Look familiar?

Alnwick (pronounced annick) castle. Harry Potter learned to fly his broom here. At first, Kalysta was a little anxious thinking she might actually see Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) until we told her it was just his job for a while to film here.
Yet another castle the family lived in, so we could not take pictures of the inside. We all got to go inside this time though. A-MAZ-ING. Silk wallpaper, two story library, etc. I would almost compare the immaculate detail to a temple. The duke and duchess of Northumberland live there. I think it's been running since the 1300's, from what I could tell, herding 5 kids, reading the info. plaques. o.k. I just wiki'd it and parts were erected in 1096.You can get a better view of these protector knight statues on top of the castle on the film.
I was surprised how afraid of heights I was climbing this wall, you can see Gwen is too with her lean.
Top view of a wall we climbed
to see the back view of the castle.
cannons were everywhere
There was a fun kids area where I got knighted.
They had dress ups for the kids.
We told the girls this is how time outs used to be.
Beau practiced his sword fighting skills.
And finally, we slayed some dragons.
Pretty successful day, no? And so our summer is ending. This will be the last of our fun trips that dad takes work off to come play with us. School start 3 Sept. I'm surprised at what a fun easy summer it's been. I'm glad the babies were at the easier 6 month mark. I've learned school does exhaust the kids, and I do see them at their worst at the end of the day. They've been quite pleasant to have around during the day. We've started a (so far) successful program that if they have their beds made, teeth brushed, are dressed, if they do some form of service for someone else they can put one of these pebbles in the jar. There's probably 60 in there. What angels! We're going to have to think of something grand as a reward when it's full. They've enjoyed picking out their favorite colors or designs in the pebbles, but it'll take a while to fill, I'm afraid, especially with school starting. I'm dreading my exhausted girls stumbling home, during the babies grumpy time, during my rush to get dinner on. Not to mention having everyone ready and out the door in the mornings at 8:30 a.m. Hurry up and get here, summer 2009!