Mom & Katrina Visit

A few days after we moved in, Mom and Katrina flew in to help us unpack. It was sooo wonderful to have them help us put things away and get settled. It made it a lot easier and quicker. We also had more time than we thought to go sightseeing.


Our first stop on the way home from the airport was of course, Emily's Tea Room. I just love that place and think they did too!

For Mother's Day we went to church at Ely Cathedral. What an experience. We froze as we sat inside the stone church, but the view was worth it. We had a fun time touring the inside after the service and had a few laughs in the Lady Chapel(the above picture:) Katrina wasn't a big fan of all the tombs inside the church. People are buried all over inside, she was a little creeped out.
After church we took Mom to a Mother's Day lunch with the Cathedral in the background. the view was great and the tea and scones were pretty good too!

One day we visited Bury St. Edmonds, a town about 1/2 hour away. There is a beautiful church and some abbey ruins. We got a tour from a cute man that loved the old church and had some great info on it.

Walking along the path in the Abbey gardens with my dear sister. The gardens were beautiful. I just love the wisteria on the old walls. It was so serene in there.

This is inside the small church at the end of the block in Bury St. Edmunds. It was just beautiful!

The Abbey ruins. King Henry the VIII was a nasty guy. He broke away from the Catholic Church so he could divorce his wives, and hated the Catholics so much he destroyed all their Abbeys and Cathedrals. The church in the back of the picture was the small church in the Abbey and the ruins are of the huge cathedral that was there. Such a pity! It was neat to be able to walk through and see the ruins though. I can't even imagine what it was like when it was intact!


Our first real meal in our new house. It was fun to have Katrina and Mom there to share it with.


Oxburgh Hall. This is such a cool place and has a moat all around it. As they say, it is "just a manor house". Yeah right! It was really neat touring it. It was beautiful inside! A family still lives in one of the wings.

On the roof, right before I was attacked by a pigeon in the tower. It was a bit breezy up there, as I'm finding out it is quite a bit here.
Walking back into the house from the roof.

There was a big air show on base, so Scott was able to show us around his plane and Katrina got to have some fun in the cockpit. She was so very tempted to push the big red button!

London!!! It was fun to have Mom and Katrina explore London with us for the first time. This is right after we left the Tube stop. It was kinda chilly so the Nero's Coffee helped. That's the London Eye behind us. We didn't have time to ride it, but I'm sure we will someday.
After walking down the bridge to Big Ben, we came to Westminster Abbey. What a church! The architecture was phenominal! It's amazing to think about all that has happened in that church.

We found a nice pub call "The Sanctuary", it was pretty close to Westminster Cathedral. It was the prettiest pub we had been in. Many think that pubs are just bars, but they are restaurants and public places, or pub for short.

At Buckingham Palace Katrina was wondering where Prince Harry was.


After much wandering, we finally found Harrods. It was quite the place, and an absolute zoo.

This was the coffee section, we just took a picture. The chocolate across from it was what we were after.

We thought we'd get some Starbucks coffee, it was a little more affordable than the stuff in Harrods.
When we were walking around we came upon this restaurant. We thought it was pretty funny, being Texas residents and all. Texas is pretty much a country of its own.

This is a great picture spot!

Our day finished back at Big Ben. It'd been a long and fun day of treking!

Our next unpacking break was Cambridge. This is the market that they have everyday. We got some fun scarves there.

It started pouring while we were looking at the River Cam, so we decided it was time for an afternoon snack. We found a cute little French Cafe.

Isn't Katrina cute? She's right outside King's College, I'm sure she had her eye out for a nice Cambridge boy:)
We were able to go into King's College, and this is the courtyard. We went to Evensong in the chapel and it was gorgeous inside. The choir sounded incredible, and the fan ceilings were beautiful!
This is the first hedgehog I've seen! Isn't he adorable!!! I think I terrified him with the picture. Maybe one will come to live in my garden!

This is our last meal at Emily's before we headed to the airport. It was so wonderful to have Mom and Katrina help us get unpacked. It was an incredible help and we are so very thankful they came. It was great to have them come so soon after we moved, it helped knowing they were coming out to help. I can't wait for the next time they visit, there won't be any unpacking and we can just have fun! Thanks so much for everything Mom and Katrina!!!