....the continued adventure!

So the remaining time in France was wonderful. It was chill, laid back, warm, full of swimming and playing cards, and listening to Abba, and then watching the movie "Mama Mia" which started a serious Abba LOVE in our girls. Good times!

I may have heard enough Abba for the next ten years, however.

We also visited what was one of the highlights for me of this portion of the trip: the Roman Amphitheatre in a nearby town. It was incredible!

Okay, so unfortunately there was stuff being set up for a big concert when we were there, but really, it was so amazing still! We also got the audio-tour sets so we could hear all sorts of fascinating information while we walked around to different areas of the place. What an incredible, and weird, and fascinating time!

We thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the time we had in France. The drivers were CRAZY, the language was lovely, the sites were unreal. SO MUCH HISTORY.

But alas, the time came to say goodbye to France and move on.

This is us, and in particular, our littlest lady, at the train station back in England, ready to see my sister and family again. See the slightly crazed expression in her eyes? Kind of clouded over, and a bit mad? Well, this would describe what we were all dealing with for the last bit of this trip. Haha! No, we had such a nice time, but we were all amazingly worn out and exhaustedly blissed out.

And so, in such a state, what more can be done but take some essential and extremely HOT selfies in front of the brick wall on the platform?

We tried to convince our eldest that if she ran at a good speed at this very wall, probably she'd end up at Hogwarts, but she would not be convinced. Not even for money. Weird.

See this look? This is a bit "travel parenting" right here. Kid thinks it's funny to do whatever she happens to like, including mauling us with full body slams, kisses and hugs. (You think that sounds cute, don't you? It's not.)

A little more kid sass. Who's kids are these, anyway? Pfff. :)

And the one who coldly refused to believe in Hogwarts. Sheesh. Nothing but trouble, I tell ya.

And as one might expect, the train ride was enough to lull at least one of us into a deep, happy sleep as she sat on the floor between suitcases.

See these two? These are the original love birds. That's right. We have travelled for 3 weeks now and still like each other. Hahaha! No, no. It has been a total pleasure doing life with this guy.

So we arrived back "home" to London. Honestly, after being in Holland and France, London felt a bit like home. Maybe it was because we had spent time there already, or because the language was the same, but it just felt kind of nice to be back!

As soon as we returned, I met this funny cat on the sidewalk, which I named "Geisha", because, well, come on. Can't you see it?

It cracked me up, that "wig".

We also saw another show - THE LION KING!! Very, very cool.

(Look at our little fashionista there, looking around....!)

Yes, the nosebleeds. They call it the "Grand Circle". Doesn't that sound like an exciting place to sit? Haha!

Further days in London included Ryan taking the big girls into the city to do some exciting things including:

Which, on a whim, seemed appropriate, considering the current love of Abba. :)

And the littlest lady and I had a lovely date. We went out for pizza....

And ice cream....

And after all that fun, this happened. :) Lovely.

The final little bit of the trip was going to be going with my sister and family to a cottage in Suffolk. And so we loaded into this mega-awesome rental van, having also loaded all our baggage and instruments (guitar, cello, keyboard, etc...), and headed off!

Suffolk was great. The cottage was amazing (it was so, so, so old!) and the surrounding areas were so beautiful. I do love the English countryside!

One day we went and strolled through an old medieval town called Lavenham. Okay, I might have that name wrong, but it was something like that. HAHAHA!!! It was very cool!

Okay, so firstly, the building were all different colours - and very neat! Then Ryan touched one....

Weird! Okay! Moving on. There was a lot of stuff to see!

Can you see the crookedness of the buildings?

They were so old that they had become totally warped!

Here's a good example... it was crazy to see!

Let me say one thing about the English pubs though. Everywhere we went, there seemed to be a pub, and often they had names like this.

Rude.

We went to the church in the village - quite the church! It was Sunday, however, and we arrived while a service was going on, so we didn't actually go in. We wandered the grounds instead.

Some of these tombs went back so far - back to the 1600s, or earlier even!

This was one of the super-duper old ones. Can you see the two faces? The face of a child or angel on the right, and of a scull on the left? When I looked at the photo and put a filter on it, I also saw the third face. Can you see it? I do wonder what these are all about.

When I saw this very polite notice, I softened a little. The pub names seemed slightly less offensive. Very polite. Thank you. Very polite.

(This sign was outside a pub.)

And that was the first half of the end of our trip!!! :) 

To Be Continued...