Come to Our New Blog

We've got a new blog: http://misterandmissguided.blogspot.com/

After much discussion and realizing "Jones" is just too common of a blog and a lot of variations were taken I felt that a semi-unique name was something I wanted. I had a lot of thoughts but today it came to me, especially after a tiring and trying week of potty training.

I truly felt misguided by all I hoped to get accomplished this short week of being home before starting back at work. I felt that she would truly take to potty training and we would encounter a few accidents here and there. I wasn't ready for the onslaught of wet underwear one after the other.

Then more misguided thoughts I had in trying to employ all these different things I read about in how to train your toddler. I realized that I have a lot of misguided notions and thoughts on how to best do things in raising a toddler and that my toddler has her own agenda.

Thus came the thought of Miss-guided. Since I'm not the only one in this family who has thoughts that are misguided, mister only seemed appropriate to add. So enjoy our new site and I hope to modify it and add a link soon to the pictures from our trip to the UK and beyond.

Mommy Called the Dr. and the Dr. Said

Well, we're going to break away from our format that we used in the UK for the blog until we create a new blog which will be coming soon. Before that happens, I don't want to lose our "diary" of Makenna and her growth, foibles, and general mischievousness.

Saturday we were coming back from Chris's parents house and Makenna had her sunglasses but then took them off and dropped them. She promptly said, "Why did you drop your glasses?" I asked her the question back and she replied, "cause." Short, simple and sarcastic all rolled up into one.

Today, we were trying to get ready to go up to the cottage to visit with more family and she was playing with "pennies," which was the change that we save in a jar. She was placing "pennies" every where, down the laundry shoot, down her shirt, in drawers. Pretty much any where except where I wanted her to, which was back in the jar. As Chris and I were talking, I all of a sudden heard a gag like cough and looked at Makenna who had reddish eyes. I asked very sternly, "Makenna did you just swallow a penny?" Her reply...."Yes." We asked her again and again in case she didn't understand our fearful question the first time. Every time she replied "Yes." Chris then asked her to show him what she did, which I didn't think was a good idea. She picked up a penny and started to put it in her mouth. That bumped up the percentage that she actually did it a lot more.

Chris had me call the doctor even though I was fairly certain that all we have to do is wait for the day "she makes change," as my brother put it. Sure enough since she wasn't in any respiratory distress, they said just keep track of her "outgoings" to see if it passes through.

What was really ironic about the whole thing was that just earlier in the morning I was watching a show and the parent said to another parent that he didn't feel he was a "parent" unless his child swallowed a few pennies here and there. I thought that was a weird statement and a bit careless and then it happened to me. It didn't make me feel any more like a parent than before. It just taught me I can't assume that she's past that stage of putting things in her mouth.

Not to mention keeping an eye on her at the cottage. On Sunday, she very quietly sneaked out and had gotten down the steps of the porch by the time I caught her. I happened to walk into the main room of the cottage and asked where she was and it didn't take long to realize where she most likely was headed. When I caught up with her she stated she wanted to "splash" as we had previously been down at the dock and let her put her feet in the water and kick or use her hands to splash around. We gave her a stern talking to about not leaving the cottage without mommy or daddy. That didn't stop her from trying repeatedly yesterday and today. The difference was that today I kept a more diligent eye on her. Now I just have to apply that more often to all things.

22May2009: Day 361: She Ate It, She Ate It!

We woke up around 5am (as our bodies and minds felt it was 10am) plus we heard Makenna yelling, "Stuck, stuck!~" Chris went up and she had gotten her leg stuck through a wooden slat in the crib. We need to get that changed into a bed ASAP. I went back to sleep and Chris got up around 6am.

We had to get both cars done for inspection as they were expired. We also went through some mail, and went to Sam's club, of course. Sam's club missed us and our outrageous spending I'm sure. I feel surprised that they didn't fold and go under while we were away.

We grabbed a cooked chicken from there for dinner and I cooked some frozen corn. Makenna surprisingly didn't eat much chicken, maybe a bite or two, but she did eat the corn and kept asking for more. I was in shock! She hasn't eaten corn in maybe a year. I was so excited and have great hopes for the future.

We met up with some family and friends at the church to play the "Newlywed Game" which was quite fun and funny. Chris and I won...we're "oldyweds" as Chris said, but we didn't win by a landslide. In fact, it was the last 50 point question that we got extremely lucky on. Another couple was 5 points behind us and they got the question correct. I was racking my brain for what the answer could be and I guessed right! We won a Target gift card and I couldn't be more excited. I love Target and will most likely be spending it tomorrow.

21May2009: Day 360: Isn't That A Pip

Up way too early - 5am. Chris really wanted to make sure we made it for our 12pm flight. I guess it was a good thing as the motorway on the way to Heathrow did get backed up. That is one thing I will not miss--the inane way these people seem to stop for a butterfly crossing the road. I say this because all traffic seems to come to a sudden halt for no reason that is obvious (besides the fact that they don't seem to be able to merge without stopping,) and then all of a sudden, you are off and speeding again.

We had time to sit and eat a breakfast in the airport and then a little time to walk around. Makenna did really well on the plane overall. She only had about three little breakdowns and each were less than five minutes. It was mostly over her DVD player quitting as it didn't charge like we thought. So she only got about an hour's worth of play time. She was quite upset and didn't hesitate to let us know. I was able to get her to watch the movie on the plane for a small bit. Since we were near the back of the plane, I took her to the back and she got to look out the window and see the clouds and some things below. That excited her. By the last two hours of the trip she was "done." She kept saying, "done, done, off?" I explained that we had a little while longer to go and after that small melt down she calmed down and we got through it.

One thing that got me was the lunch on the plane. It was chicken with carrots and green beans and mashed potatoes. Well, Makenna actually had no problems eating the chicken...until...I thought I'd be "smart" and put a tiny piece of carrot with it. She somehow cleverly kept biting off the chicken without eating the carrot. I finally shoved the whole thing in her mouth and after a few chews, she spit the whole thing out and refused to eat any more. "Dang It!" I said.

We made it to Washington, got through customs pretty quickly, picked up our luggage, walked it 30 feet and turned it back in again. Can anyone tell me why this was necessary? Chris was not too happy that we had to pick it back up to just turn around and turn it back in for our final flight to Binghamton. They don't re-weigh it, they don't check it again, as far as we know, it's just as if we're the baggage handlers to save them money.

Anyways, since Makenna didn't eat too much at lunch, she was hungry and Chris could only find a "hot gog." She chowed this down. I was joking how we're "improving" on our food fare for Makenna...from fried chicken nuggets to the ever healthy hot dog. Great!

