RHS Wisley Gardens and the Royal Baby Watch!

Mom and Nana, this post is dedicated to you! 

This morning we woke up to the news that Kate had indeed checked into the hospital! We have been participating in the baby watch all day. We are hoping to go into London either tomorrow evening or the next day. We are hoping for that Lion King moment where Kate lifts the baby into the air announcing its birth; however, it looks like she will just be exiting the hospital down the front steps...nothing flashy. 

Another historical moment happened today: today has been the hottest day in the UK since 2006, and, of course, they have us scheduled to take an all day outdoor tour of the Wisley Gardens. Below are pictures of the grounds. I don't have much to say about them because I didn't really read any of the signs. But Mom- you should still be proud. I did spend 2.5 hours walking around the ground! I have a TOMS tan :)

Keep Calm and Go To Scotland

So, I waited to write this post until we got back safely. You will soon know why...

We (Spencer, Laura, and me) did not make any plans for our first two "free" days. However, I was able to convince them to embark with me on a spontaneous trip by going to the local train station and asking them to book us on a trip to anywhere that was relatively cheap. He suggested that give Edinburgh, Scotland a try. Excited, we quickly booked our tickets and figured the rest of the planning would fall into place. Little did we know, some inconvenient event (called the British Open) was happening that exact weekend-therefore causing ALL of the hostels to be booked. We quickly realized the mistake we had made, decided we could sleep in a train station if need be, and agreed we wouldn't tell our parents until we returned :)

Luckily for us, Jill (much more of a planner) decided to join us after she researched and discovered we could book a campsite. We decided we could buy tents at the store, pack our sheets, and head out the next morning. We boarded the train at 6 AM and arrived 5 hours later in Edinburgh...

 We ended up having to change trains at King's Cross Station- home of Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter! Next door was a Harry Potter book shop.

When we first arrived, we took a "Hop On, Hop Off" bus tour around the town. It was nice to see the layout of everything and have a audio history of the places. Above are pictures of the countryside, Castle Rock, and one of the many crowded streets. 

After the bus tour, Laura and I decided to visit the Holyrood Castle. This is where Queen Elizabeth stays during the summer when she is in Scotland. We took the audio tour here too. It was very informative and probably my favorite thing we did while in Scotland. This is a picture in front of the castle.

Unfortunately, our evening did not turn out as lovely as our day. We arrived at our campsite and decided to race to see who could put their tent together first. We did not realize how lucky we would be to get our tent together at all! Below you can see our first attempt. Luckily for us, and after many strange stares and laughter, some friendly Scottish men decided to come over and help. I'm pretty sure they had the tent up perfectly within 2 minutes. After talking with them for awhile, we finally decided to go to bed. Again, we did not realize that the sun doesn't actually set there until about 10:30 PM--not that we got to do much sleeping. The temperature dropped to 50 degrees and our sheets weren't cutting it. We put on every layer of clothes we had and prayed we would make it through the night. When the sun came up, we decided we had all the cold we could handle and we were going to take very long, warm showers. We looked at the time- it was 4:45 AM. Apparently, the sun does not like to stay down long. The other picture is Laura and I freezing in our tent.

Day Two: 

We met a really awesome taxi driver named Tony the day before. He took us to the campground and told us to call him the next morning for him to pick us up and he would take us to his favorite breakfast spot. We arrived at Snaxs early, so he took us on a free drive around town. It was interesting to here a local's perspective. His tour was better than the bus tour! After an amazingly warm breakfast, we decided to tour Castle Rock. This tour was focused on Mary Queen of Scots and her reign. Below are: a picture of the castle from the bottom of the hill, one from the main gate, and of course a picture with a kilt-clad Scottish statue. 

 We meandered around Edinburg shopping at stores, eating lunch at Frankenstein's laboratory, and finally ending our day with the Harry Potter tour of Edinburgh. Below you can see the school with the four towers (inspiration for Hogwarts and its four houses), our tour guide pointing his wand at Tom Riddle's grave, the street view that was one of the inspirations for Diagon Alley, and The Elephant House Coffee Shop (where JK Rowling spent much time writing the series).

