Ellen and Molly Visit

Well, today we said goodbye to Ellen and Molly. We had a great visit, but all good things must end. Last Friday, I went to Gatwick Airport to collect them. Of course, as predicted, Ellen and I both started crying the minute we saw each other. After we stopped crying, we left the airport and got on our train to Portsmouth. We were talking so much, that we missed hearing some details about our train and therefore made an unplanned side trip to Bognor Regis. It only put us about a 1/2 hour behind schedule and we were soon back on track for Portsmouth.

Saturday, we just spent in Ryde, while Molly and Ellen recovered from their travels. In the afternoon, we did a little shopping in town. On Sunday, we went to Alum Bay (The Needles). It is a really roller coaster bus ride and unfortunately both Ellen and Molly suffered for it. However, they soon recovered and we really enjoyed the day. We took the ski lift down to the beach, where we walked around, looked at the rocks, and enjoyed the scenery and Engligh Channel.

1. Ellen and Faye on beach in Alum Bay.

2. The Needles as seen from Alum Bay.

3. The girls in a small cave in the chalk cliff made from the same chalk as the 'White Cliffs of Dover'.

On Monday, we all took the train to LONDON. We had never actually been there, beyond going through on a train or getting off a plane. We had four very full days were we saw all the sights; Piccadilly Circus, Kensington Palace, Big Ben, Parliment, London Eye, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Dungeons, St. Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, British Museum, and Buckingham Palace - to name a few. We had a really good time seeing the sights, eating some traditional British food (in some great pubs), and just being together. Ellen and I took so many pictures of the girls, that we joked about the fact that people would think we never went, only the kids.

The London Dungeons were interesting. For some reason, we kept getting 'picked' to help in the show. I was tortured in Newgate Prison with some pretty nasty instruments. Of course, one of the instruments could not be used on me as I lacked a certain item to chop off. Later in the show, the girls were put on trial for witch craft. They were found guilty and sentenced to hang.

I could write pages about this past week, but that will just have to wait until we get back to the US. Some has to be saved.