Got on the small plane to Binghamton with a small incident. The plane had 12 rows and one column had a single seat "A," and then across the aisle were two seats "D" & "F." Chris, some how, lucked out and had a seat in "A" up near the front of the plane. I was sent to the very last row and Makenna had an "A" and that left me, I figured, with the seat right across the aisle, as the "F" seat was taken by another person. After I got Makenna all settled in, I started to sit and another kid (probably about 12,) came to say that I was in his seat. I also thought I heard him say that I would need to go up front and find a seat. I was incredulous and very tired, saying "Oh, and what am I supposed to do? Leave her back here on her own? Why don't I just do that!?!" He walked away and I heard him say that some lady had the seat with her little child back there. In the meantime, another lady in the row before us told me that the kid had said that he would go up and find a seat. I felt bad for snapping. Makenna on the other hand, after trying and succeeding at taking off her seat belt, finally left it alone and before the plane even took off, was fast asleep.

When we got into Binghamton, we were greeted by some family and went out to eat some GOOD Chinese food. Makenna was a bit grouchy but perked up when she saw her cousin Katie. At the airport Katie's dad, my brother, said, "Katie's Crazy!" Makenna then had the best time for the next two hours saying "Katie's crazy!" When we were at the Chinese restaurant, Makenna also enjoyed following Katie's lead in standing on the table. I was like, "Makenna, you're older and need to set the example, not be the follower."

Makenna also enjoyed saying, "Isn't that a Pip." She started saying this on the car ride on the way to the airport and continued saying it on and off throughout the day. I guess that was a good way to say goodbye to England...bye ending with a typical old English saying.

20May2009: Day 359: Goodbye Gillingham

Arghh why is it your body gets no sleep in anticipation or stress of things? We were up past 2am last night making sure that everything we needed to be shipped was ready to be shipped. We had to make sure that the suitcases weren’t over 50 lbs and if they were, we needed to pick out more things to be shipped. Then, when we finally went to bed, all I could think about was what things still needed to be done before the shippers came and what cleaning was left to do. At 3:30am I looked at the clock and was like, okay body and mind, time to sleep!

Up about 7am and all the things in my mind had to come to fruition. We were able to “ship” Makenna off to Hannah’s for the morning which was a good thing. The shipper’s came about 9:30am and for the next two hours, packed our things into 30 boxes. Then we had about a half hour to finish cleaning the upstairs and moving furniture back where it was when we first got here.

Makenna enjoyed playing at the park for around two hours with Hannah and her sister and mom. She came in ravenous for lunch and was quite upset she did have her “mushroom-ham noodles.” I felt bad. That ended up being a comment I made all day today, “I feel bad.”

I at least took her to play group one last time so she could go on the bounce house and see Hannah and Bethany for the last time, with the hopes that they will meet again in the not to distant future. They gave Makenna a book called, “You Are Special” and a card to us both thanking us for coming which I thought was really nice.

We came home and she got a nap, of which I was jealous, but I wanted those shoes that I talked about so I went off shopping while Chris took a short nap then continued to get things straightened out and cleaned up around the house. No luck in finding the shoes though. I went to about ten different stores, and only one store had them and I didn’t like the colors available. I soothed my “buying” by getting my new niece Natalie a cute outfit to bring back.

When Makenna got up from her nap, she was already crying for Hannah and to go to the park. Here’s where the guilt really started to set in. I know she won’t remember Hannah after a little while but I feel like these were two souls who knew each other in the premortal existence and to now part them again breaks my heart. We at least took her to the park to ease some of the guilt.

We had a hard time dragging her away from here and when we finally started to leave, she said, “We’ll come back another time, tomorrow.” How do you explain to a young child that she won’t be coming back to this park, most likely ever again? We eased our guilt again by taking her for Chinese and ice cream.

Well, since the house was mostly cleaned and echoing as a matter of fact, I took some pictures of the rest of the house for our memories. I kind of wish now I had taken pictures of our first dinky apartment when we got here as that place was definitely a place to remember (said very sarcastically). I guess I couldn’t get out of there fast enough and didn’t want any memories at the time. At least I’ll have these.

First is the kitchen:

Then the Dining Room:

Stairs going up:

Upstairs "Purple" bathroom:

The "Guest Bedroom" - see what you missed! You could've slept in these bright colors:

Makenna's Room:

And yes, I know the picture is lop-sided - Makenna loves looking at the picture of the "beach" in her room and plays with it

Finally, the Master bedroom. This obviously has the remnants of our "stuff" to be packed so it looks a bit messy:

19May2009: Day 358: One Last BBQ

Every day it gets closer to leave, I think of reasons not to. One would be all the cleaning and packing and stress of it all. Luckily we only have to pack "things" and not furniture. Also I'm grateful that a company is coming to actually pack all of the stuff.

All of this morning was cleaning while Makenna was at nursery. Plus deciding what more to ship, give away or throw away. Tomorrow will be more of the same plus final packing of our suitcases. I was able to get Makenna's "goal" book from nursery to have so I'm super excited to read more about her progress.

I was able to take Makenna to the park after lunch to meet up with Hannah. This time they did run across the field to each other. Even though Makenna kept running straight past her to her sister Bethany. After about an hour, they both agreed that they wanted to go home and take naps.

Tonight, the neighbor across the street that Chris works with had a BBQ and invited people from Chris's work. I thought it was funny that to get the coals heated up quicker, they added a ton of lighter fluid and then used a hair dryer to get it going. That was a first, but it worked. We had a lot of food food and I enjoyed and was annoyed at the same time by Makenna wanting to go on and off the trampoline that they had.

She kept going on for a few minutes then wanting off, then going back on. This required taking her shoes on and off, thus my annoyance. To see her on it jumping gleefully was worth it though. She would jump up and down and yell, "hi daddy, hi daddy." She eventually tired of this and wanted to go inside to play with the kids (Daniel and Sophie). They kept her entertained for a bit and when it was dinner time, she actually ate a hamburger with "sauce." In fact, she almost ate two - although they weren't very big.

Got her home and gave her a bath. Her last bath here in this tub. Then after getting her down for bed, the bishop of my church and his wife stopped by go say goodbye and give us a gift and a very nice card from the members of the church. This again gave me pause to think about leaving. I don't think I gave or invested enough time in getting to know people and kept more to myself and my routine with Makenna and now I wish I had reached out more. I guess I should take away that meeting people is a privilege and that you should invest time, no matter how short to get to know them.

18May2009: Day 357: Castell Coch & Caerphilly Castle, Wales

Last Day in Wales and our last trip in England before we return home. It’s hard to believe on some level. We headed off to the two other castles that were part of our package from Saturday that were also owned at some point by the very wealthy Bute family.

First was Castell Coch. It’s believed that there was a castle built here in the 13th century and then destroyed in the 14th century during the Welsh rebellions. Then in 1871 the 3rd Marquess of Bute came in and had the land cleared and brought in William Burgess the architect again to create another masterpiece for him. By this time, Burgess had been working for three years on Cardiff Castle.

