Cemeteries, Stonehenge and a Pub- Day 18

Don't worry I'm getting toward the end of my trip! I only have four more days to blog about. ;)

And now Cemeteries, Stonehenge and a British pub!

The day before this and all this day it had rained a lot. I know it rains a lot in England but it was more so than normal because there was a winter hurricane afoot. Not only was it rainy but it was really windy also. I'll talk more about it below.

On our way to Stonehenge, we made some family history stops. Grandma had looked up some town names where a few ancestors had lived or were buried in and we realized they weren't too far out of our way to go on the way to Stonehenge.

Once we got close to the towns, we stopped at any churches close by to search the cemeteries for family names. We didn't stop for too long at any of them, though, (mainly because of the weather) and we didn't find any ancestors but it was still cool to see these old churches and cemeteries in the beautiful countryside of England!

One of the cemeteries we stopped at!

Another cemetery and church we stopped at. I loved the location of this one on the water!

I don't remember what town this was in, but this road is where two of my ancestors were married.

One of the towns an ancestor lived in.

I took this picture to show the driving on the "wrong" side of the road and the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

We stopped to take a picture of this cool looking house!

So we made it to Stonehenge and the picture above was our first view!

(I have to mention here that Stonehenge is in the middle of nowhere and there are no trees or buildings or anything to block the wind and the rain from pelting us.)

I, of course, had to take this picture of Dad, Grandma and I walking toward Stonehenge after we got off the bus. ;)

Stonehenge! Just think how long these stone have been standing. They were built in about 3100 BC. Crazy, eh!?

It was pretty dang awesome seeing Stonehenge in person!

Even though you can't tell from this picture, it was windy and rainy and cold.

There was a park service lady who was measuring the wind speed while keeping watch for any rule breakers. She told us that the winds were anywhere from 35-45 mph. Let me just tell you, these weren't just gusts of wind, but this was a serious constant wind with no reprieve. 

Of course, the weather didn't stop us from enjoying Stonehenge, it just added to the adventure of being there. :)

I also just want to say how pleased I am with the way this selfie turned out since I was using my real camera and couldn't see what was in the picture while I was taking it. :)

Dad and Grandma stayed for a little bit but the wind and cold and pelting rain was getting to them, so they went back to the visitor center to get warm and dry and I stayed and explored a little more.

You can usually walk all the way around Stonehenge, but part of the trail was closed off, but I went as far as I could.

Read to learn more about Stonehenge.

It really is in the middle of nowhere. :)

But look how green it is!

Read the last paragraph of the picture above to learn about this lone standing stone.

I believe the mounds you see in the grass are significant, but I couldn't tell you why.

Hi!

This is back outside the visitor center. This stone is like what Stonehenge is made of, but we could touch it. I mainly included this picture because if you look closely, you can see the rain.

Read the picture below to learn about the huts above.

After our lovely but rainy, cold, and windy day at Stonehenge, we headed back to M and K's house. Have I mentioned how beautiful the countryside of England is?! Well it's gorgeous!

This was our last evening with M and K and family so we decided to go to a pub near their house for dinner. 

I love this picture of J "reading" the menu! He can't read yet, but he looks so intent in reading that menu. :)

All of us, minus Dad (who was taking the picture), at the pub!

I got a real British pot pie and it was delicious! I hadn't had one yet at this point on my trip, but I was happy to finally try one since I'd heard so much about them. :) It did not disappoint. It was really good!

This day was an adventurous and memorable day! Thank you Dad and Grandma for a lovely day exploring the countryside of England and thank you M and K for dinner at the pub and for letting us stay with you!

Gadfield Elm Chapel and Tewkesbury Abbey- Day 17

This day was a Sunday. We went to church and then Matt, Dad, Grandma and I visited two places near M and K's house.

Our first stop was Gadfield Elm Chapel, which is the oldest LDS chapel in the world. Although it is not used as a meeting house any more, we could still go inside because it is a visitor's center.

There wasn't anyone there when we went but they have a code to get into the building with clues as to what the code is beside the door.  

Inside the chapel.

I don't really like this picture of me, but it's the only picture I have of Dad, Matt and I together here.

The outside of the church. Isn't it cute?!

After spending a little bit of time at Gadfield Elm Chapel, we went to Tewkesbury Abbey (only about 10 miles away). Tewkesbury Abbey was built in 1121 and sometimes it amazes me how old some buildings are in England and they're still standing.

