We're going for an e-holiday-letter because… it’s what I can muster this year as we navigate the twisty path of remediation for mold which has just been discovered in my bedroom and bathroom (ceilings and walls and floors). On the plus side, maybe I’ve found the cause of my worsening migraines!
Cameron has been back at school for two weeks, one for settling and one for the first week of classes. He just caught us up on each class and seems happy and fully comfortable with handling his first semester of junior year. Throughout the conversation we heard chirping. Apparently, his fire alarm battery has been beeping for... five days. No, he doesn't know where his RA's room is (and couldn't locate it after walking the hallway). No, he doesn't know how to submit a maintenance request and hasn't remembered to ask at the residential staff desk. Yes, he'd like it if we could send him a 9V battery.
We fetched home our boy after semester number two! He got A's and B's except that he has one more final to take (because he slept through it), but a very kind professor let him take an incomplete and he's scheduled to take that final in June. Then it was Mother's Day morning... I got a sonnet again and, the pet sitter picked-up (and, spoiler alert, spent two weeks spoiling) the dogs, and then we flew to Britain!
Flat #1:Gray's London
Doesn't Cameron look snazzy is this jacket! We saw Andrew's 80+ year-old Minecraft friend in Felixtowe and I checked off the bucket-list-item of visiting the cliffs of Dover! I goofed on a date, so we also took a surprise trip to Cambridge instead of staying a second night in Grays... oops, a bit of drama around midnight when we thought they'd double booked the flat, but lots of lessons learned!
Flat #2 (as far as planned and really staying): Yorkshire
So excited at my first sight of the Yorkshire moors and we had a glorious dinner at the local pub called the Wheatsheaf... we went back lots!
First day we spent in Whidby! What a fun little Yorkshire-coast town with lots of yummies to sample and little boat trip too. We went back to the Wheatsheaf for dinner again. Nom nom!
Second day, we explored lots of Yorkshire spots via the on-off-tickets on the North Yorkshire Moor Railway! So much fun! Pickering Castle was the one place we got rained on all vacation but it had stopped by the time Andrew set up his tripod. I loved visiting Goathead (Hogsmead) station and seeing the fields of yellow flowers (rapeseed). "The Secret Garden" does not exaggerate the beauty of the Yorkshire moor!
Flat #3 Wales:
Andrew wanted to drive via Liverpool as a super Beatles fan and the Beatles museum was one of Cameron's highlights of the vacation. The place we stayed in the countryside of Ross-on-Wye was so idyllic!
First day, Cameron delighted in tackling a quadizzila and then delighted in teasing me when I was trying to get a picture of him tackling the final layer. The mine we wanted to visit was closed so we mostly just saw countryside this first day.
Second day started with mellow morning games and enjoying our little courtyard (shared with some very happy bees). Then Raglan castle and then back to enjoying the area around our "flat", actually a converted barn.
Third day, Cardiff and home via Chepstow followed by so much fun with a games evening. A neighbor did knock on the door and let us know we had a flat tire... so we wound up spending much more time hanging out in that glorious location the next morning!