Again, you can see some wonderful art done within the castle. This is quite a bit smaller than Cardiff but still had some pretty ornate things to it. There was also a working winch and portcullis. I thought it was kind of neat to see Lady Bute’s room, big and spacious and ornately done and then Lord Bute’s room was a shoe box by comparison and not too exciting. I think the guide Saturday at Cardiff said that Lord Bute spent most of his time in lady Bute’s bedrooms. No wonder, as they were bigger.

Makenna was pretty well behaved but anxious to go outside as it was raining and she was again dressed in a raincoat and wellies to allow her to stomp around like crazy in all the puddles she wants. When we finally let her outside she was as happy as could be as it was raining and windy so there were plenty of puddles to be splashed in. In fact, to get her to go to the next castle, we had to tell her that there were more puddles to be stomped in.

Caerphilly castle was pretty ruinous when the first Marquess of Bute took it over in 1776. The third marquess reroofed the great hall and again brought William Burgess yet again to fix this castle up. I think the only thing besides the roof that was fixed by the Bute family was a gatehouse. The rest was left as the ruins it is. The castle itself is the largest in Wales covering over 30 acres, and the second largest in England after Windsor Castle.

I think the story board outside the castle said it had something like three drawbridges and six portcullises at one time. It gives you an idea how massive this thing used to be. It’s also known because of the one leaning tower, the South-East Tower of the inner ward, which still has medieval features. They think the tower split because of “ground subsidence.”

We weren’t able to go in to the Great Hall as they were filming some BBC show there. We went to the various ruinous parts and looked around but the rain and wind kept us from really doing a thorough walk around. Plus, how much of ruins can you really see? Makenna of course enjoyed it due to all the puddles.

We left and walked to the downtown area and found a place to eat lunch. After, walked back to the car and headed back to our home in Kent. We got back a little bit after 5pm and started the usual laundry. Especially considering we only have a couple of days to do it all in.

I have to say I found the Welsh language extremely interesting. A lot of the words hardly have vowels in them. The signs in Wales have both the Welsh spelling and the English spelling. You can see some of the similarity but a lot of them you have no idea how they come up with what they do. In fact, here’s a link to a town in Wales, one we didn’t see because it’s up north, but it’s known as the second longest name known. http://www.llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.com/
And I have no idea how you say it, but one of the guys that Chris worked with here, comes from Wales and he can say it like it’s nothing at all.

17May2009: Day 356: Picton & Pembroke Castle, Wales

Yes, off again to more castles. I know Chris thinks I’m still really enamoured by them, but truth is I would rather find really nice fancy houses to look at so I can marvel at the wealth these people publicly flaunt in their homes. The unfortunate thing is that I don’t know if there are too many of them here in Wales and there is an over-abundance of castles.

We drove two hours south west along the coast of Wales to Picton Castle. It’s half a fortified manor house and half fully developed medieval castle. It was first built around 1300 by Sir John Wogan. We weren’t able to take any pictures inside but in all honesty, there wasn’t anything spectacular to take a picture of.

The castle came into the hands of the Philipps family in 1697 by way of inheritance and was in the family until 1988 when a trust was created to offset the cost of inheritance tax. I think the guide called it “death tax.” There is still one Phillips heir that lives at Picton in a house outside the garden. He said the castle is too warm in the summer and way too cold in the winter to live their.

The guide took us around the first floor and the basement. We couldn’t go up on the second floor where the bedrooms are because, according to the guide, it’s not handicapped accessible so they’re not allowed to let people up. The first floor just had your basic dining room, living room, library, and drawing room. It mostly had pictures of the Phillips family and some other pictures. One believed to be from Renoir and a picture of either Princess Elizabeth or Princess Mary (Henry VIII’s daughter). The guide thinks it is Princess Mary. There was some furniture too but nothing too grand. He liked, and so did I, that the furniture had a “used” aspect to it and not some pristine piece that should be in a museum.

The basement level he showed us a few rooms that contained some old things such as an old kitchen. There was a rolling pin that made ravioli, and things to churn and make butter, along with a lot of other things. Then in the next room were things to do the wash and cleaning. A lot of the things that he showed us were things that were actually from another museum that when it closed, they donated it to Picton Castle, so they weren’t things collected from here directly.

I guess it also had some grounds and gardens but we didn’t walk around as we wanted to get to the next castle as they said the last tour at the next castle was at 3:30pm and it was already 1:30pm. Plus, it was windy and rainy so walking around wasn’t something we were too into. Surprisingly, Makenna was “decent” in her behavior here. When we first got here, she was a screaming miserable mess. Then we put her in the cart to try and sleep, which she didn’t, but she calmed down. When she started to put up a fuss in the castle we gave her some crackers.

We had stopped at the café they had here to grab a bite to eat and got her a ham sandwich. She ate a few bites in order to get chips but she quickly decided she didn’t like to do this anymore. That’s why we agreed to crackers when she asked.

Well we got to the next castle and it was ruins. There was no “formal” tour as we thought. Pembroke Castle in one of the largest in Wales and is on a site that has been occupied for the past 12,000 years! They say this because there is a “wogan” which is a cavern deep in the rock beneath the castle and it was a shelter for cave dwellers during the Ice Age conditions of the Paleolithic period. They know this because of the stone tools that were left behind. Chris and I took turns going down to this cave and it was pretty neat. I was surprised how big it really was and how it was underneath this castle and grounds we had just been walking all over.

The castle started to take shape after the Battle of Hastings as King William II (son of William the Conqueror,) came into Wales and by 1090 all of Wales had become under Norman rule in some sort of fashion. In 1093 a timber castle started to take shape. King Henry I had Pembroke Castle during his reign and this was the Tudor Line (or Tewdwr as it’s spelled in Wales). That was something that Chris and I learned yesterday was that Henry VIII and his line of family is from Wales. In fact, Henry VII (Henry VIII's father,) was born here in Pembroke Castle in 1457.

This castle also played a part in the civil War from 1642-1648. As war broke out, and Wales was known to be strongly in favor of Parliament and the mayor at the time strengthened the castle and town walls. Unfortunately, in 1648, they still lost and surrendered and Oliver Cromwell decreed that the defenses of Pembroke should be destroyed. He had sections of the town wall demolished and at the castle the towers were filled with gunpowder and blew out their external faces. It wasn’t until 1928 that it was restored including the towers being rebuilt.

We went up and down a lot of spiral staircases at this castle. Due to the restoration, a lot of it was still accessible and I thought it was neat how I could go up one spiral staircase, and walk along and be in another section of the castle and come down that spiral staircase and be someplace else. It was a bit confusing at the same time. They had some displays set up to show you how the castle had been used in the 1800’s along with the history of the castle. Unfortunately, the history was very confusing to follow on the story boards.

