York

One of the perks of the girls school schedule is that they get term breaks every so often.  So that gives us a week (or two!) to travel and see new places.  When researching places to visit, I came across a Viking Festival (seriously, how cool?!) that wasn't too far away and that was going on the week of our break.  Then it turns out that Miss H was learning about Vikings in school, so York it was!

And what a beautiful city!

Our first stop was the National Railway Museum.

It was an incredible collection of historical trains.  We even got to see the inside of Queen Elizabeth II's personal train car.

And an old mail car.  Really cool.

I think Zach was most excited about the museum, but it was overall a really neat place.

We started Day 2 at Clifford's Tower.  The tower is a part of the York Castle and York's fortification complex.  Just walking around York, you see bits and pieces of the old walls.

The Tower was really neat to walk around.

And the view from the top, amazing!

As we were walking through town, the Vikings were setting up and we got to see a really cool collection of helmets.  We got to learn about the different shapes and how they evolved over the years.

Then Daddy and girls got to dress up like real Vikings.

Seriously, the city is beautiful!

Another stop we made was to York Minster.  What an amazingly gorgeous church!

We also walked down the famous Shambles.  It was once known as the The Great Flesh Shambles, as butchers used to display their meat on shelves outside on the street. 

Our last stop was the Chocolate Museum, as the girls called it.  We got to learn about the history of chocolate in York and taste lots of chocolate.  The girls tell everyone this was their favorite thing to do.

Day 3 was all about Vikings!  The girls got to learn how to fight like a Viking.  They learned about how to use certain weapons, how to advance, retreat, and spar.  So much fun!

They even got to dress up again.

We also got to watch a Viking fight.

And this guy told us he wouldn't hurt us, much.

As we were walking throughout the day, we came across more of the old city walls.  It's just so incredible!

On our way home, we popped over to Leeds to check out the Royal Armouries Museum.  It is a huge collection of arms and armor, which was all quite impressive.  The first thing you see is the Hall of Steel, three levels of swords, helmets, and so much more.

Ems favorite was the elephant armor.

There were so many historical pieces there, but I thought this was most interesting.  It was called the Horned Helmet and was given to Henry VIII in 1514.

York was another amazing adventure!

Snow

When we first found out we were moving here, we told the girls they would get to see snow!  It was definitely something we were all looking forward to since south Texas doesn't really see very cold temperatures, let alone snow.  

Then we got here and most everyone told us chances were slim we would actually see much, if any.  Bummer.  

We've had a fairly mild winter (from what I've been told) and then we finally got a good cold snap.  I woke up first one morning and looked outside because it was a bit bright out.  And guess what, SNOW!

I told the girls when they woke up and they were so excited!!  It was so hard to wait until after breakfast to go out and play.

We didn't even change out of our pajamas.  Just put on our winter gear and wellies and we were good to go

Snowballs were thrown.

A teeny little snowman was built.

And a whole lot of fun was had!

London

Since we moved here, I've been so excited about taking the family to see a show in London.  It's basically the equivalent of a show on Broadway.  Since a lot of the outdoor things tend to shut down in January, we thought this would be a perfect time to take a trip into London and catch a show at the theater. 

As we were preparing for our day out we found out that Em was learning about the Great Fire of London in school.  We looked at a map and realized that the Great Fire monument wasn't too far from the theater.  Oh boy was our little girl excited!

When we made it to London, our first stop was the monument.  

We had ourselves one happy girl!

The whole time we were there, she was singing her Great Fire of London song and telling us everything we needed to know.  She was even more excited about showing us Pudding Lane, which was where the fire started.

I have to admit, it's such an amazing thing that we are able to show our girls the places that they are learning about in school.  We really are so lucky.

We eventually made it to the theater and everyone was ready for The Lion King.

The inside was incredible and our seats, amazing!  When the show started, we had singers and animals walk right past our seats.  I think everyone was in awe, the girls couldn't take their eyes off of any of it!  The show itself was incredible!

We had such a great day learning a little history and experiencing a little culture.  Another adventure in the books!