Today I had the privilege of throwing my sister a baby shower for her soon-to-come twins.

Arriving for the party.

I set up a welcome table where guests could take a size 1 diaper and write encouraging notes for my sister to see later when changing her babies’ bums. She’s thinking of two names that start with “N” and “K.”

Then there was the food. She’s having a boy and a girl but instead of blue and pink I opted for teal and purple (her favorite color). It was fun to put this together.

Her mother-in-law made the salad and our cousin brought the fruit salad.

In addition we had sandwiches, cupcakes, cake truffles, and chocolate.

I can’t ever have a party without displaying quotes. We had two: “Twice as much to love, two blessing from above” and “There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: TWINS.” The one I left out was a Chinese proverb: “It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins.”

I couldn’t resist these candy jars when I saw them.

I made these cake truffles from this recipe.

I made the mini cupcakes, too. Secret: It was just a French vanilla cake mix. But the frosting I made using this recipe. (I had to triple the recipe to cover the whole batch of cupcakes.)

Wes only ate the frosting.

That was the setup, but the party was all about…

…and the “you” was my sister, Tara. She’s about 32.5 weeks pregnant.

We played a mad lib game called “The Birthing Adventure of Twins.”

And then we got down to business: PRESENTS! People were very generous and brought Tara a variety of diapers, meals to freeze, and other baby items (especially for boys, since this is her first boy).

She got some really great loot!

Meanwhile the kids… Well, they were actually rarely here, in front of the TV, which was too bad. More often than not Wes was where he shouldn’t be, such as inside the horse pen tossing rocks into the horses’ water trough (NOT allowed).

Carissa was good, often reading or playing with cars or the baby stroller and doll.

And that’s a wrap! I hope Tara had a fun baby shower and that she felt loved and supported by the many friends and family who came.

By Wednesday we wanted to give our kids and ourselves a break from the many hours we had spent in the car, driving to and from Seville and Cordoba. We spent the day doing laundry, getting groceries, and just playing.

Our first order of the day was groceries. We had been eating breakfast at the resort’s small cafe, which served a continental style breakfast including croissants, bread, fruit, and cereal. It was fine but we thought we could save money by getting our own cereal and croissants. Plus, John was hankering for bacon.

Our resort offered a free shuttle to a SuperSol market down on the main stretch closer to the ocean. It’s a good experience to shop for food in a foreign country because it’s always different than shopping at home.

For starters, you can buy sombreros in the entry.

The grocery carts cost money.

So we used the handheld pull carts, which were free. The kids each took one, and they LOVED it.

Some of the big differences in food between here and Spain:
1. The eggs are in the aisles, not the refrigerated section (as seen in the video above).
2. The milk is reconstituted dry milk, which I think tastes awful. It’s the same in Mexico. We only bought milk that was imported from England and came from actual cows. SO much better. And we bought a lot of milk. Between John and the kids and a pregnant woman, we drank a ton.
3. We had the hardest time finding pretzel sticks, which if you know Wes, you know are kind of a major part of his diet. John finally tracked some down.
4. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream is available, but it costs about 7 US Dollars. (And I bought one anyway.)
5. As we were checking out the clerk gave each of our kids a little package of party toys to take home, for free. I thought that was really nice. Until I opened it and found one of the main toys in each bag was a horn they could blow.

Afterward we waited outside for the shuttle to come pick us up again.

A peek at our fridge after groceries…

Yeah, we drink a lot of Fanta in foreign countries! We did in Mexico, too. It kind of grows on you.

After the kids’ naps I took them to the kiddie pool at the resort. It was great because it was about 18 inches deep and it was often in the shade. The water was a little cool but that didn’t stop Wes from getting in and wading across. Carissa was more timid, but after a while she got in, too. They both had a lot of fun. We took our beach ball, and Wes enjoyed kicking it around.

Right by the kiddie pool there was a small playground area that the kids liked playing on. It was also shaded. Wes actually kicked the beach ball over the fence here into an area of wilderness I couldn’t reach and I had to work up the courage to ask the front desk employees to send someone out, into the brush, to get it back for me. But they did!

So much of a vacation is making it fun for the kids, and I’m glad we could.

Back in the room for a change of clothes, Wes was reading my Spanish/English dictionary. So smart!

Then we took the kids back out for miniature golfing. This was their first time. Good thing the course wasn’t busy because it took a while with two kids, and all rules were abandoned. We only had one club and one ball to share, but it was enough. The kids took turns, and occasionally Mommy or Daddy got a turn too. It took Carissa a while to learn that after someone hits the ball she shouldn’t run over and pick it up, but leave it there. The kids loved mini golf.