It wasn’t until we finally relented and let Makenna out of her cart that she really perked up and was happy. We figured that she desperately needed a nap and straight away put her in the cart when we got here. This made going up and down some of these staircases a real treat. But she was yearning to go into the puddles as she finally had her wellies on. Unfortunately, she also fell a few times and is not the quickest to get up so she got quite dirty and wet at both castles.

At one point, I went up to the top of the Keep (a heck of a lot of spiral steps,) and Chris kept Makenna outside. When I came down, she was talking about “did” “did” and sleeping. I couldn’t follow and Chris told me that they found a “dead” bird. Then Makenna went on to say how it was sleeping. I guess Chris tried to explain to her how the birdie wouldn’t wake up and was now with God. When he told her that it was with God, she said they should say a prayer. I thought that was really cute and insightful. I guess I could’ve talked to her about the dead bird from last week at the house. Maybe when it comes to the birds and the bees talk, I’ll have him do the explaining and she can say we should have a prayer about that too.

We walked around the grounds some more and then took off to head back to the hotel. We knew there was a carvery near the hotel and we were anxious to go but smart enough to stop at Burger King to pick up some chicken bites for Makenna, or so we thought. Well, we were smart enough it was the carvery who was of a different opinion.

We were brought in the BK bag with us, and were seated. When the manager saw it, he refused to let us sit and have her eat it in the section we were in. Chris tried to explain that it was like “baby food” in a sense and I said, she won’t eat food off the carvery. The manager said we could eat it in the bar but Chris didn’t want to have Makenna sitting the bar section and I agreed. Chris again tried to tell the guy that it was just for Makenna and it was food for her. The manager didn’t budge. He said, “I don’t think BK would like it if I came in and sat down with carvery food.” I thought that was a stupid example because BK probably wouldn’t care or notice, and it wasn’t us who was sitting there eating it, it was a child. We left.

We drove around quite a while to find another place to eat. I was really not in the mood for fast food but finally relented when all other options looked as though they were closed. At the last minute, Chris found a pub like place and we had a pretty good meal and we all three shared a very chocolaty piece of cake with ice cream. Again, Makenna was really well behaved here. Especially considering she had eaten most of her chicken bites from BK as we drove around looking for a place to eat. By the time we were done with dinner it was 9pm, but we didn’t get here until 8pm with all our driving around so that wasn’t too bad.

When we got out to the car, Chris asked Makenna if she had enough chicken to eat today and she said, “Yes,” quite happily. Then he asked her if she had enough ice cream and she very distinctly said, “No.” Then he asked if she had enough cake, “No,” was the reply again. I think what was funny was the way “no” was stated as if it was a sense of surprise when she realized she didn’t have enough ice cream or cake. It gave us a good laugh to end the day.

Makenna kept asking on the way back to the hotel if it was time for bed and she and we were definitely ready to have an end to this day. I have to say I truly love this child as she loves to sleep and so do I.

16May2009: Day 355: Cardiff Castle, Wales

We are now in Wales. It’s our last trip away to end our year long trip over here in England. It took us about 3.5 hours to get here. We got to our hotel and headed to Cardiff Castle. We got a combination ticket of three castles of which one is Cardiff. We were able to get a tour and luckily, we were able to take pictures. There was sign saying no picture taking but the tour guide said we could as long as we didn’t use flash. I was really glad as these rooms were really neat to look at.

Cardiff is one of three castles owned by the Bute family. These people were considered the wealthiest family in the world at the time (1700’s-1800’s). The castle was originally Roman built and was more of a fort. When the 3rd Marquess of Bute decided to build a new tower in 1888, they found the Roman ruins and he scrapped his plans and dug out the ruins instead and built from there.

He then brought in an architect by the name of William Burgess who really made a lot of improvements inside the castle to make it a livable mansion. Burgess really had some very interesting designs and painted directly onto the walls. The pictures of the inside designs that you see here are from Burgess.

We got out of the tour and had about an hour before the place closed. We went to the keep which was just a shell. It was getting extremely windy and ominous looking so Chris took Makenna back to the main grounds and I went up higher in the keep. It became very eerie as the wind was blowing really hard and the sky was getting dark. It was like the walls were howling. I was really afraid at one point that the walls were going to collapse it was so windy.

We left and found a Pizza Hut to eat dinner at and got Makenna some chicken strips but she only ate one and wasn’t really hungry for any more. We left there and walked around in downtown Cardiff a bit. We found the Cardiff City Hall and a museum (which was closed), then headed back to the hotel.

Makenna was fairly well behaved for the most part in the castle. She had a moment or two but we got over them quickly. This was surprising as she had a short nap in the car on the way to Cardiff and we didn’t have the cart in the castle. We just had to make sure she wasn’t touching things that she shouldn’t as the paintings on the walls were really old and delicate.

Hopefully tomorrow she’ll be just as good. It’s a Sunday though and considering her track record on Sundays while we’ve been on different outings, they haven’t been too good. I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

15May2009: Day 354: You Must Be Joking

Somehow I forgot to type the blog yesterday so it's coming in a day late. Not sure quite how that happened. I just think I have a lot on my mind with all the things we're trying to get done. We had the rental company come over today to do a precursory evaluation to see if there was any outstanding issues that need to be corrected before we leave. Such as stains on carpets, or any damage. The only "damage" I saw was the house needed to be cleaned, dusted, vacuumed. I think they tended to agree as they didn't see anything "outstanding." So I guess that's good. I didn't do my normal routine of cleaning this week as I know that I'll be doing heavy duty cleaning next week.

I had all these plans of going to downtown Chatham after picking up Makenna from nursery because I want to buy a certain type of shoes before I go. I didn't do it though. Partly because I knew she'd be hungry after nursery and partly because I didn't have the pushcart with me and I didn't want to be struggling to keep her with me. I thought about going after lunch but realized that the rental company would be coming then. Hopefully I can sneak it in once next week some how. Plus then, Chris can watch Makenna and I can do it more quickly. Or I can just forget the whole thing all together.

Tonight, while watching this little video that Makenna got from nursery, she started laughing and said, "you must be joking." I was laughing so hard. Chris missed it so I repeated what she said, and then she repeated it again. It was the way she said it...while she was half laughing as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. I suppose she must have gotten this from me as it sounds like something I would say more so than Chris.

I probably muttered it when Chris told me how the rental company wanted all this ridiculous stuff cleaned, or when he told me he thinks we have to leave the house at 6am to make a 12pm flight on Thursday when the airport is only about 1.5 hours away! I know, I know, traffic, and customs, etc., but still

14May2009: Day 353: Ex-Ca-Lent

We made it back to the song and dance play group today and got to see Rebecca along with her two little ones, Josh and Jake. I have to say I will miss this as I think they have catchy tunes that I wouldn't normally hear in the states - at least not that I know of. Especially the ABC's where they say "zed" instead of "z" at the end. At least Makenna and I will have some of the songs to sing. Hopefully I can find something for us to join that's similar.

