Family, Family, We Love Family!

Hey All! Sorry that we've taken so long to post to the blog lately. So...we'll go quick and a little more sparse on details in our attempts to catch back up.

A few weeks ago (on March 13th) my mom, brother, Mike, and Grandma & Grandpa came into town. We were so excited to see more family!

The first day they were here we visited Windsor Castle (below). We loved watching the guards march around the grounds and change shifts periodically. (It wasn't the official procession, but still really cool to watch.) The afternoon was spent resting up (for Mike this meant HOURS of resting) and walking around Staines with Grandma & Mom. (We also had fun feeding the swans!)
The following two days were spent in London. Mike took the tube for the first time and was a natural! He was so good at getting around on it - I was really impressed!

Between the two days we visited the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Pauls Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, and the Imperial War Museum. (Talk about a packed couple of days, huh?)

I had seen a lot of London before, so my favorite part was probably the Tower of London. We followed their complementary guided tour. The guide was AMAZING and so much fun to listen to. We really enjoyed our time there!

It was fantastic to have Dad come and join us on Friday! Once we got him to the apartment and settled in we were all off (except for poor Jared who had to stay home and work, work, work) to Hampton Court Palace. We toured part of the palace and the gardens and went through the maze too. (Although the maze wasn't that difficult . . . a little anti-climatic if you ask me.)

My favorite part were the gardens. They were all starting to bloom and the flowers were so brilliant!

Finally Saturday came along and Jared was able to join us in our adventures! We headed up to Warwick Castles and immediately got Jared & I in the stocks for pictures!

Warwick Castle has probably been my favorite of the castles so far. I really liked their Kingmaker exhibit. It was really life-like and very interesting to look at.

I think Jared's favorite part might have been torturing Michael. What do you think?
We had a great time together at Warwick Castle! Here's a shot of all of us together - How cute! ;)
After Warwick we headed off to try to give the family a taste of a couple of the Cotswold towns. Mom & Dad had been there before, but it was new to the others. We stopped in Stow-on-the-wold, drove through Bourton-on-the-water, and stopped again in Bibury.

Here's a picture of Grandma, Grandpa, Mom and Dad on Arlington Row in Bibury. Isn't it beautiful?

We had a great time having the family stay with us here in Staines! They were such great sports! We were all packed in like sardines, but it was great to see them up until bedtime and again at the crack of dawn! :)