Chatsworth House (aka Pemberly)

For our third weekend trip in October, we visited the grand Chatsworth House. It is in the Peak District, which is famed for its beauty and was somewhere I really wanted to visit. Chatsworth is discussed briefly in Bill Bryson's new book At Home, which Dave and I had both recently read, and it is commonly described as one of the 5 best "great houses" in England. I wasn't expecting anything nearly as wonderful as what we found. And to top it off, this was the setting of Pemberly (Mr. Darcy's house) in the Kiera Knightley/Matthew McFadyen version of Pride and Prejudice. So after reading this post, go re-watch the movie, or at least the Pemberly scenes. WOW. Beautiful house, gardens, grounds, adventure playground, everything. So if you are in England or planning to visit England, put this on your to-do list. You will not be disappointed. Also, as we were leaving I picked up a biography at the book shop about Bess Hardwick. Talk about an amazing life, she was essentially a peer of Queen Elizabeth and became one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, women in England during her lifetime. Her descendants still live in Chatsworth today, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. Here is a sampling of some of the great pics Dave took, for the rest, go here.

I wouldn't mind waking up to this view every morning.

My sweetie - who is everything Jane Austen was trying to portray in her heroes, only MUCH better.

H&E at the entrance to the coal mine. They had their own mine, which was hidden so that guests wouldn't suspect its existence. Can't seem too common you know.

I have been pleasantly surprised at the amazing fall colors here, it rivals New England in places.

Three of my favorite people.

This picture took a lot of "coaxing". E was really embarassed because there were a bunch of other people who all were taking pictures and then, taking pictures of him. He really didn't want to be on display. We couldn't pass up the photo op though.



Let's do Thanksgiving here next year.

We have found the Maltese falcon.



This statue is before we got to the hall of sculptures. I missed it because of the 3 rowdy kids who were finding all the pumpkins that were hidden. Dave thankfully saw it and sent me back to see it, I am so glad he did.

We stood in the little outlook to the left of the grand staircase.



The kids's favorite part : ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND!!!

Kiddo Love

H: Mom, where did you get that t-shirt and why does it have a turkey on it?

Me: I ran the Turkey Trot today. It is a race and because it is before Thanksgiving they put a turkey on the shirt.

H: Did you win?

Me: No, of course not.

H: What place did you get?

Me: It doesn't matter

E: What place did you get?

Me: Somewhere around 85th (I know it was exactly 85th because they gave me a Popsicle stick with that number on it as I crossed the finish line to identify me with my time. Everyone ran without watches and you had to guess what you thought your time would be. The one closest to their estimated time won a turkey)

H: Wow, you are not a very good runner.

Me: Well, there were over 200 runners....

It turns out that arguing with your 7 year old doesn't actually make you a better runner. The truth was, I ran really well and was very proud of myself. I had a great time. And someday, when H comes in 85th place I will look at her, smile really big and say "Wow, you are not a very good runner" or alternatively "great job honey, I am really proud of you". I am leaving my options open.

Virginia Trip

The first week of October we went back to Virginia, and it was fabulous. We saw many family and friends who we love and miss daily. We visited grandma and grandpa's cabin in West Virgina, went to some of our best loved parks, the zoo, did a LOT of shopping, and ate at many restaurants we had missed. Here are some of the highlights. For all of the pictures, visit flickr.

Enoch sporting an awesome hat - Fidel is recruiting him.

I love the below picture of Enoch, which I think looks just like an ad for Gap. Where is our commission?

It turns out that Phinn really loves his grandpa. He warmed right up to him, which is pretty unusual. Phinn is pretty suspcious of people, he can give you a cold hard stare, even when he knows and loves you. But grandpa could make him laugh and he loved to snuggle on grandpa's shoulder.



We went to Clemynjontri park on a perfect day. It was almost completely empty because in DC it was considered cold weather, it was about 60 degrees. My kids thought it was practically balmy.



Enoch and Hilde loved having their own racetrack. I don't know how many times they ran up and down it.

Some of the cousins doing their "serious" face - which was more angry for some than others.

This was Enoch's favorite thing at the zoo.

All of the cousins together.

The National Zoo has an O-line for the Orangutans to cross the zoo overhead. I had not see them using it before. When the rest of the family headed to the car, Enoch and I ran over to check out the lions and tigers (he and I LOVE fitting in as much as possible). On our way back, we looked up, and there they were. There was a third orangutan following behind. Once these two got to a platform, they looked back and waited for the third to catch up, it was really awesome to see.

It was nice to be home for a week. It was nice to come home to England afterwards. It is going to be so bittersweet when we get on the plane for the last time next July.

Hogwarts aka Alnwick Castle

For our first "3rd weekend" trip, we took a drive 2 hours North of us, to visit Alnwick Castle. You know it better as Hogwarts. The castle and grounds were used in some of the Harry Potter films. What was especially nice, was that we were quite impressed with lack of commercialism we saw. In fact, unless you knew it was Hogwarts before you came, you might not figure it out while you were there. We saw a few signs and stumbled across Hagrid (photo below) and while Dave and the kids were touring the castle I saw an outdoor short performance with Harry, Hagrid and Dumbledore, but that was it. And it was obvious why, the castle and grounds were amazing, no need for added commercialism to get people to visit. If you end up in the North of England, you have got to check it out. It is one of our favorite places we have gone to and if we were here for longer, I would definitely go back. Here are some highlights from our grand day out:

At the gardens they had these awesome tractors where you could drive up, get a load of water, and drive and deposit it somewhere else. Super cool.

This is one of my favorite shots of Phinn and I.

The gardens included a bamboo maze which the kids thought was the best thing EVER.

When we found the center of the maze, the kids decided it was time for a swordfight. Don't worry, nobody was harmed in the making of this picture.

Something we didn't expect to see was a poison garden. They let you in as small groups, with a guided tour and pretty close supervision. The plants were mostly illegal in the UK and other parts of the world and they had gotten special permission to have them. They only pointed out a few things, but you could have spent much longer being amazed. I kept a VERY close eye on the kids while we were in there.



As we walked from the gardens to the castle, this is what we saw. And the picture perfect blue sky was a special bonus all day.



A decent picture of me, thanks babe.

Dave and Phinn, you can't see Phinn's whole face, but he is so incredibly happy, I love it.



One of the special things for kids was the Dragon Quest. Enoch looked forward to it all day. They had costumes and a training area.

Hilde practicing the kill stroke.

Hagrid, as promised.

Quidditch anyone? This is where they filmed the scene where the kids learn to fly on their broomsticks. As soon as we got home we watched this scene with the kids and everyone was pointing and saying, we were right there!

Dave and Enoch fighting in the barbican.

The kids were too young to shoot arrows, but they let us take pictures of our aspiring archers with their bows.

A regular Robin Hood.




So how are we going to beat that? Well, we will do our best and you'll be the first to know what we find!

For all the pics, go to flikr.