We also had our last day of swim class, even though the last day is next week, but we'll be on a plane heading home by then. I think I mentioned that she earned another swim badge and we got the badge and certificate today. I don't have the certificate in front of me to say what she had to do to get it but it was similar to last time with doing more unassisted swimming.

She did pretty well at listening today too. The teacher had this new flotation device which was a shark fin. It wrapped around and Velcro strapped to her. It then freed up her arms to swim better and it helped her float. She actually was willing to put it on and seemed to enjoy it for the most part as it meant that I wasn't holding on to her. She was upset that there was no watering can to play with after. The teacher smartly left those in the closet.

I branched out myself tonight and made a meatloaf. Mainly because I'm trying to use up what food we have left and we have a lot of ground beef left. I remember eating meatloaf when I was young and not really caring for it and surprisingly enough, Chris said the same thing. I found an A1 meatloaf recipe figuring that would be the best for all of us as we love our A1. It came out okay taste wise, it just fell apart. Makenna really enjoyed it, but then again, she loves A1 too and was glad to eat it as long as she had more "sauce." In fact, she came out and said, "Ex-ca-lent," for excellent. Wow, that's quite a compliment. I figured when we get home, this is another recipe I can try and tweak by adding pureed carrots or something.

I have to end by mentioning how we didn't get the pleasure of seeing the "back-story" on the American Idol contestants. Tonight, they just showed what you guys in the states saw on Tuesday, and I already know who the final two are just from the Internet. I was surprised though in watching it tonight, that they cut out the whole home-coming stuff and just made it an hour show with the singing. I felt a bit slighted. Not only that, but I'll have to call my sister-in-law to tape the finale for me to watch when we get home as I won't be able to see it. So if you're reading this...tape it for me!~

13May2009: Day 352: Laugh Now Child

It's hard to believe that we only have a week left before we return home to the states. There were a few days that I longed to go home and days where I felt like I could actually stay longer if needed.

The problem is all the stuff that I feel needs to get done before we go. It just seems to pile up and it overwhelms me to the point of not wanting to do anything. I want to be sure to get every bit of "play" time in for Makenna. That meant going to the gym nursery, then swimming, and then after lunch off to play group.

I made sure that we said goodbye to the personnel at the gym nursery as today was the last time they were watching her. They commented on how much she's grown from last June, not only physically, but verbally.

Swimming was again Makenna vying for freedom from my arms to do it on her own. That meant she went under quite a few times but I was there to lift her back up. No kids came today to play so it was just her and I. Luckily, someone left a "woggle" (water noodle as we call it,) and so we got to practice with it. She typically doesn't like to use it during class so it was a good chance to try and get her to feel comfortable with it. Now hopefully she'll be a bit more willing to use it tomorrow during class.

Play group was it's usual chaos. There's the one little boy who seems to make every child uncomfortable and his mother constantly yelling after him. He gets too violent and pushes everyone around. I don't think he's maliciously doing it but that this is his way to just get what he wants. Plus, his mother isn't always watching him and it's a lot of other mother's reprimanding him. There's also this other little girl that I've only seen there a few times and boy can this girl throw a fit. She only had one today but I've seen her in the past put up quite a fight. It makes me appreciate Makenna even more that her little outbursts are usually due to her being tired and not as intense as this other girl's.

Tonight I tried getting a "jump" on cleaning by dusting this one room a bit more thoroughly than usual and cleaning the windows on the sliding glass door. Unfortunately, I tried doing this with Makenna around and it's like, why bother? She just ended up putting her hands on it again. I told her that she couldn't touch, but that didn't help too much. I finally had her help me put dishes in the dishwasher and that made her happy. Plus, this child laughs at me every time I do some cleaning. She finds it funny that I clean. I keep telling her, "laugh now child, you won't find it funny when you're older and it's your chore to do."

12May2009: Day 351: Um, Excuse Me, I Want...

The past couple of weeks, Makenna has been saying, "Excuse me, I want...." and then inserting what ever it is she's wanting. Sometimes, she'll add an "um" prior to the statement. This whole thing surprises me because she's showing manners. It's not that we haven't been working on our please and thank-yous, but I don't ever recall telling her to say, "excuse me" prior to asking for something. The only time we tell her to say excuse me is when she's made some bodily noise.
I wonder if we have actually taught her to say excuse me by our example? Nah....couldn't be.

Today was also a bit off the beaten path of "typical." First, we actually got Makenna to sit on the training potty again for some time this morning and we had S U C C E S S! We were elated, singing the potty song, and made sure she got a piece of candy and a monster sticker. She wants to really put up a monster sticker any time she sits on the potty but we told her only when she's actually gone can she get one of these special stickers. We tried several times throughout the day and she was very willing to sit but with no success. She was a bit upset as she wanted another monster sticker and more candy. We'll keep trying.

Chris took the morning off as we had a guy coming over to take a look at what we're shipping back to the states. We had pretty much gotten a majority of it into the spare bedroom so it was a quick visit. The unfortunate thing is that we have too much stuff to send by air so we have to send it by boat. This means we don't get our stuff for about four weeks as compared to about 10 days to two weeks. The good news is that we can send more stuff as the crate is bigger and we have room for more.

After he left we went over to the rental car company. Chris noticed that on the paperwork we had for the car, it didn't show the marks or the fact that it only had a quarter tank of gas when they gave it to us. Plus, we had to get the fuse changed for the cigarette lighter (back when Makenna put gum in it and I stupidly used a key to try and get it out). When Chris tried to fix it, he locked up the radio so that needed a code. We got the correct paperwork and got the fuse changed. The radio is still not working but hopefully we'll get the code before our last trip.

Chris and I ran to the grocery store to finish the shopping I started yesterday and then we both went and picked up Makenna from nursery. She was so excited to see daddy pick her up. He dropped us off back at home and took the car and went to work.

I'm not sure why, but when Chris came home again, she ended up getting really upset. She was at first really elated but then when he wouldn't go sit with her on the bean bag she got upset. We were trying to eat dinner and she just wanted Chris to sit with her...I think. She'd whine about how she was hungry but she didn't want to sit and eat anything. She was as happy as she could be when dinner was over and her and daddy could sit in the bean bag together and watch Star Trek.

That's when I took it upon my self to say, "Um Excuse me...I'm going to take a bath." Hmm, maybe we do have good manners.

11May2009: Day 350: Things Don't Always Go As Planned

Well, ain't that the truth. I had my day all planned out and right off the bat, Chris needed the car. He ended up dropping Makenna and I off at the gym and we walked home after I was done. That meant grocery shopping went out the window...sort of.

