Donaldson Crew Adventures

The month of April has been a record rainfall here in Wales. Driving the children to school has been a wild water ride down the dirt road to the village where Hunter goes to school. Hunter started year 2, which is first grade in the US at Wick and Marcross Church in Wales Primary School. The school is in the town of Wick, or also known as “windy Wick." It is a charming village with a small store and post office and a couple of pubs, a church and the primary school. When it is not raining out you can see the sea from the playground. It is a very pretty setting. The school is very small, about 90 students to be exact. The classes are combined with two grades in one. Hunter is with year 2 and year 3 students. We could not be happier with the school and upon our visit fell in love with it right away. Mrs. Thomas the head teacher or principal reminds me of Mary Poppins, "practically perfect in every way," she is just delightful. Hunter's teacher is Mr. Turner and he seems to be a great fit for Hunter. He is excited to go to school each day and that is important to us as parents that school is a place that our children want to be.

The primary schooling here in the UK is heavily focused on learning through hands on activities, play and exploration. The children are exposed to cooking, gardening and art, as well as reading, writing, math and science. Seat work is done, however, not like in the American school system from what I remember being a teacher. Homework is given but not in excess. Reading is encouraged nightly, but hours of homework are not. Homework in their opinion does not make for more learning or a smarter student, but rather can sour children’s attitudes toward school. Homework in small doses builds study habits and self-discipline. Being a former teacher I did a little investigating and found that countries that have less homework tend to outperform countries on achievement tests than countries that pile the homework on. I thought this was interesting food for thought.....

Lots of rainfall makes the soil moist and perfect for planting a lush green garden. Today Miss Abbie-Kate and Noah helped me to plant the flowers we bought while Lulu was visiting. They had a great time planting and due to all the rain, we haven’t had to water them yet.

It was a sad day in the Donaldson house today. Lulu left to go home. We will miss her very much. She was such a big help to us while she was here. She helped to make the transition of moving overseas an easier one. Traveling with 4 children under 7 was great for that added hand. Unpacking was a little lighter, and that extra body in the car telling me to get over on the right side of the road made me all the braver to tackle the roads. Thank you Lulu, we love you. We won’t say good-bye...just see you soon.

Today with rain and sun alternating at about once every 30 minutes we decided to go visit a 'living history' medievil village not farm from our house on the way to Cardiff called Cosmeston.  The village as you see it today is resurected on the remains of the original village that dates back to the 12 century. 

As the websites suggested, we were hoping to find people dressed in period costume giving tours and re-enacting parts of history, but once there we spoke with one of the guys keeping the grounds up and he said that due to budget cuts all work on the project has ceased except maintaining the grounds.  He said that he would normally be in costume  giving tours.  He gave us a 10 minute talk and explained some really interesting history about the area, how houses of the time were constructed and all sorts of interesting facts.  Its really too bad that its currently non operational, but we still had a good time exploring anyhow. 

Also the pics of the kids by the water - tadpoles have just hatched and they are trying to catch one.

Date night at the local pub in Wick. - The Lamb and Flag.   It's about a mile and a half from our house just down the street from where the kids will go to school.  According to the (new) owner, this public house dates from the 16th century.  The beef and ale pie was excellent!

Our kids love the movie Tangled so this past weekend I thought it might be fun to visit Castle Coch just north of Cardiff.  It is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built on the remains of a genuine 13th-century fortification.  It rests up on a hillside overlooking the surrounding small village of Tongwynlais.  It is a beautiful fairytale style castle that was restored and reconstructed in the late 1800's, and is now maintained by CADW which maintains many of these historic sites in Wales.

The kids enjoyed exploring the towers and the surrounding grounds.  It was also fun for us as well - It was Kelly and Sue's first castle!  There was actually a wedding being held in the castle the day we were there. The little cathedral inside the castle holds about 30 people.  A few more pictures below.  Of note - Abbies secret door thats just her size. Also on the exterior shots see if you can notice the kids at the base of the wall.

Sure, of course it rains in Wales.  After all, there is a reason why things are green here, but there are also bright and sunny days as well!  Our first full week held some beautiful spring days for play and exploration.  Most of the shots are in and around our house, with a couple from a day trip to the town of Barry.  Notice that everyone now has their required Wellie footwear!

While Kelly and her mom were out running errands, I took the kids out to their first (of many) castle ruins today.  St. Quentin's Castle is very close to our house in the town of Cowbridge.  It is the remains of an early 14 century courtyard castle with a massive twin tower gate house that is still standing. Kids had a good time climbing around and exploring the ruins. 

Notice the white stains on the side?  Here's an interesting fact - While it may look like bird poop its actually not.  Its lime coming out of the walls.  In fact when we see castles in movies these days that look like standard stone walls - thats not how they would have looked - they actually would have been brilliantly white with their walls completely covered in their hey day due to the lime leaching out and down the walls.  Common houses would be stone, and because only the weathly could afford lime for the grout (holds together better), castles would have been white.

A few pictures from our travels this week:Tues Apr 2 - Fri April 6

1. Departing on the Super shuttle to LAX from Erin's appartment in Newport Coast, CA

2. Boys in the back of the Super Shuttle on the way to LAX

3. Enjoying pre-flight cocktails in the Air Canada lounge at LAX

4. Preston on his first ever flight (sitting in Abbies seat in this picture)

5. Crossing the Severn Bridge from England to Wales (crossing the Bristol channel)

6. Unloading the cars.... long day of travel (notice crutches are gone!.... also Range Rover is not ours:)

While we all arrived Wednesday, Red was scheduled to arrive today (friday) after a short quarantine in LA.  After a glorious sunny morning Kelly and did the 6 hour round trip back to Heathrow today to get him. 

7. First sunny morning at Churchfarm, Kelly, Sue and the kids

8.  Reds first sniff around at his arrival

9. Abbie waiting to see Red... and Mommy

A packed car as we leave Bend on our 2 day drive to California.