"The Fair-est of them all!"

Congratulations Mom and Dad!

I want to give a great big shout out to my parents and the award they received this week at the Eastern Idaho State Fair! Our family has been selling the best Hot Bread with all the homemade toppings for the past 37ish years! They won one of the most sought-after food booth awards at one of the largest fairs in America! They are... 
"The Fair-est of them all!"

In honor of the fair, we decided to attend a British fair called the Edenbridge & Oxted Agricultural Show that's been held since 1837. What a fun experience! First of all, it rained the ENTIRE time we were there. So we purchased "wellie's" or rain boots for all the boys. (We couldn't find any for Anne there, so when we got home we ordered her bright red shiny Hunter boots!) Anyway, we got soaked, but it was still so much fun.

 




The kids loved watching the dogs run their 'Agility courses'. 

 Our favorite thing was seeing the riders (British Cowboys) wearing their famous red coats and hounds were following them! It looked like a Disney movie!

 Some of the different booths - the cheese and pastrami booth

 The delicious pastry and fudge booth (yes I bought some... not quite as good as the Playmill fudge in Yellowstone! lol)

 Don't you just love the wellies?! ALL the men and women were wearing them. 

 We decided to go on some rides and this one was CRAZY! Because it was raining, there weren't any lines, so they let us ride this thing for double the time! It was spinning so fast, Spencer started yelling "Uncle!" to get them to stop! It was hilarious. 
Spence said he doesn't remember me laughing so hard. 

 The kids loved this "ride". Again, they let them stay in for about 15 minutes instead of 5, so by the time the kids finished, they were all sweating to death. 

 You can tell the kids are little city slickers with their plugged noses by the pigs and cows. But not to worry, we're doing our best to acclimate them to the wonderful smells of a farm.

Best quote of the day: Joshy - "Dad, you know how you can tell the difference between the boy pig and the girl pig?" (Spencer who's barely listening) says, "What?" Joshy matter-of-factly replies, "their teets." I started crying I was laughing so hard and trying not to let Josh see me and Spencer totally shocked, looked at me with abhorrence, "What did he just say???!!" 

(to the left - a British Cowgirl)

It was really a fun day and we were glad we went - rain slickers, umbrellas, wellies and all...

The first day of school at ACS Egham

     Anne - Grade 5                                                       Ike - Grade 8                    Josh - Grade 1                                                                   Ty - Grade 3                                                      

Seriously, I know. What a gorgeous campus.

Go Elder Enos!!!

I just wanted to tell one of our amazing nephews how proud we are of him for serving a mission! He just entered the mission field this week. Kalani, you are joining the ranks of some pretty amazing missionaries (like my other wonderful nephew Elder McWhorter in Spain and our darling cousin Sister Remington in Denver!!) We know you'll be fabulous. We love you so much!

Try not to laugh, but this has to be one of the VERY BEST things with this experience...We get a wonderful bus driver, Paul, who comes and picks up the kids and drives them home everyday from school! It is SWWWEEET!

Just so you don't think our lives are just rainbows and sunshine, our roof started leaking again. Another bucket, more water. They identified there was a mould problem upstairs and our clothes in the closets are kind of "dank". My term for wet-ish feeling in the mornings. yuck! In addition, the toilet downstairs won't flush - it just likes to swirl things around- and our electrical outside started smoking and sparking so we turned off the breaker so we wouldn't catch fire. Nice... Anyway, I guess the house is 85 years old.

Quick story: So Spencer and I decided to go for a run down behind our house through Bishop's Gate which takes you into Great Windsor Park. We were headed into the park when we ran up to three huge buck. They looked up, didn't flinch, and just stared at us. My brilliant husband tried throwing a stick at one, to which the deer just stepped aside as if to say, "Really? I belong to the Queen and I just sharpened my rack this morning." I then said, "Um, I'm outta here", nodded to the buck and he nodded back. Spencer reluctantly decided to follow..

Dortle Door 

We had to get out early Saturday morning to the southern-central part of England this weekend and see another spectacular site while the weather was still good. We headed south about two hours to a beautiful place called Lulworth Cove and got to see the amazing Dortle Door. Again, WOW! It's so energizing to see these amazing places.

The hike up and back was actually very steep and the kids kept quoting Shrek, "Nice firm buttocks!" 

Dortal Door

I couldn't keep the kids or Spencer out of the water! They had so much fun.

It was super cold, but they DID NOT care. :)

The views from the hike to and from the cove.

next best quote: (Also Joshy) So on the way back, Josh slipped pretty good and scraped his knee. He started to howl. Spencer did not want Joshy making a big scene so he started to tell him to quiet down. I said, "Go with the other kids and I'll stay back with Josh." So I fixed up his knee and held Josh's hand and we walked. He cried and cried- mostly just upset that it even happened. But then he said, "Mom, I think mom's are better than dad's." I replied, "Oh Joshy, daddy loves you." He replies, "Well, I think mom's are better than dads. 

You know why? Because mom's carry bandaids!" Then he burst into tears again. 

We walked quietly to the marina holding hands. 

He sniffled and I was smiling...

 Back to the marina for some fish & chips and second-hand smoke

 So I really wanted to see Lulworth Castle and we weren't quite sure how to get there. We finally saw these people parked on the side of the road with many other cars and they were climbing up this mountain. We decided to follow. Okay, crazy dumb idea. It was SO STEEP we were grasping the grass just to stay on the path. My legs were shaking it was so steep and high! It took 30 minutes to get up the hill, around the castle walls, through these delicious smelling mint bushes and prickly thorns, just to acquire a few bumps and bruises  to make it to the castle entrance. The funny thing was, we took so long to get there, we didn't have anytime to get tour the castle because we had to get back to Englefield Green so Ike could FaceTime his scouting leaders for his Eagle Board of Review! Hence...the road less travelled was not the one that made all the difference! It just took longer!

 (We saw this train taking people up to the castle! lol) And this was us on part of the journey around the castle walls.

At least I got a great picture of Lulworth Castle...

 Above: These are pictures of Lulworth Village - It was such a charming English village. We let the kids pick out 'sweets' from the Sweet Shop. 

 So the funniest thing was, the road back to our car - took us only about three minutes to get there! We thought we were taking a short cut and it turns out, the road was faster!!! 

Congrats IKE! You're an Eagle Scout! 
August 30th, 2014

After dinner the kids love to play Frisbee with Spencer! 

They beg to play every day. 

Sunday, we had Richard over for dinner. He's a new member in our ward and is studying here from China. This was his first American dinner. He is so nice. The kids really enjoyed having him over. Spencer made the best dinner! Salmon, mashed potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms and tomatoes! De-lish!

After dinner, the Frost's called and asked if we wanted to hang out. We told them we were making brownies and ice cream. Alyson brought some berries and we had a fun dessert after we took a great walk to Runnymede Airforce Memorial. It's this beautiful monument of veterans who died in WWII from all over the world. It represents thousands of men and women who died durning the war from over 150 different countries. 

Runnymede Airforce Memorial

Below are views from the top of the memorial...

Windsor Castle

 The Thames River

The countryside