I was supposed to meet up with Bex (Rebecca) the one who first took me to the Thursday's playgroup. She was unfortunately sick so there went our lunch plans. The problem was that Chris had come home to give me the car. But by the time I learned that she was sick we were already back at Chris's work dropping him off.

As we didn't go grocery shopping, we didn't have much in the way of food for lunch for Makenna and I didn't have my grocery list. We went up to ASDA's and picked up a few things and got home close to 2pm! She of course fell asleep on the way home and when I tried to get her up, she wasn't having it. I cooked her noodles but she just wanted to sleep. I took her up to bed and ate lunch my self.

Two hours later I heard yelling from her room. When I went up I she was yelling "noodles!" I brought her down and she ate her lunch...quite late by now obviously. I figured this would really mess up dinner which would be in a few hours.

I was trying to pack some more things in the spare bedroom as the movers are coming tomorrow to get a cursory glance at what we'll be shipping. Makenna was of course trying to "help" me by throwing things down the steps. I called Chris to see if he was ready to come home and stop me from throwing her down the steps (I'm joking of course).

We went to pick Chris up from work and got home and surprisingly, she did eat some chicken bites (that had corn in it), with some "steak sauce." She saw the A1 bottle on the counter and said she wanted it. I figured if that would help her eat her chicken bites then I was for it. She didn't eat too many but it was enough.

I was able to get a lot more ready for tomorrow. So at least if the rest of the day didn't go as planned, I got some things accomplished I was hoping.

10May2009: Day 349: Happy Mudder's Day

Happy Mother’s day to all our mother’s and grandmother’s and aunt’s, etc. We were able to call my mom and Chris’s mom to wish them a happy mother’s day. Makenna told Chris’s mom, “Happy Mudder’s Day,” then followed it up with “Happy Birthday.” I don’t think she could tell there’s a difference between the two sentiments.

I forgot to mention on Friday and Saturday our potty updates. I’m sure you’re all waiting with bated breath. Well, since Hannah was over for quite some time on Friday and used our little potty that we got for Makenna, she saw Hannah using it and decided after she left, that she wanted to use it. I used Madonna’s technique and let Makenna sit on it while watching tv. That kept her on it for a good 15 minutes. She didn’t go but she was willing to sit.

Then we did the same thing Saturday morning and after sitting for 15-20 minutes, she did go a little. We did the obligatory potty dance. We haven’t gotten her on since. That’s our problem, we’re very inconsistent and I really have to change that. I’m hoping that the week I’m home before starting work that I can try and concentrate on this task. I’m not making promises though.

Anyways, today we finally went back to church…the first time in a month. I felt bad as I was like, “I know we haven’t seen you in a while, but this is our last week, so bye.” During Sacrament Meeting, I had Bethany (Hannah’s sister,) as she had come up to me the previous class and promptly fell asleep on me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a small baby fall asleep on me.

When she woke up a little later, her mom gave her a cube of cheese to eat and she promptly made a gooey mess of it. Chris and I were like “eeww.” She’s just so cute though. When she was over on Friday, she got one of Makenna’s musical toys and as it was playing, she was bouncing up and down on her butt to the music. She’s going to be very outgoing like her sister I think. Madonna thinks that Bethany (who’s almost 1 year old) actually starts the fights between her and Hannah. I can see that as Bethany has a thing for hair lately and constantly comes up to me just to pull my hair – no kidding.

After church we tried to quickly get Makenna into a nap as we were going over to the Bishop’s house for dinner. It was a really good dinner of wraps with chicken and bacon, some carrots with honey and other things. I was nervous it was going to be fish so I was greatly elated when it wasn’t as I wasn’t sure how I’d swallow it down. Makenna and her health conscious eating had a bag of crisps (chips) and some of a wrap.

Then we had brownies and ice cream, and lemon chiffon cake. They also had custard but I didn’t have any. I couldn’t have possibly eaten any more. Makenna thoroughly enjoyed the brownie and ice cream of course.

They have two bunnies and Makenna really enjoyed playing with them and especially feeding them. She tried feeding them rocks and then they brought out the rabbit food so she was able to feed them proper food. We had left over lettuce from dinner that went to one of the rabbits. Only one rabbit could be out at a time as the two of them fought if they were both out. We convinced them to let them both out so we could see it and sure enough one came out with a ton of the other’s fur all over it and in its mouth. It was quite entertaining.

Makenna then also put rocks in their food dishes and cages. She also didn’t hesitate to put rocks in their watering can. They were good humored about it even though I felt bad as a lot of the rocks were from places they had gone such as France, etc.

We also talked to them about where to go on their trip through the north east come this July. They’re already planning on going to Niagara Falls and up to Boston and hopefully making a side trip to see us.

I had to add the picture of her in this dress was one that she had gotten back in the beginning of April from Grandma & Grandpa Jones for Easter but this was the first time she’s been able to wear it. It’s a size 4/5 and in all honesty, it’s just long enough and just fits her across the torso. It’s hard to swallow how big she’s getting sometimes!

9May2009: Day 348: Last Hurrah into London

Thanks to the kind and gracious hearts of Hannah’s parents, Chris and I were able to take one last trip into London to see a few things that we had not been able to see in previous trips without Makenna.. He wanted to go to the Natural History Museum and I wanted to go to Buckingham Palace, even though it’s closed this time of year.

We gleefully dropped of Makenna and caught the train into Victoria station. Of course the underground lines we needed were closed but we were able to just grab another one and get to the museum. We had to walk past Harrods department store so instead of walking past it, we walked through it. Supposedly it has all types of stores ranging from high-priced, high-end to low price. I didn’t see any of the latter as we walked through that's for sure.

We made it to the museum and it was neat to see a lot of different types of things from rocks and gems to dinosaurs. I think the dinosaur findings were really neat. The museum was definitely of the mindset of big-bang theory more than biblical. In fact, one area said that some group of scientists believed that we could’ve evolved from these sea life plants. This picture on the left is of a Saber tooth - pretty cool! Then the picture of the dinosaur standing is of a sloth! I thought that was kind of freaky. I never realized they were that big at one time.

We left there after a couple of hours and we were drowsy from the heat in the place. It seems as though if we don’t have Makenna keeping us on our toes and getting us frustrated by her behavior, we’d rather take a nap.

Since the Science museum was right there we went there. We grabbed a bite to eat and looked at the space section. We got to see the diapers that astronauts have to wear, plus the clever way they have to shower in space. We didn’t stay here too long as I was anxious to get to Buckingham Palace.

We made it to the palace and went into the Queen’s Gallery. This was just a museum like section that had paintings, furniture, some amour, some of the jewelry, and table service dishes. I liked the pictures and some of the furniture. I’ve said this before, and say it again…these people have way too much money. It was actually only three rooms of stuff so it didn’t take us to long to go through here, plus we couldn't take pictures. You weren't even allowed to have your cell phone on.
We went to the front of the palace and took some pictures and got to see a couple of guards do their marching thing. It seems a bit strange and formal for no reason, but I’m sure it’s years of tradition and for show. I think the police walking around carrying machine-type guns were more intimidating.

