At Sea

We bid adieu to London and took a coach to our port of debarkation, Southampton.

Once on board (phew!) we got busy exploring. Cunard boasts 3 fantastic luxury ocean liners; The Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth. We sailed the Queen Victoria along with 2000 other passengers and a host of crew at our beck and call. 

 Greeting us on board was the sublime music of a classical string quartet.  That's when I knew I'd be right at home. To top it off we discovered the library!

   In true British fashion the pool and hot tub were tiny but not the chess set...

 We enjoyed fine dining every evening at the Britannia restaurant--always a "starter" then a salad followed by an entree, finished with dessert, and just when you couldn't stand another bite, the post-dessert tray came around with bite sized sugary delicacies.

 
 Our British table-mates who after 14 dinners together became our favorite British friends.

 Chocolate Royale? anyone?

 Cunard is the only cruiseline to have a ballroom, a museum, Herrod's gift shop, and it is the only cruise line to offer fencing. We took advantage of all of it.

 "Gentlemen" were on hand to serve as dancing partners--and in our case--teach lessons. One told me he'd have us dancing like Ginger Rogers after 2 weeks. Yep. pretty much. We learned to tango, cha-cha, foxtrot, jive and waltz.  For all that, it was ABBA disco night that really had us rockin' the dance floor.

 Room with a view

 To cool down after dancing we would saunter over to the lounge to listen to the harpist, or the pianist, or the string quartet depending on the night. All of it stellar talent and a superb way to end a day.

A typical sea day went like this:

9 a.m fencing

10 a.m. WWII Espionage lecture by renowned historian...

11 a.m. British politics lecture by Author and Lord ...

12:00 p.m.  Arctic Seals and their habitats by naturalist....

also scheduled were dance lessons and lectures about the history and attractions of the ports we would be visiting. What a dilemna--a smorgasborg of cultural and educational options and so little time! 

 Someone ordered room service for breakfast every day and it wasn't me.

 Beautiful Baltic sea.

 Every night after dining was a show--a fantastic show! We had singers, dancers, acrobats, a magician, comedian, even a flutist. Then it was off to the evening Ball.

 We sat in a box seat every night. It pretty much had our names on it and we shared it with our favorite Brits. We're all dressed up for the Masquerade Ball.

Life aboard the ship was grand. I ate lots of steak and seafood and even more desserts--fancy ones like Baked Alaska and souffle. We took afternoon walks along the promenade deck, went to High Tea, read our books on the balcony, played ping-pong or deck quoits, and got all dressed up for dinner.  

The ship was definitely British-style. Almost everyone onboard was British including the captain and staff. The food, the games, the tea, everything was British. It got to the point where I was THINKING WITH A BRITISH ACCENT.  We tried out some phrases with our newly acquired accent much to the entertainment of our table friends. They tried out their American accents on us and we were equally amused.  We learned to eat properly with a knife and fork. ( I had a real test with a hamburger!) We also learned to say things nicely and sophisticated-like. In conclusion I will shre some of my new language skills (to be read in a Midlands accent with a hint of Yorkshire) 

•  It has been lovely spending a fortnight with you all.  
• Sorry? What was that you said?  
• That photo is absolutely brilliant!  
• We must order dessert, this is the penultimate night of the cruise afterall.
• Excuse me ladies, is this the queue for the toilet? 

London

Ridiculously lucky me got a free 2-week Baltic Cruise above Britain's luxury liner the Queen Victoria. As Brandon says, everyone should have a sister that's a travel agent.  I didn't have much notice--I had a few days to decide, book a flight, pack, and get my kids all situated for school. It was almost enough to keep me home but my adventurous side prevailed. We saw the world, had a lot of fun, and definitely have no regrets.

We flew from LAX straight to London, watching movies all night. From there, in our sleep-deprived state we went straight to sightseeing.

 From the airport we rode the "tube" downtown and took a double-decker sight-seeing bus all over the city past buildings modern and sleek to old and ornate. It seemed the whole world was visiting London the same day!

 Tower of London was commemorating the anniversary of WWI with a bounty of poppies.

 Cruising the river Thames

 Traffic!

Traditional English fish and chips.
For running on no-sleep and only with limited time, I think we did pretty well at taking in all the key sights of London. Next time I would like to tour Buckingham Palace. We spent the night at a Holiday Inn, enjoyed a typical British breakfast of tiny things--pancakes, little honey pots, herbal tea with a little milk and sugar and we discovered a British breakfast favorite, Wheetabix.

Palisades

 We joined some neighbor friends for a day at the lake. It's the closest thing we have to a beach here in Utah.

Beautiful day!!

4-Wheelin'

With a few of our church friends we rode ATV's through town and up the mountain and deep into the woods to our Bishop's cabin where we cooked up a dutch oven dinner and then went wildlife sightseeing. It was the most Richfield thing we've ever done. 

 First part of our ride took us past this marker commemorating the Indian massacre of a settler family.

 We spotted many deer and large elk.

 Had a fun-filled night with our awesome Bishopric.

Amazing sunset over Cove Mountain

Skunk invasion

Kate was awakened at 2 am by a skunk clawing at her window. Eek. It looked so human, she was scared out of her wits. She slept in Brynn's room and informed us in the morning. "There's a skunk in my window well."  Bad news.

We thought animal control would come to our rescue but they just told us over the phone to put a long 2x4 down there--without scaring the skunk--and then hope that it would climb out.  That's what we did--very carefully. It worked! The next morning our skunk had returned to his flock.

County Fair

It was a busy week at our house in preparation for the county fair. The kids were slaving away with modeling clay, markers, paintbrushes, and poetry skills. 

 Kate's 1st place entry

 Adrie's pink sunset won 2nd place. She won first place for a story she entered.

This was Cannon's first year to be eligible to enter. He worked long and hard perfecting his lego sculpture which won a 2nd place ribbon. It was also my first year. I entered my 2013 12x12 digital scrapbook and won a first place ribbon. It was the only entry in it's category, lucky me.

 "If pigs could fly" by Brynn, 1st place. She entered the most times in our family with a bracelet, frame, ceramic toad, and a poem. All of them won first and the bracelet, second--a total of $20 in prize money.

The county fair. It's a family tradition!