(Our room is on the third floor overlooking the course.)

I love how Wes is jumping up and down in this picture. He is such a great cheerleader in sports.

While we stayed home today John’s mom and stepdad took an organized bus tour to Gibraltar, which is a British territory only about an hour and a half from our resort (think: Rock of Gibraltar). We were happy to stay and take a break, and were even more so when they got back and we heard all the drama of the day involving John’s mom accidentally leaving her purse at a rest stop on the way to Gibraltar and having to abandon the tour to retrace her steps and find it again. It was not their most restful day. But we had fun!

It helped us get ready for one last road trip together, to the famous Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

On Tuesday (day 13) we drove about two hours north to the city of Córdoba, Spain.

Carissa was our navigator.

After our first day in Spain, spent getting lost in the small, impossibly narrow streets of Seville, the first thing we did when we drove into the Córdoba was stop and get a map. Lucky for us we parked near a tourist information kiosk that had maps readily available. And while we picked that up, John went in search of a SIM card to convert his tablet to a cell phone (he found a store, but waited ridiculously long and never get helped).

Córdoba was an interesting place to visit, in part because of its history and in part its age. Right now there are only about 300,000+ residents but in around the 10th and 11th centuries it was the most populous city in the world, and for a time it was considered one of the most advanced cities in the world. There’s a strong mix of Roman and Muslim influence due being handed back and forth between the two peoples.

One thing I loved about the place is that it’s so OLD. I mean, just look at these pictures. I snapped these just as we walked from our car to our destination, the Córdoba Cathedral/Mosque. We were on some narrow streets among the locals and saw some school children in uniform walking back from school (not pictured).

The first item of business was stopping for lunch. The thing about Spain is that businesses commonly close around 2 pm for siesta time and don’t open again until 4 or 6 at night. So we made sure to eat early and get it done. We found a nice place inside a hotel. We ate in the courtyard.

I loved visiting the Córdoba Cathedral. It was unlike any other cathedral I’ve been to. It started as a place of Roman Catholic worship, but when the Arabs stepped in it was built up as a Muslim mosque. And later, after it returned to Roman hands, became a Catholic cathedral again.

Some cool beams hanging near the ticket counter from the original structure.

The inside of the cathedral was so beautiful, but I had a hard time picturing myself attending church there. I think I’d be staring at the red and white arches the whole time.

The place was giant. HUGE. You can see it a little better in the video.

Even the door to exit was big and grand and ornate.

Across the street, of course, were tourist shops. My mother-in-law and I enjoyed browsing the shops but John and Guy were ready to move on pretty quickly.

The kids? They ate ice cream (“helados”), of course.

After leaving the mosque-cathedral we walked across the old Roman bridge (I mean OLD–built around 1st century BC), crossing the Guadalquivir River to see the historical tower on the other side. It was hot. H-O-T. We passed some street performers (bridge performers?) along the way, and I can’t imagine how miserable they must have been under the sun.

You got a good view of the cathedral from the bridge:

Here is the tower on the end of the bridge. We bought water from the smart people selling it in the tent to the right.

And its moat. I don’t know what it is about moats, but they are just so neat.

We stopped at one more famous landmark in Córdoba, the Alcázar (which means “the palace). It was the residence of Queen Isabella and Ferdinand. It has a rich history including Isabella meeting with Christopher Columbus before his sailing to America, hosting some of Napoleon’s troops in the 1800’s, and serving as a prison. In the 1950s the Spanish government turned it into a tourist attraction.

The actual Alcázar wasn’t bad but the gardens were lovely, definitely worth the visit.

Alcázar entrance and statue of King Ferdinand, maybe?

There was one small bathroom that we waited around to use so I could change the kids’ diapers. No toilet paper, but at least we had baby wipes. Wes waiting on the rocks outside the restroom for his diaper turn.

Like I said, the gardens were the best part.

The kids liked playing in the dirt. We had to drag them away.

When we were walking back to the car we stopped to let the kids play at a playground. It was just what they needed. Kids need to play.

The funny thing is that we were at the park for a while, but it wasn’t until we were back in the car and driving away from the park that we noticed a sign on the building across the street from the park: “La Iglesia de JesuCristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias.” (Or something like that.) It was an LDS branch meetinghouse. Kind of fun to see.