Afterwards, we boarded our train and headed back to Guildford. We arrived back around midnight. I am finishing this post and going to bed! We have class in the morning. 

Exploring Guildford

Today we explored a little of Guildford. Here are some pictures:

This is Guildford Castle. They had some lovely gardens surrounding the grounds.

 This was called "Alice Through the Looking Glass." Apparently, Lewis Carroll is from Guildford.

 We felt it was necessary to take the traditional phone booth picture. However, there was an annoyed British man waiting to actually use the booth as we took a few pics.

Poundland is the British version of a Dollar Tree. Below, you can see they have Krispey Kreme here!

 They said that this is one of Jamie Oliver's restaurants.

We Touched Down in London Town

I have made it safely to England! We landed at 6:30 yesterday morning. I did get a couple hours of sleep on the plane, but I felt like a walking zombie yesterday. We took a bus (about an hour drive) to Guildford. He dropped us off at the University of Surrey, and we sat around for about 30 minutes while they tried to locate our professor. Apparently, she didn't expect us that early.

This is the view from the window while flying over the Atlantic and our bus that took us to Guildford. When we arrived in England, we learned that they are experiencing a rare"heat wave". Therefore, we have all the windows open, as they have no AC. It is hot during the day, but it still gets quite cold at night. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing!

 Below are pictures of our dorms. We each have our own room, complete with a personal bathroom. There is a kitchen for every 8 rooms. We have all been keeping our doors open and traveling up and down the halls hanging out with each other.

They didn't want us to go to sleep until 7pm, so they scheduled a few things: breakfast, walking tour of campus, trip to Tesco (the grocery store), and dinner. Below: A picture of a "ship" building on campus (they also have a train building) and us walking around campus.

The walk to Tesco was interesting. They sent us there without giving much instruction on how to get there. We ended up having to ask about 3-4 Englishmen along the way to redirect us. They were all very friendly.They only have a few American brands at the grocery store, which made shopping very difficult for a picky person! I ended up with peanut butter, jelly, bread, and cereal, milk, and of course...some cheese :) It was interesting because pretty much everyone there uses the resusable grocery bags. I bought one to fit it--didn't want to be the wasteful American that needed plastic bags. Once back, I went to my dorm room and was asleep by 6.

We will be on campus again today--we have class in an hour. The only "fun" thing we have scheduled today are going to some gardens after class. (Mom/Nana, I'll take lots of pictures for you!) Hopefully, I will be traveling to London on Saturday and can finally see some sights! I will keep you posted :)

New House done

Well, we were supposed to move in yesterday, but due to some scheduling conflicts, closing got moved to Monday. The realtor sent us a nice picture collection of the finished house, so take a look:

100 Dartmoor Lane

It doesn't seem that long ago that we were walking through the woods!

The Power of the Cross

This is the song In One Accord sang yesterday at Hay Street Methodist Church.
Caroline is second from the left (unfortunately hidden by the music stand for the most part) but you can see her smile when a baby starts squealing in the middle of their song :)

New House Progress Report #10

We are only 2 weeks away from move-in day, so I thought I'd share some pictures from the last few weeks. It's really getting close. We move out of our current house next Wednesday and we are in the process of packing up. We thought we didn't have much stuff, but I'm having trouble putting a dent in it!

Linz goofing

Driveway and walkway poured!

Shutters painted. 

The shutters actually close.

All lights and fans have been installed.

Kitchen countertops installed and hardwood floors sanded and finished.

Today they were working on the fireplace.

Installing the tile backsplash in the kitchen.

Upstairs

Emma's room

Guest bathroom

Dining room with wainscoting. 

Lockers

Master bath. This is our "claw foot" tub we asked for. Not really sure how that got lost in translation... but it still looks nice.

Next up... landscaping.