Tewkesbury Abbey was pretty spectacular!

We got there right before mass was beginning so we didn't get to spend too much time inside, so we walked around the outside of the abbey.

I liked the flowers in this picture.

This is the one picture I got inside. So I don't know exactly how mass works, but we were there like 3 minutes before it was starting and we didn't see any parishioners.

I don't know if they were all in an area of the church that we couldn't see or if just no one was there that Sunday, but it seemed sad to me that as far as we could tell there was no one there except the leaders of the abbey.

Some more outside pictures.

All the blooming flowers in February (my whole trip) made me happy. :)

I liked the tree in the background.

We finished up at Tewkesbury Abbey and then we went back to M and K's house and chilled for the rest of the evening. :)

Music!

Music, music, music. I love music and sometimes I just really want to share the songs that I love. In this post, I'll share three songs that I love.

Bolero by Ravel is one of the songs that I love. Last weekend, I listened to it over 10 times (usually when I was in the car). I know some people might get sick of listening to a song that many times in a such a short period of time, but I don't mind if it's a song I love. You should listen to this song. It's 15 minutes long, but it's epic. Enjoy!

Another song I love is Gassenhauer by Carl Orff. This is another song I could listen to over and over again. It is a relaxing song and helps calm me down after a long day. It's only 3 minutes long.

The last song is from Amazing Grace, the Broadway musical. I already shared a song from that show in an earlier post, but I wanted to share another one.

Nowhere Left to Run. John Newton is at a really low point in his life at this point in the show and his servant (and fatherly figure), Thomas, is giving him some words of advice before they part ways. I really like the message in this song as well as the beautiful voice of Chuck Cooper (who sings it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvJgE5-5Y2U

If these songs don't speak to your soul, I hope you can find music that does, because I find that music can be medicine for the soul. :)

Are there any songs that you love and would like to share?

Last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland- Day 16

Our last day in Northern Ireland and Ireland! We had spent the night in Belfast, so this day we needed to make our way from Belfast to the airport in Dublin by about 14:00. We didn't have any specific plans for this day, so we just took our time getting to the airport.

This was driving out of Belfast. Apparently the big sphere in the road at the round-a-about was constructed in 2011 and represents "a new sun rising to celebrate a new chapter in the history of Belfast." (Wikpedia page about the sphere). The sculpture is called Rise.

I thought this bridge was cool along our way! Although I didn't know this at the time we saw it, this is Craigmore Viaduct.

This was me taking pictures as we were driving along. It's so pretty!

Grandma and I! Dad wanted a picture of a sign telling us where we were. :)

I liked this cemetery by the river. Once again I took this picture as we were driving.

We are almost to Carlingford, Ireland in this picture. We made a pit stop in the cute town of Carlingford.

Carlingford!

We walked around a bit and enjoyed the beautiful view in Carlingford!

We visited a park to let the kiddos run around and play. I love this picture of Grandma and Karey chatting with the locals at the park. :)

This is Malahide Castle but we didn't go inside. This was basically our let's go to the bathroom before we get to the airport stop. Someday when I go back to Ireland (which I totally want to) I would like to go back here. :)

On the grounds of Malahide Castle! Now off to the airport we go...

We had a pretty eventful flight back to England. There was a winter hurricane approaching and there were some strong winds and heavy rains on our plane ride back. It was a smaller plane and there was turbulence the whole flight and we were fishtailing the last half of the ride. Even as we were about to land, we were fishtailing and we were hoping that that wouldn't cause problems with the landing safely part of the trip... The flight was only 50 minutes or so but it seemed much longer with how turbulent it was.

It was weird because even though it was definitely the most turbulent flight I've been on, thus far in my life, I was oddly not that scared about it. Thankfully we made it back to England and back to Matt and Karey's house safely. :)

Gadsfield Elm Chapel and Tewkesbury Abbey next...

Good News Network

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading the Washington Post online and most of the headlines were negative stories. That happens quite often in the news in general. On that particular day, though, I decided I was fed up with bad news, and typed "good news" into google and got this website.

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

I just wanted to share this site because it has uplifting, inspiring stories and I definitely think it's good to have uplifting stories everyday too. The website is updated everyday with at least a few new things although a lot of the stories remain for a while too. The articles are usually short and some of them have videos to go along with them and thus far I've really enjoyed the site.

Do any of you know of any other good news sites?

P.S. I will get back to blogging about my trip soon...