Stowe - 29 August 2015

 This is the house at Stowe. Stowe house and gardens are famous for their beauty. This property was owned by the same family for over 350 years. In the late 1700's Stowe was the "most magnificent landscape garden in Britain". It was a nice warm day and we walked around the gardens. We didn't even see all of it, it is so big! That is my cute sis-in-law Kristy, I caught her turning around. Those kids were making us nervous so close to the water.

 Landscape gardens are the large gardens that look like they are not designed, but they really are. You may remember my references to formal gardens in previous posts. Formal gardens have the shaped hedges, water fountain, etc. Landscape gardens look more natural and use natural water and streams. "the Landscape style was all about creating pictures and framing vistas"  They are also usually dotted with temples, arches, rotundas, or bridges...or all of them. Just think Jane Austen movies...those huge houses in those movies usually had landscape gardens. Love them!

This was the kids' favorite part of the day! I had to finally stop them from rolling down before someone really got hurt.  They had fun though!

So romantic...I may frame this one.

We are sitting up right in front of the house now, looking back down toward the water.

Addy is telling someone to stop! Crazy cousins!

This is Lewis, he's 2 and has the most adorable english accent!

My girl with the American accent, but it is changing!

She loves to pose!

Preston wants Dallin to make our lawn look like this!
The grass was so soft, I made everyone take off their shoes and run around on it!

The front steps up to the house.
We didn't tour the house, because it was getting late and we
didn't think the kids would last.

We thought this lion's expression was rather funny looking!

A very cool arch making a pretty picture spot. It was a little shady though!

*These were only the photos on my phone. I took a lot on my camera, but at the moment I can't get them to the blog...long story. Anyway, I am getting  behind on this blog, so I'm just posting what I can! I may blog more about it later, because there are so many lovely things to see at Stowe!

Legoland or Bust! 5 September 2015

Yep, there is a Legoland in Windsor. It takes an hour from our house to get there. We went with our cousins to celebrate Tessa's 5th and Nathan's 7th birthdays. They are both currently crazy about LEGO! Lots of others had the same idea, so we waited in line a lot, but it was fun!

I think my life would not be as fun without Sam ;)
Nathan would NOT stand by this Darth Vader!
He knew it was made of Lego, but still a little creepy...

R2D2 was okay!

This Darth wasn't so scary.

Lego train ride

Waiting in line... 

I love that face!

Blurry - sorry! Addy was so fun on this roller coaster.
She kept saying, "WEEE" and cheering. She is fearless!
(except for spider webs, we'll talk about that later :)

Of course the kids like the playground the best.
We should have taken some Lego to the local park :0)

Girl LEGO- Kaylie was in heaven!

 This makes me what to build Lego. My kids were making their Christmas lists as we looked at this display of Heartlake City.

This is why LEGO is so expensive. It's so cool!
We complain about how expensive it is, but we buy it anyway!

These two cousins were thrilled! 

 This ride was so fun! Sitting on a horse, spinning and turning around
and going up and down. It took my breath away a couple times.
I love listening to my kids on rides. Only the oldest 3 were big enough for this one.

WE MADE IT!!

Everyone else went on the Lego train ride.

I think he's getting a bit too tall...

 My favorite part is the mini lands. Lego sized replicas of famous buildings and places. I didn't get lots of photos here because my phone died. Preston's did too. We didn't have charging cords either. We had to find our way home without our GPS which we had really been relying on. I had just purchased a map book that week and successfully guided us home in the dark, on the wrong side of the road. I was proud of myself! (And really, really thankful I listened to the prompting to buy a map book for the car earlier that week!)