It was a two-hour drive back to our hotel, and I thought our kids handled the car time pretty well overall. We had books and an electronic toy (for Wes), but it was often near bedtime by the time we headed home. During our time in England and Spain Carissa was just starting to develop a more independent and chatty nature. Here she is chatting as we neared Malaga.

The next day was Wednesday, and we had enough of road trips. We were going to stay home, do laundry, and play!

Our first day waking up in Spain. …That is, John was just waking up. I’m pretty sure Carissa had been awake and playing for a while already.

We had about seven days in southern Spain. We picked three cities we wanted to be sure to visit while there: Seville, Cordoba, and Granada. They were all a bit of a drive (minimum 1-2 hours) each way, and with kids we knew that would get tiring quickly. So we picked the city farthest from us–Seville–and started there on our first full day in Spain. Seville was at least a 2.5 hour drive to the northwest from our hotel near Marbella.

Seville is the capital of the Andalusia region and Spain’s fourth-largest city (about 700,000 people in the main city). Spain had these trees everywhere that reminded me of wisteria, although I’m not sure really what they are.

Seville has a famous area dead central in the city known as “Old Town.” We were aiming for this area, as it houses the two main attractions we wanted to see: The Seville Cathedral and Alcázar of Seville (a palace).

And herein we learned our very first, very important lesson about using GPS in a city as old as Seville: NEVER, EVER set your destination as “Seville City Center.” John’s mom was in charge of the directions and she assumed we could get to the center, near the two attractions, and then find a hotel or parking garage to park in.

The city center is Old Town. Are there roads in Old Town? They’re ancient, but yes. Are they drivable? They’re narrow and one-way but, technically, yes. Is it a good idea to try to drive them if you’re clueless Americans in a mini-van on your first day in Spain? NO.

We got loster than lost, really fast. The streets are NARROW. They’re a maze. They’re meant for horses and wagons of ancient days, and maybe pedestrians and motorcycles or small European cars of modern times. Not meant for a minivan full of Americans unsure of their directions.

This is just entering the Old Town streets. You can see they’re one lane wide. But this was a wide street compared to some of the others.

Once we found ourselves lost in the Old Town streets it seemed impossible to wind our way out again. This was maybe the most stressful part of our entire week in Spain. After a while we noticed a small car behind us that seemed to know its way. We forced John out to go and ask directions (he was the only one fairly fluent in Spanish). The driver, fortunately, was able to help and followed us until we were safely back on a two-lane street again.

I videotaped a few minutes or our driving. There’s one point in the video (at about 1:00 in) where we are going around a slight bend and you can hear some gasps because we came really close to scraping the wall. I mean, REALLY close. For some reason I didn’t follow my eyes with the camera, but we were probably four or five inches from the wall. At about 1:35 you can see how close we are. John’s stepdad was driving, and I give him props for navigating us out of there successfully.

Phew.

The next most stressful moment was maybe trying to park the minivan in a typical European-sized parking space.

After all this, we were ready for lunch. And more than ready to finally try some real Spanish food.

We picked a street cafe around the corner from our parking garage. The food was delicious. We always tried to order things the kids might be willing to eat, too.

I had croquettes (fried breadcrumbed roll filled with chicken and cheese) and fried potatoes with some sort of creamy side for dipping.

John had fried chicken with fries. (Notice the huge bottle of water. We bought water everywhere in Spain.)

John’s mom had a tortilla española (Spanish omelet), which is made out of fried potatoes.

And John’s stepdad had the most famous dish that I know of in Spain, paella. It’s a rice dish mixed with all sorts of stuff, in this case–seafood. Honestly, it doesn’t look good to me in this picture because I’m not a big seafood fan, but I tasted his rice and shrimp, and it was well made and good tasting.

My friend had lent me a Spanish-English dictionary that I took with me everywhere in Spain. It came in quite handy at times. John speaks Spanish pretty well but I wanted to be able to do it myself. So while we ate lunch I looked up and practiced pronouncing (with John’s help) some key phrases, like “Dónde está el baño?” (“Where is the bathroom?”) I was pregnant, after all, so that was an important one to know. I was also able to look up words like “fork” and “pepper” and ask the waiter to bring us these things.

While we were sitting at our sidewalk table, eating, I noticed a store opening for business a couple doors down. I pulled out my dictionary and discovered a new, beloved Spanish word: “helados.” It means “ice cream.”