This collage was more of the fountain in front of the palace instead of the palace itself.

We headed back to the train station and back to pick up Makenna. She seemed to have a good time at an animal farm they took her to. She even took a nap as she was so worn out they said. There was only a couple of incidents with her where she’d scream to get what she wanted and they told her she had to say please and she wouldn’t so they didn’t give it to her…good for them! I’m glad to see them be consistent with something we’d do.

I’m going to miss her having such a good friend, although I know she’ll make more through the years and forget this one and the fun she had, but maybe they’ll meet up again some day and pick up where they left off.

8May2009: Day 347: Po-Morrow

After nursery today, we ran home and got Makenna lunch. Hannah & Bethany came over so that they could all play together while their mommy watched Makenna and I could go meet Chris for a “goodbye” lunch in his honour in Maidstone at a place called “Flaming Henry’s.”

I was very appreciative that Madonna was willing to come over and watch her for about 4.5 hours. She came over here so that she could Makenna down for a nap. She remembers from last time around Christmas when Makenna just stayed awake at her house all night until we came to pick her up. She knows her kids will sleep anywhere.

The dinner was very nice and when I got there about 2:20pm, they were serving appetizers so I got there just in time. They had fried brie which was really good and some garlic bread. Then they brought out more appetizers of ribs and what looked like onion rings. I bit into one and knew it wasn’t an onion ring but didn’t know what it was. I put it down and found out later it was calamari. I can now say I’ve tried calamari and don’t like it.

Chris had ordered me dinner since I was running late and ordered me a steak which was actually pretty good. Luckily, someone brought A1 and there was a big discussion about A1 vs. Brown Sauce (the main sauce here for steak).

They also had a “razzing session” for Chris and gave him some nice parting gifts. They also gave me a really nice bouquet of flowers. Chris then gave a “short” speech. I sat around and talked to some of his co-workers. One of the guys I talked to told me about the crazy roads and how that they were created the way they were due to the farms at the time. People couldn’t go through farm lands so they’d go around them and it lead to these strange windy, narrow roads. I did eventually leave in order to relieve Madonna and let her go home to feed her husband dinner.

Makenna was upset to see them go and I agreed to walk with them to the corner near the park. She of course wanted to go to the park but I wasn’t up for it and wanted to get her home to get her dinner. She’s actually going to spend the day with them again tomorrow and she kept repeating “po-morrow.” I would say, “Yes, you’ll see Hannah & Bethany tomorrow.”

It will be hard to get back into the swing of things back in the states I think and I know I’ll miss some things here that we’ve been able to do along with people we’ve met.

7May2009: Day 346: New Tyres

This past weekend, one guy pointed out to us that our tyre (as they spell it here,) was “No good.” We thought he meant it was flat but he was just saying that it was bald. Chris already knew that and had me call the rental car company to see about getting them taken care of.

They told me I had to go to a Kwik Fit (like our Kost Tires I guess,) and get them to see if I really needed them changed. So Makenna and I set off today to go there after we dropped Chris off at work. Luckily, there’s one right up the road from where we live so I knew right where to go.

They looked at the tyres and agreed that the two front ones needed to be replaced. I made sure that they were going to charge the rental car company and not us. He said that was the plan. I also made sure that he agreed that it was normal wear and tear on the tyres and not something we did. Chris said that they were somewhat bald to begin with when we got the car. Kwik Fit also agreed that it was normal wear on the tyres.

Since it was going to take an hour or so, I decided to take the pushcart out of the back and walk back home with Makenna. She surprisingly walked all the way home without getting in the car and not asking to be carried. I think it had something to do with a dirty diaper.

After a quick change, we went to the park for a bit. Since we weren’t going to be able to make our usual sing/dance playgroup today I felt bad. We only have one more week to be able to go so I want to make sure we get there next week. It was a bit cold and blustery so I was cold but she enjoyed running around. We walked back up and got the car and came back home.

Since we had some time, I started to get things transferred to the spare bedroom in order for the packers to get an idea of what will be going. Plus, I was comparing it to the list we had when we came over and adding things. I did this again tonight going through all of Makenna’s clothes that we’ll be shipping back – which is quite a lot. She’s grown quite a bit which I can see looking at old pictures and clothes from when we first got here a year ago.

She had swim class today and wasn’t up for listening the whole time, as usual. The teacher had more success in getting her to do what she was asking then I was. She kept asking to go under again. She did earn another swimming badge though. I asked the teacher if she had to be tested and she replied that she’s been keeping track of her progress and she’s earned it. I’ll pick that up in the next few days or so. I was hoping she’d get another one before we left so I was happy to hear that she earned one.

Now if she could only earn an “Angel” merit badge. But she wouldn’t be two and half then would she?

6May2009: Day 345: Little Mermaid

Makenna noticed the bird from yesterday was missing and she kept saying he flew away. I just said, “Yes, he went away.”

Today was a nice day so I’m caught up, once again, on laundry. Until oh let’s say…tomorrow. It’ll be nice to have a big washing machine again.

I took Makenna to the gym today and they didn’t have her booked in the nursery but luckily had an opening. I looked at my receipts later and found that I did have her booked and paid for. I’ll have to show them the receipt next week.

We went swimming and did I have a mermaid on my hands today. She did not want me to hold on to her while swimming. I would comply eventually, for a few seconds and she’d go under. She didn’t mind and she kept her mouth closed—hurray! She did really well with kicking her feet and moving her arms. Now if she’d only do that well tomorrow in class. The one thing she started doing though was walking off the edge into the water instead of jumping.

Other kids eventually showed and brought pool toys and she didn’t want to leave and kept trying to get their toys. Luckily they were willing to share. We had already been in though for about 40 minutes or so and had to get going. I let her stay about another 20 and then we left.

I was hoping to walk to play group this afternoon but since we would’ve been 45 minutes late if we did. She would’ve wanted to stop in the park and play and I wouldn’t have the heart to say no, so I thought it best to just drive there and that way we could get home and get her into a nap. She’s still fighting a bit of a cold and for once, I have not gotten it…yet. I’m trying to be more diligent about keeping her at a distance or washing my hands more regularly.

Tomorrow is already looking like a busy day as usual and I have lots to do to get ready to move back. I did take a few pictures of the small bathroom downstairs since I cleaned that today. Just remember…I didn’t pick the colors.

5May2009: Day 344: Birdie Sleeping

More laundry after another long weekend away – joy of all joys! I grumbled quite a bit last night about how I’m sick of doing laundry. I love the smell of fresh clean laundry but am darn right tired of constantly doing it.

