Royal Wedding

And what are you having for your Royal Lunch to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton?  We got the following note yesterday from Hilde and Enoch's school:

Dear Parents,

School will be celebrating the forthcoming Royal Wedding with a special Royal lunch on Thursday 28th April.  The menu will be as follows:

Chicken a la King
Duchess Potatoes
Princess Peas
Carrot Soldiers

Wedding Cake

I think that if I was doing the menu, I might have added Royal Icing somewhere on the list, how about you?

Aquarium Antics

Our kids love aquariums.  Our last stop on our trip to Wales was to hit an aquarium in Chester on our way back up to home.  They had a great time, but Dave and I were in shock as to how much we paid to see so absolutely little.  And since the day was rainy and cold, the place was completely packed.  What a mess.

 Probably the best part was the Ray tank, where you could pet the rays.  Enoch thought that was pretty cool.  Hilde was much more hesitant, but did eventually pet one or two.

Bedtime

This is going to be the classic picture of Hilde and Phinn together.  Here they are, watching a show before bedtime on Dave's IPad.  Hilde has her new helmet on, and Phinn is 100% devoted to his sister.

These are definitely going to be on display at both of their wedding receptions!

Conwy Castle

After the greatness of Carnaerfon, and the strength of Beaumaris, I wasn't sure what to expect from Conwy castle.  We had views of it from our cottage in Llandudno and it was literally minutes from us. We kept it for last though.  It was different from the other two castles, but absolutely stunning.  It was also the best for the kids to visit.  They received little detective books and then they had to find clues around the castle.  Hilde and Enoch had so much fun running into every nook and cranny looking for clues.  Hilde quite forgot all the spiral staircases, and it was really fun.  Phinn got really into the knight spirit here, he was quite a character.  I saw a lot of other people stop and snap pictures of him, charging with his foam sword drawn.

After spending most of the morning at the castle, Dave took the kids over to a shop for little knights.  While he was there, I saw this plaque:

I am really going to miss living here!

Beaumaris Castle

From Carnaerfon, we drove directly to Beaumaris.  Each of the castles in this area were built or re-built by King Edward and were strategically built one days march from each other.  Luckily for us, we were in our car, so it only took about 45 minutes to get here.  The location here was quite stunning and the day was a brilliant blue.  Perfect castle viewing weather.

This may be the only castle we have visited with a moat still holding water.  It was very cool.  The squatness of this castle was due to construction stopping after a lack of funds.  Don't worry though, this is one serious fortress.  If it had been attacked, which it wasn't, it would have been nigh impossible to defeat.  Super strong, super cool.

I love the way the lighting hit Enoch in this shot.  He was our little knight the whole trip.

As we were getting ready to leave, storm clouds started to roll in.  Behind us about 400 yards is the castle. 

Carnaerfon Castle

 

Carnaerfon Castle confirmed our belief that this was going to be an amazing trip.  Sitting right next to the water, the Castle was built as a fortress and a palace.   Construction started in the 1200s, so it isn't exactly new.  One interesting fact is that King Edward, the English king who spent a majority of his whole fighting and building castles in Wales, crowned his son Prince of Wales at Carnaerfon.  That tradition has continued, mostly uninterrupted, since that time.  Prince Charles had his investiture here, and that is why he is the Prince of Wales, and Diana was the Princess of Wales.  As you can imagine, the Welsh weren't too keen on an English King crowning their son the Prince of Wales back in the day, but it seems to be all ceremonial now.  The castle was amazing.  It was fairly well intact with lots of places to explore.  Hilde's only complaint - too many spiral staircases!  If you want to check out more photos, go here.