So guess where we went after finishing lunch? John is sweet to put up with me and my love for ice cream when he’s not a big fan of the stuff. We got a cup to share with the kids. Spanish ice cream is DELICIOUS. My favorite flavor was turrón. I didn’t know what turrón was but it tasted and looked like peanut butter. We got a second flavor for Carissa to eat (she’s allergic to nuts). Which was a good thing because later I learned that turrón is actually a Spanish candy made out of honey, sugar, egg whites, and almonds or other nuts–and on top of nuts she’s allergic to egg whites, too.

After lunch and dessert we got lost again trying to just WALK through the Old Town streets, searching for the Seville Cathedral. I chose to stop at a Yogurtland to use the bathroom and change Carissa’s diaper. I took that opportunity to use my amazing (NOT) Spanish skills to ask the employee how to get to the Cathedral. I was really grateful for his help because his English wasn’t so good, and my Spanish wasn’t so good, but he smiled and worked through it and helped me understand basically which way to go. It’s a good experience trying to use a foreign language, especially when you need help finding something. It’s the quintessential traveling experience.

Meanwhile John let Wes play on a playground that was just outside Yogurtland in the plaza. He was sad when we pulled him off to go find the Cathedral.

The streets were narrow little, lovely pedestrian walkways. At least we weren’t driving.

Loved the orange trees. Not something you see in Utah.

Finally we made it to the Seville Cathedral. There were lots of horses and carriages out front selling rides.

This is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and the third largest church in the world. Yeah, it was giant.

Big, but not the most amazing cathedral I’ve ever seen. The York Minster in England was more beautiful, in my opinion. But it had some interesting things to look at, like:

You exit into a courtyard filled with orange trees.

Following the Cathedral we walked practically next door to the Alcázar of Seville, which is a palace that used to be a Moorish fort.

My favorite part was the beautiful gardens outside.

Carissa loved the fish in the water and didn’t want to leave.

Before heading back to our hotel we stopped for churros and chocolate. It’s part of the Spanish Experience. Churros are like fried donuts (which, I quickly realized, was a bad idea since I had fried food for lunch and fried food doesn’t actually agree with me when I’m pregnant). The chocolate is a thick, dark hot chocolate.

The kids liked it.

We got home after the kids’ bedtime and prepared for our next day trip: Cordoba, Spain.

On our second Sunday in Europe it was time to leave England and fly to southern Spain, to the area known as Costa del Sol.

We checked out of our Marriott in Leeds and got a taxi to the Leeds-Bradford airport. It’s always nice to drive around the countryside in a car, to see more sights. About halfway to the airport I looked out the window and saw the ruins of a castle or something just off the side of the road. I asked the driver about it, and he said it was Kirkstall Abbey that was destroyed by King Henry VIII in the 1500’s following the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A piece of history, just there, by the highway. That’s England for you.

We decided to use the European airline Ryan Air to fly from Leeds to Malaga, Spain because it was by far the cheapest way to go. Ryan Air is purely a budget, no-frills airline. I did some research about them before purchasing our tickets and read up on their strict baggage policies (stricter than Delta’s, so we had to make sure our luggage would meet Ryan Air’s standards) and also their seating policies, which is that there are no assigned seats. I had read complaints from parents saying that they were separated from their young children on the flight because no other seats were open. So we splurged and paid about £10 more per seat to purchase assigned seats at the very front of the plane (only seven seats are available for purchase).

So glad we did! We thought we had plenty of time when we arrived at the airport to make our flight, but wow, Ryan Air’s check-in service was SLOW. Only one person was there at first to serve a long line of people and the express check-in machine was broken. Finally a second person showed up. They kept asking people not on the Malaga flight to stand aside and let others ahead, but virtually everyone in line was there to get on the same flight.

Somehow, miraculously, we got checked in and dashed through security. Then we followed everyone outside and walked along the tarmac to find our plane. It was kind of a long walk. Again, so glad we had assigned seats so we were all together.

Once on board I didn’t feel like the flight was “cheap” or “super budget,” except that there were no pockets on the seat in front of us to stow books or toys, and you had to pay for anything you wanted to eat or drink. They also offered merchandise for sale, which I’d never seen on a plane before.

The kids were good. They really are little troopers.

On our flight to Malaga:

About two and a half hours later we were in Spain! My first time. Our first task was to get our car rental, but I what I really wanted more than anything was some water. We drank all we had on the plane and were too cheap to buy another bottle on board. After we landed we exchanged money (pounds to euros) but we didn’t have any small change for the vending machine with drinks. Oh my goodness, that water looked amazing sitting in that machine, all shiny and cold and drinkable. I watched other people get water from it and it was the coolest machine, with a special robotic arm that reached inside and picked up the drink before dropping it down the shaft.

