Thursday - Friday: Wales and Halloween

Our great rush on Wednesday night was to get to North Wales to see our good friends, Jenny and Rob Richardson. We made it, by about 8 pm and had a delicious cheesy bacon pasta bake with them. Here's Brian and Camille on their couch the next morning... 

They live on the island of Anglesey, in the village of Llanfairpwllgwn. Yep, it's a Welch name. In fact, it's the second longest name of any place in the world. Llanfairpwllgwn is just an abbreviation. We managed to  catch the full name on the sign of the car dealership below...

Heheh. Both Rob and Jenny can say the full name. They learned it from a song.:)

That first night, Jenny and Rob and I stayed up talking and catching up until very late, which I loved. (Brian was thinking of joining us, but accidentally fell asleep.:)

The next day, Rob went off to work, and Jenny opted to stay home with kids who weren't feeling well. So we went out to tour the island on our own for the afternoon. 

First, we drove down by the strait that makes Anglesey an island. It's small, like a river. Then, we went to Beaumaris Castle. It has a little kids playground out in front of its moat, which we took advantage of, for sure...

And here are the troops, ready to storm the castle...

While Brian took them around exploring the various tunnels and passageways, I stayed in the courtyard with this cutie...

She was in such good spirits, I took advantage of the time to do a little photo shoot with her...

The "baby in the castle ruins" didn't turn out quite like I was hoping. She kept moving, trying to crawl out of the edge of the hole, not too good...

Finally I joined the gang on the ramparts, which Camille loved...

A dark shot of our little explorers...

And a final pic of the outer wall and moat...

After the castle, we decided to head to the very tip of the island, to a town called Holyhead. It turns out that Holyhead is also a little island, right at the tip of Anglesey, which is an island right at the tip of Wales. Cool, huh?

So, near Holyhead, we visited a place called South Stack. It was cold and windy, and very fascinating. There's a very cool lighthouse down some steep  cliffs, on its own little island with a bridge out to it...

It's closed for the season, but we hiked down to it partway anyway. Here are Camille and I, braving the wind. She had her wind cover on the stroller, and believe me, it was doing the job!!

It was rough going with the stroller, so I went back to the car with the baby. But the others trudged on...

Yep, the gate was closed and locked, just like the visitor's center guy said it would be...

It was a nice way to end the day.

Back at Rob and Jenny's, we had dinner, put kids to bed, and talked for awhile again, though not quite so late this time. 

I made a new friend while we were their--- 18month-old Toby. He followed me around a lot and brought me his favorite toys.

Here he is, playing in the back garden,. Little doll boy...

And, the rest of the mischief makers, taking turns in the hammock...

Here's my sweet Jenny, just before we left. 

And her is her lovely home, isn't it so very English?! Or rather, Welch?!:)

The back garden...

Complete with garden gnomes...

We spent most of that day driving back toward London, and met up with our friends, Joyce and Charles, that night, to do Halloween with their family. Camille was thrilled, can't you tell?:) 

Actually, we arrived just as they were ready to go trick or treating, so we quickly raided their dress up box, got on some short-order costumes, and off we went. I didn't even take pictures of the costumes. But Samantha was a fancy lady in a frilly dress. Natalie was a cute little witch, and poor Spencer was a Viking... with only a Viking hat for a costume. I should have planned better, but I really didn't want to haul Halloween costumes all around Europe on our trip. So I figured we'd just borrow from our friends. But Spencer was the only boy, and the boy costumes in their all-girl dress-up box were slim pickings. But that certainly didn't stop him from getting his share of the candy...

Samantha did "trades" with the other girls until she had 88 pieces of candy, she told me...

So, I took just a few pics, then told Samantha to take the camera for a bit. Here she is with the other Samantha. They seemed to be fast friends...
And she took this one of Natalie, the only  one we got, I guess.

And a last one of Spencer, enjoying some apple cider...

Happy Halloween, everyone!!