As I stepped out the back door this morning, I saw a dead bird on our back patio area. I was able to keep Makenna away from it until the afternoon. She saw it and I yelled at her to stop and not touch it (I was trying to get lunch ready). She saw it and said, “birdie.” I agreed and then she said, “He’s sleeping.” I agreed again. I’m not about to get into the aspects of life and death with her at this point. She then said, “He’s tired.” “Yes, he’s tired,” I agreed. I saved the “present” as I called it, for Chris to take of when he got home. I was too nervous to touch it with all the weird diseases going around.

Makenna also enjoyed “driving” the car while I put away groceries and hung up laundry. She usually likes to get into the glove compartment and make a mess so that when I show up she says, “Uh-oh, what a mess.” When I got there, she didn’t really get into the glove compartment but still said, “What did you do? What a mess.” I had to see what she was talking about. She was pointing at a place where my gum used to be. Then she’d point at the cigarette lighter which is open for our GPS connection. I look in there and what do I see? Yup…a piece of gum shoved down to the bottom. Wonderful. We luckily have these Bamboo sticks and I was able to use that to get the wadded up gum out. I found the rest of the gum in a compartment…the rest that I know of at this point.

I also thought I came up with this grand idea in trying to get her to eat peas. I bought a small can of them and mixed them in with her noodles. Well, she picked them out or spit them out along with any food attached to it – so much for good ideas. I tried to mush them in but still no luck. I guess because they were canned. She’s eaten peas once or twice before so I was hoping that it would be this easy.

Dinner wasn’t any better. We tried to get her to eat just two penne noodles with sauce so that daddy could take her to the park. It must’ve taken close to a half hour for her to finally eat them. We kept saying, “last chance,” and then giving her more chances. He finally took her to the park and she was so cute all dressed up in her wellies and rain coat and her little camera from Brussels. It wasn’t raining but she had gotten her shoes all wet at nursery jumping in puddles.

She’s also at the stage of repeating her comments over and over and over, etc. Tonight Chris and Makenna were watching Star Trek and she wanted to move on to another show but we told her to let this show finish and she could watch one of her own. She repeated,” Let it finish,” about eight of nine times while he was trying to watch it.

4May2009: Day 343: Lulworth & Sherborne Castles

Today we went to two castles along the route home found in Dorset. The first one is called Lulworth Castle which was built between 1606 and 1610. It was first owned and built for Thomas Howard who was the 3rd Duke of Norfolk’s younger son and it eventually became the ancestral home of the Weld family. It was a beautiful castle which was built as a hunting lodge on a “grand scale.” It was well laid out and the interior was modern Victorian style up until a fire in 1929 which gutted the place. The family never was able to rebuild and the place sat as a ruin for 70 years after which English Heritage (a group that holds many of the castles around England) offered to put a new roof on the place and they rebuilt it up a bit inside. The style they are doing now in most restorations is to make the parts that are not old look extremely modern such that it is easy to tell the difference between old and new. The Torre Abby from yesterday was another place like this.

The place was so gutted that really just the shell remained and there wasn’t much in the place that wasn’t just staged there like a museum. It had old washing machines, cookery, an old bed, etc. There was a re-enactment of the English civil war going on and they had many people around the castle and on the grounds dressed in period costumes. They had re-enactments of battles and demonstrations of horse riding. It was interesting.

Makenna saw a bounce house and that was all she could talk about. We told her that if she was good in the castle that she could go on the bounce house. That was just setting her up for failure though, as she was probably tired and immediately fell to pieces in the castle…wouldn’t listen, or walk. We told her if she didn’t walk she would not go in the bounce house and even that didn’t work. She doesn’t realize consequences for her actions yet though she certainly knows when she is misbehaving. When we took her out of the castle and immediately planted her into the cart she realized that she was not going to the bounce house and immediately put on a fit. We tried to push her off quickly as she was screaming pretty well. There was an announcer talking over a loud speaker when we walked out and I think some of Makenna’s screams were amplified nicely.
We went to a chapel that was there. It was actually the first free standing Catholic chapel built in England after the reformation. One of the children of the original owner became a famous cardinal and about 5 of his 15 children became priests, so it was a really religious family. In fact, that was part of the problem. The family was very Catholic and was penalized and suspected of treason and all sorts of bad things because of it, but they never left or quit. It wasn’t anything fancy, but a nice chapel with a dome painted modestly.

Makenna fell asleep while we were in the chapel and stayed asleep while we walked around the “camp” that they had for the re-enactment. There were several guns that went off while she was sleeping, but she didn’t even fidget. She was dead tired. She is still fighting a cold.

We left there and went to a castle a short distance away called Sherborne. It is the ancestral home of the Wingfield Digby family. There were actually two castles on the sight, the Old Castle and the new fortified Manor.

“Sherborne Old Castle” was the home of the Bishop of Salisbury who built it from the time of William the Conqueror. By the time of the reformation it was a large stronghold and fell to the Parliamentarians only after sustained gun fire. They tore the old castle down so that it could never be used as a military stronghold again.

After this it was the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, who originally tried to rebuild the main ancient castle into a grand Elizabethan mansion, but he couldn’t afford it, so he converted the hunting lodge near by (Sherborne Castle) into a large fortified manor. After he conspired against the king he was convicted of treason and executed.

The castle was purchased by the Digby family who added on to the manor and it grew into a large home for them. We toured the rooms which were nice, but not extravagant as other fortified manors were we have seen, but it was certainly large enough. It had many old paintings and furniture of which we couldn’t take any pictures of.

In the cellar area they had some archaeological findings from around Sherborne Old Castle and from this manor. Even ammonites that were found in quarries from the estate were on display.

We walked between the two castles on some really nice grounds that were wooded and it had a nice lake. We stopped to feed some ducks, as usual, but this time there was also baby ducklings. Makenna thought they were funny. The ducks were literally coming up to us and I almost stepped on one. There was also this other type of duck that I have no idea what it is but I've seen pictures in books before.

Makenna was okay at this castle as we were able to take the cart. They were at first saying that we should leave it but we told them we’ve done gone up and down more stairs around this world than they can imagine carrying this cart. They relented.

When we were done, we had to hurry back to the Old Castle where we parked as the gate between the two castles would close at 4:30pm and it would’ve been a really huge walk to get from one to the other walking along the road.

When we made it back to the Old Castle grounds, we let her run around a bit as we knew it was going to be at least a few hours ride in the car to get home. Sure enough we got stuck in traffic with everyone trying to get home from the Bank Holiday weekend. It was especially crowded around Stonehenge as it goes from two lanes into one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again…these people do not know how to merge efficiently.

We stopped at a rest stop along the way and got KFC – chicken bites as usual for Makenna. This made her day. We got home around 9pm and my job of sorting laundry started yet again.