Arranging the car rental took a long time. In the meantime, Wes and Carissa got their wiggles out. You can see my coveted vending machine behind Wes.

Finally we got everything sorted, picked out the appropriate sized car seats for the kids, and found our car. A minivan, actually–emphasis on MINI. It seats seven (we had six) but wow, it was a tight squeeze. Especially considering our luggage. With our strategic specialist (John) in charge of packing the car, we managed to fit everything in. Barely.

Southern Spain reminded us at once of Southern California. It’s warm and dry and right on the water, except here instead of the Pacific Ocean it’s the Mediterranean Sea.

A bit of desert and mountains…

…and palm trees.

And we saw something Spain is famous for: lots of white cities.

Because we went to England AND Spain, we had to pack clothes for the 50-degree wetness of England plus the 85-degree sunniness of Spain. Now in Spain the kids finally got to pull on their sandals.

In England we stayed overnight in three different cities, but in Spain we stayed the entire week in one place. It was a timeshare that John’s mom had access to, and it was one of the main reasons we decided to take a trip to Europe in the first place.

Our new home was a small resort called Club Marbella by Crown Resorts, 25 minutes from the Malaga airport in Sitio de Calahonda.

It wasn’t a bad place to stay. It was on top of a hill with some restaurants and small shops down the hillside.

We were super surprised when we arrived in southern Spain and discovered its huge British influence. Many of the restaurants advertised “Full English Breakfasts” and offered traditional British fare like kebabs and afternoon tea. But we met a lot of British people, so I guess it makes sense. If I lived in a cool, damp country like England I would probably want to vacation in sunny Southern Spain, too.

Our little hillside had a restaurant style to suit pretty much everyone–Asian, British, Spanish, even American. On our first night in Spain we opted for, of all things, Swiss fondue.

Our hotel room had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living area, dining area, kitchen (with washing machine!), and a balcony overlooking greenery. After being in cramped hotel rooms in England it was nice to spread out and let the kids play more freely.

I didn’t think to snap photos of the place while it was actually tidy.

Living/dining area. The kids loved taking the cushions off the sofas. It was definitely the play area. The TV offered a mix of Spanish, English, and German stations, but the English channels were very British and not American. The kids found a British children’s show they liked to watch in the morning, and sometimes there were decent shows or movies on at night for us. And sometimes not; it was hit and miss.

Our 1-bed room with attached bathroom.

The kids’ room. They did well sleeping in the same room together. If they were both awake when we put them in there they usually were awake for a while; we’d hear giggling and Wes saying, “Dissa!” (“Carissa!”). But they always settled eventually and went to sleep. It helped that Carissa was in the crib.

The other bathroom (with bidet).

Kitchen. It was small but it had everything we needed.

The balcony. The balcony was a wonderful feature; it let in lots of fresh air and had a nice, peaceful view. It was a pleasant place to sit and eat breakfast. But we used it cautiously because of the kids.

It also came with a drying rack that we used for laundry. After doing laundry in the bathtub in England and strewing wet clothes around the room, having a washing machine and drying rack was pure luxury.

And, oh yeah, there was a pool. They offered Aqua Zumba (although not by name, that’s what it was) everyday, but I was always either putting kids down for naps then or we were out on a road trip. This is a picture I snapped just after getting the kids to sleep.

There was a separate kiddie pool that we used later in the week and a mini-golf course. The resort also had a restaurant where we ate breakfast and dinner a few times.

After getting settled on Sunday we prepared for our first full day in Spain on Monday: a road trip to the city of Seville.

We had some fun treats when we were in York, England. Naturally, Wesley had an ice cream cone. There is practically nothing better than European ice cream. And practically nothing makes Wes happier.

We had to have pasties (pronounced with a nasal “a” sound) at least once in England. They are little handheld pies, usually savory but sometimes sweet, that come from Cornwall. Historically the miners would take them down into the mines for their meals. John and I split a sweet peaches and cream pastie and it was delicious.

We also absolutely had to stop for afternoon high tea. Cream tea is tea with scones; high tea is bigger and better with finger sandwiches, scones, and pastries. We went to Betty’s, which is THE place for tea in York. (You know this by the very long queue you have to stand in before getting inside.) John didn’t want to do tea again so he took Wes to McDonald’s while I had tea with Carissa.

