Avebury Stone Circles

We went to Avebury Stone Circles today, which is a 5000 year old circle of massive stones.  We started on a small path where we saw men playing Cricket and then through a gate which led to the stone circle where several sheep and rams grazed right beside us.  Oh did I mention I wore the wrong shoes for this hike through a pasture full of sheep poo, yep I wore sandles.  Luckily I did not step in anything.   After looking at the amazing stones, we walked through the small town through some little shops and got the kids some ice cream.  Of course since the kids had their treat, Aaron decided he wanted a treat himself, so off to the pub across the street we went.  The pub was called Red Lion.  Aaron had the Suffolk-farmed pork sausages with Devon Cheddar mash, gravy & caramelised red onion chutney £7.29 and it was amazing.  My meal was not that great.  We ate outside on picnic tables where there was such a wide range of people and personalities.  It was great for people watching.  We had hippies (no really, ladies with rings of flowers on their head, the long white dresses, and men wearing sheets that looked like they stepped out of the bible).  They were playing music (guitar, drums, tamberines) and singing songs from the 60’s and 70’s.  There were also people called “walkers” who roam around the countryside on foot just to take in the experience and scenery.  There also must have been a bikers rally or something because there were about 150 bikers at the Stone Circles taking a group picture in front of one of the stones.  One of them took our family photo for us in front of one of the stones.  It was very interesting to see so many different people.  After we ate, we drove on down the road to a town called Marlborough looking for a local butcher which was closed.  However, we had a great time walking around the town site seeing.  There were a lot of shops but everything was closed except for the pubs.  Not a lot of shops stay open on Saturdays past 5pm.  Now we are back at our house and the kids are yet again in the playground in the middle of our circle playing with the neighbor kids. 


Goats grazing everywhere



Posing in front of the Stone Circle







Our first family photo in England



The Red Lion Pub

A Motorcycle Group visiting Avebury

Kids getting ice cream and posing by phone booth

The real story in this photo is the people in the background.  There is a lady "flower child" playing a guitar, and a most interesting lady with bright red hair who had on a mini skirt and furry boots up to her knees.  People watching here was most fun.

Aaron Michael by the stones

The roofs here are quite neat.

Elisabeth drank the UK water and grew 2 additional arms.

Aaron Michael drank the same water.

The town of Marlborough.

Couldn't resist the background.

1914-1918 in proud memory of the men of Marlborough who gave their life for their country.

So cute!

Some love pigeons sitting on the ledge of a buidling.

A classic car parked on the street.

Day Two

Aaron went and got a rental car so we would actually be able to get around until we get our car.  When he got back to the house with the car we took our first family ride in a European car (which was a manual transmission so I won't be driving it).  When I first got in the front passenger seat (which is on the drivers side) I was a little thrown off.  I went to adjust my mirror to drive and Aaron said "hey what are you doing?".  Aaron is having a hard time not running over curbs on the left side of the road because its hard to determine how close you are to them.  I was a nervous wreck in the car going around the crazy round-a-bouts.  Oh yes, and by the way, it is hard to cross the street when you are walking because here you forget which way to look and next thing you know there is a car coming at you.  So anyway, we did arrive to the store (Sainsbury's) safely.  Now that was an experience as well.  It was extremely crowded.  Evidently you cannot stand in one spot to determine what you want to get or what is the best buy.  People here just run through the store and seem to know exactly what they want and get a bit frustrated with you if you stand there for too long.  Everything was in much smaller portions.  A thing of cheese slices only comes in 10 slices.  The biggest thing of peanut butter I could find was about half the size of our smallest container in the states.  Chips (well they are called crisps here) only come in individual bags.  Its deceiving because you think you are getting a big bag of chips until you look at the packaging and it says it contains individual bags.     We also noticed that there are not a lot of heavy people here.  I honestly don't think I've seen one overweight person.  So after our shopping experience we put away our groceries and walked to the Pub with our friends and had dinner with both American families.  Then after dinner we walked over the the Forshee's home and hung out for a couple hours.  Well its Day 3 and I think we are going to venture out again today.  So I better go get ready. 

Day One

We had a very nice first day at our new home.  We arrived at our new home, which is furnished with temporary furniture right now.  We hung out with our American friends "The Farmers" (Lisa, Mike, and their daughter Grace).  In the middle of our street circle is a playground where all the kids hang out.  Whats really neat is the parents all gather around in their front yards and around the playground and hang out during the day and night.  We were able to meet at least five other families on our street.  Their accents are so neat.  I can't remember where everyone was from, but there are Brits and some from Northern Island.  Everyone is so friendly.  The funny thing is that we met more of our neighbors in one hour than we had in 6 years living in North Carolina.  We walked just down the street to a restaurant and had a late lunch/early dinner, then off to the small convenience store beside it to get a few things to get us by until we are able to get to a bigger store, and later we walked over to the other Americans house who are here (The Forshee's).  While we were there we got a call saying our luggage was going to arrive shortly (YAY......we were so very excited about that since we have been wearing the same stuff for two days), so we went back to the house to meet them.  We hung out at the Farmer's house for a few hours and then walked back to our home late last night.  Aaron and I put the kids to bed, took showers, and then found that we were able to connect to the internet on someones wireless connection.  Hopefully we have our own connection in a week or so. 

 Well its off to start our new day.  By the way, we are 5 hours ahead of you all.  We love you all and miss you lots.  I'll try to keep updating you on our adventures.

Waiting at the restaurant at our Bed and Breakfast for our first meal in the UK.

Aaron's first beer in the UK.

Our first meal in the UK. Seems like all meals come with your choice of regular peas or mushy peas. 

Mmmmmm the dessert made up for the peas.

We Made It To The UK

Hi Everyone!  Well, we made it safe and sound in the UK.  The kids were so cute with their amazement of everything during their first plane rides.  Aaron Michael put his hands up in the air like we were on a roller coaster.  They were so excited they didn't even touch their Nintendo DS games or mp3 players.  We had a delay out of Fayetteville to Atlanta because of storms which in turn made us miss our original flight to UK.  We were able to get on another flight that left 15 minutes later, but we had to move fast between flights running through the large Atlanta airport to make it.  The flight overseas was ok, a bit of turbulance and very long, but we made it here safely and thats whats important.  We went to pick up our luggage only to find out that our luggage is still in Atlanta.  We've been told they will deliver it to us on Saturday.  No big deal, we are making the best of it  We are sitting in our room in Shrivenham (only a couple minutes from where we will be living) in a nice cozy inn.  We had a delicious meal and are getting the kids ready for bed as I type this.  Tomorrow we head over to our new home.