Claire and I got back from England on Wednesday (and Andy hopped on a plane to NYC for a friend's wedding) after spending a week in Cheltenham and the Cotswolds with our dear friends Katy and Jimbob. We got to help celebrate Jimbob's 30th birthday at a fantastic (and huge) surprise birthday party that Katy organized.
We spent the rest of the week, hanging out, seeing the sights, and of course, enjoying some fine English beer and food (well some of the food was horrific).
In addition to spending time in Cheltenham, strolling on the High Street, we went to the seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare where most Brits complain that you can never see the sea because the beach and mud flats are very shallow, and most of the time the water is really far out. I guess we must have brought some of our American (or now Italian) luck with us because we had a very high tide and we saw the sea just fine! Sadly, because it's not quite beach season any more, there were no donkeys on the beach for Claire to ride on and the cute little train only did a small trip along the shore. But, we did get to see the small aquarium and we probably ate at the most disgusting restaurant in all of England, so by default, perhaps the whole world. It was so gross, I don't even want to talk about it.... just think, mystery meat.
We also visited Burton on the Water, a town near Cheltenham that we loved visiting when we lived there.
At Burton we went to a bird sanctuary and saw all kinds of birds, including really cool penguins, some lovely owls, and probably the scariest black devil bird I'd ever seen. The black birds had these crazy bills, and the male had a very long pointy one which had obviously been injured, so it was repaired with a metal, yes, I said METAL prosthetic beak complete with rivets down the side of it. Scary. I'm just glad Claire was too interested in walking around in the grass to really look at the birds.
Our other major tourist sight was Burford Animal Park which is a small zoo. We had a great time showing Claire all of the animals and riding the little train.
So, perhaps you've caught onto one of the (unplanned) themes of this trip... ANIMALS! We didn't really intend to go to so many animal places, but Claire is really in the stage where she is starting to recognize, imitate, and take interest in animals. In fact, because of these animals, and the constant reinforcement by Katy, Jimbob, Andy and me, her vocabulary nearly tripled during the trip! Well, I guess that is if you count making animal noises and imitating animals as "words", but she is showing clear understanding and even retention of the words. For a girl that was a slowish talker, her language has really started to explode!
It was a great trip. We had such a wonderful time visiting with our friends and Claire really took to them too. It was so exciting to share how much she learned during the trip with Katy and Jimbob and to show them what an interesting toddler she is turning into!
Katy sure seemed to have fun spoiling her!
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