She was the perfect companion for tea. She dug right into the finger egg and cress sandwiches and enjoyed chamomile tea with all the dignity of a real British lady.

At night we took the train back to Leeds and returned to our Marriott hotel. We enjoyed just chillin’ at “home.”

The kids relaxed in bed…

…and played with balloons that some nice shopkeeper gave them at the end of the day.

One night we brought back subs from Subway and ate them in bed. And chips too.

Wesley played a lot with this electronic toy that was an absolute life-saver. In fact, when we were checking out of the hotel in Bath we couldn’t find this toy. I stayed after everyone had left and searched high and low until I finally found it underneath the bed in Grammy and Guy’s room adjacent to ours. I knew our trip would be a lot harder without this toy!

And one of the best things about staying in a hotel: snuggling in bed together, watching TV.

Sometimes when the kids needed entertainment I would sing songs with them. I have a clear memory of singing songs with them in London while waiting for the ferry from Canary Wharf back to our hotel. It was in an enclosed (warm and dry) space, and the other people were watching with amusement. Here my kids are doing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” in our hotel room one night.

One of York’s famous areas is The Shambles. It’s an old street lined with buildings that overhang the cobblestone, and it used to have a lot of butchers who would hang their meat for display. Now there are no butchers, but a lot of quaint shops and restaurants.

We came across a street market on Friday.

Notice the man in the hat. It’s called a flat hat, and surprisingly lots of British men wear them.

So when we came across a vendor selling them, John picked up his sole British souvenir. Very handsome, no?

We visited three museums in York. The first one was the York Castle Museum.

The name is misleading because it’s not a museum about castles, but it is near the remains of the original castle in York.

This is how it used to look, when water surrounded it.

The museum is really a museum of everyday life from the early days (say, 1600s) up to nearly-modern day. Honestly, this museum wasn’t our favorite. It bordered on cheesy, but it had some interesting points. I liked learning about how the women used to live in the days before the technology I’m so used to, like this:

The place is famous for its life-size recreation of a Victorian-period street. We paused for a picture next to a (fake) horse on the street.

Strollers weren’t allowed, so Wes had to hang out in this backpack (because he was asleep when we arrived and we didn’t want to carry him).

There were some nifty displays of armor and weaponry that John found interesting, and some relics from the 1980s and 90s that took me back to my childhood. We also walked through the York Castle Prison museum, which was kind of gloomy.

We didn’t stay much longer than an hour at the Castle Museum, and then we moved on to the Jorvik Viking Centre.

This place was a mixture of strange and interesting. The first thing you notice (OK, are overwhelmed by) is the SMELL. They want you to feel like you’re part of the typical Viking life of 975 AD, so they enhance your experience with “sensory stimuli” including the typical smells of the time. WOW. I can’t even describe the stench, but I still remember it.

One of the unusual parts of the museum experience is a ride through a reconstructed Viking settlement which includes Viking voices speaking in Old Norse. It was a little like Disneyland, but on a much, much smaller (and smellier) scale. No photos were allowed, though.

We also spent some time looking at this recreated archeological site. It was kind of cool because everywhere in the dirt beneath the glass were ancient Viking relics, like a dice, comb, knife, coins, etc. The kids had fun running across the glass and getting their wiggles out.

Dice

Leather shoe

Comb

We also learned lots about the Viking people from their skeletons. People were not in great health!

We saw coins.

And then we had one of the museum workers dressed up as a Viking make us a coin of our own to take home.

The final place we visited in York was called York’s Sweet Story. It’s a museum dedicated to chocolate (are you so surprised we ended up there?).

York is famous for its chocolate. It is the birthplace of the Kit Kat, for instance, and has about 300 years history of making chocolate confections.

We started with a chocolate tasting, then learned about the history of chocolate (how ancient Mayans drank cocoa water and it was considered a delicacy; we got to taste some…it’s called “bitter water” for good reason! Yuck), and the history of chocolate making in York. Interesting stuff.

(chocolate tasting)

We ended up in this ultra-mod room with interactive displays about chocolate until it was our turn to see the chocolate making demonstration.

The demo was one of the highlights (because it’s always fun to see chocolate made, and fun to taste it, too).

Our confectioner:

I stood with Wes near the front. He liked watching, and he also liked looking at himself in the mirror above the counter.

And, of course, Wes LOVED the piece of chocolate he got at the end!

York was good. We spent two full days here. On Sunday morning we checked out and took a taxi to the Leeds-Bradford Airport to leave England and begin the second leg of our adventure–in Spain!