn't something he had on his bucket list. But he told me what makes him happy is to see me happy. He is a really special guy and I want to say thank you to him.

TO DAN: Thank you for taking me on my bucket list trip for our anniversary. Thank you for loving me so well. Thank you for going out of your comfort zone and going on an adventure with me. You are my favorite.

Next Post:
Day one: Wales

Another project

A long time ago a friend shared a post on making this craft:

It looked so beautiful and I wanted to do it, but I never did.

Fast forward to this week. The kids and I finished reading The Secret Garden together. We all really enjoyed the book. It was a great book to expand vocabulary and concepts. We then watched the movie together. Since we were all still enjoying this book and talking about plants we decided to plant a few seeds in pots together.

This was the best picture I could get. Hahah!

Then, I remembered that long lost flower art box. But thinking about finding 4 good cardboard boxes and cutting it all out sounded like a lot of work. So I decided to seriously simplify this project.

We went to the store and bought 1 bouquet of flowers and a package of one sided contact paper

We pulled off one side of the contact paper and set it on the table. Then the kids got to decide what flowers to use and how to make their flower collage.

So they filled up their paper with petals, leaves and flowers. When they were happy with the end result we put another sheet of contact paper on sealing the project in. Then we taped the project on the windows to give it a stained glass look.

I think they turned out just lovely! We looked up all the flowers in the bouquet and learned there was lilies, roses, asters and a few others.

Easy easy easy easy! AND fun project!

Shadow Art

One of my friends posted an idea for an art project. It was so simple but looked like it could be fun. So we went ahead and tried it!

All you need is a flashlight, plastic animals, paper and coloring supplies! Easy, right?

What I really liked about this project was how creative it made the children! Since the shadows had different shapes and lengths each animal came out kind of wacky looking. The kids totally embraced it and made the pictures fit the shadow!

Here are Pierce's pictures!

Here are Saffryn's

And Max

I'm sure you notice we are missing a child. This activity was kind of hard for Colt. His literal preschool brain had a hard time embracing the creative aspect of this. He really wanted his picture to look exactly like the animal and got very frustrated when it didn't turn out that way. Maybe he will enjoy it more next time since he will know what to expect!

We will for sure do this again because it was so easy and 3/4 of my kids loved it!