Saturday in Wales

 The Queen's Jubilee caused an extension of a regular Bank Holiday, making it a four day weekend for Brian and Owen.  We decided to take advantage of the time off and do a little road trip to Wales.  According to Mapquest (love that it works in England too) it was suppose to take about 3 hours to get to the border and about 4 to get to our first location.   Not too bad we thought.  So we loaded up our Ford Focus.... and I mean LOADED up and headed out. 

 We had books and toys and movies galore!

 Which is a good thing becuase the traffic was TERRIBLE!!!!  We left later than we should have and since we had to drive around London and then around Cardiff (capitol of Wales) we were pretty much stopped on the motorway several times. 

 At this part in the journey everyone was still pretty happy though.

 This is how I look behind the wheel since moving here.  I totally drive "10 and 2" and pretty much constatly keep my eyes on the road, even in a traffic jam. 

 Yay!!!  We made it to Seven Bridge, our gateway to Wales!!

 And then of course there was the toll.  Funny that we left the country but didn't even have to take passports. 

 And FINALLY, SIX hours later, we made it to our hotel.   So a funny thing about our Hotel, as I've mentioned before we are not that great at planning and need to get a lot better, but since I started reserving hotels only about two weeks before we left we pretty much took whatever was available.  And what was available was the Days Inn on Junction 17 off of the M4... basically one of those service stations with gas and food and a hotel.  So maybe not the most scenic location but it was the only place we stayed with WIFI! 

 We were all just so happy to be out of the car!

 After we unloaded the car and stretched our legs a bit.  We got back in the car to head to some sand dunes.  We attempted to ask the clerk at the hotel how to get there but she said it was too complicated and didn't even try to help us.  So instead we tried looking it up on Google Maps.  The funny part about this is that when the GPS said we had reached our destination there were no sand dunes in sight, but we had ended up at the exact location that had made me book the hotel in this town in the first place.  Ogmore Castle.  I had planned on going there the next day but it worked out perfect to go now. 

 So we parked by the swinging bridge and hiked over to the castle... well more like castle ruins.

 Ellika is the Queen of falling asleep at the wrong time!  She was awake the entire drive to Wales and fell asleep on this 10 minute drive. Go figure.  Anyway, if you look in the distance you can see the caslte.

 Luckily for us, it didn't take her too long to be running to catch up with Owen and Brian.

 So you might be wondering why on Earth I wanted to see these ruins becuase they probably don't look that cool.  But 1. my kids love ruins better than functioning castles because they can run around and I'm not worried about them breaking anything and 2. there were large stepping stones you had to use to get to them and I thought that was really cool....

 Here are Brian and Ellika getting ready to walk across the stones to the Castle.

 Everything started off so good....

 Owen was totally having fun going from step to step.  He was holding my hand as we were crossing as I was trying to hold on to my purse and not let either of us slip. 

 Then we noticed that the water was rising over the stones!  I did remember the website saying something about making sure you're on the right side of the river when the tide comes in!  We were crossing over right as it was happening!  You'll notice Brian had to take off his shoes and roll up his pants!  And by the time we got across Owen was in tears becuase the water was cold!!

 There goes our path back to the car.... being submerged in the water!!

 Oh well.  We decided to make the most of it and worry about getting back to our car later. 

 One more view of the river.... no stones in sight and look how deep the horses are!! I was thinking Brian was going to have to go for a cold swim!!

 Owen loves to go "exploring" and being the leader!

 This is Ellika's new smiling face. 

 Lot's of climbing.

 I loved how beautiful the countryside was.

 We totally lucked out on finding this fantastic pub.  Thanks to google maps again, we realized it was right up from the castle and we happened to be there right around dinner time.  Isn't it a cute place?

 I loved the outdoor seating.  And as you can see, Brian and I are getting really good at ordering Coke and Diet Coke at the Pub!

 The food was fantastic!!  I had some sort of Welsh crabcakes with yummy cheese and Brian ordered Fish-n-Chips with mushy peas.  The mushy peas were actually my favorite part. 

 Then it was time to walk back and figure out how to get back to our car.

 You can see the ripple in the water where our path was suppose to be!  We asked at the pub for some advice and one of the servers said if we walked along the river for about 10 minutes we would get to a bridge and we could cross over.  Since we didn't have too many other options we decided to look for the bridge.

 Of course we were totally trespassing the entire way.  We had to climb over this little gate and hope none of us fell in!

 It was a fun walk though.

 And then we found it!!!  And we crossed through the horse fields and even found our car.

 The roads in Wales were CRAZY small!!!  This is a two way road.  I was very glad Brian was driving because yes, we did pass cars on the road.

 As we were driving back to our hotel we took the route that took us past the beach.  We've lived in the UK long enough to know that you can't wait for the sun to shine to play, so we headed out to have some fun even if it's was a little chilly and maybe a little misty.

 But we all had so much fun.  The sand was perfect to run on with bare feet and we were about the only ones there. 

 I love this picture.  Owen loved making footprints in the sand.

 I love that my kids will have fun wherever we go and in whatever weather it happens to be! 

 Now all cuddled up in their bed for the night with a little Dora on my IPhone!