Ah, week 7. It was a doozy. We were in Cornwall for a week to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. And I did NOT feel good. 😦
First of all, Baby is about half an inch long now. Or the size of a blueberry. Which I didn’t have on hand. So instead I found a bean that was about half an inch long. 🙂
Now about our week. We did a lot of walking/hiking which was probably good for me, but I wasn’t thoroughly enjoying it. I had lower back pain, so I really just wanted to sit all the time. But most of my sitting was done in the car. Which brought on the worst symptom of the week: nausea. Something I didn’t know about Cornwall: all those coastal roads are very narrow, very curvy, and very steep. Ugh, my stomach was so unhappy. I probably felt the best when we were outside right on the coast. That sea air made me feel much better!
Food was not really my friend this week. I struggled to eat almost every meal. Those of you who know me well know that I really love food. So not wanting to eat? I didn’t know what to do with myself! I felt especially bad, because all of our meals were either at the B&B we stayed at or at a restaurant. So I felt like I was insulting the staff when I couldn’t eat. I made it through most of the week without actually getting sick, but then Friday, our last night in Cornwall, I got sick after dinner. And then both nights after that too.
I guess I just assumed that I would get sick in the morning if I got sick at all during pregnancy. Nausea hits me anytime of day, but the vomiting seems to happen in the evenings. Either before dinner or a few hours afterward. Keeping food in the stomach is supposed to help with nausea, but I had such a hard time actually eating. I mean, nothing sounded good at all!
Don’t worry, we did have a nice vacation. But it would have been better if I had felt a little better. 🙂
I am SO behind! We went to Cornwall the first week of April, and here it is, May already, and I haven’t finished editing all of our photos. Yes, I definitely took too many photos, but my motivation to sit and edit photos hasn’t been there either.
Cornwall in a nutshell: Very beautiful but very rough driving! All those coastal roads are very narrow, very curvy, and very steep. My nausea level was pretty high when we were traveling, but that may have made the destinations even more appealing, haha. We stayed in a nice little farm B&B near the coast. It was nice to be away from cities, although it was a change of pace to be woken up each morning by a rooster. 🙂
Day 1: Minack Theatre and St. Michael’s Mount Minack Theatre was gorgeous! It was at the top of my list of things to see, so we did this first. I loved all the stonework and details and the beautiful backdrop of the ocean.
St. Michael’s Mount is unique in that it’s a castle on an island…sometimes. 🙂 We walked to the castle in the early afternoon, but when we left later that afternoon, the tide had come in, so we had to take a boat back to shore.
Day 2: Pendennis Castle & Trebah Gardens Pendennis Castle is a small defensive fort built by King Henry VIII in Falmouth. While we were here, we got to see a cannon be fired off!
Looking down on Trebah Gardens, a beautiful sub-tropical paradise with a coastal background. We saw some gorgeous rhododendrons in bloom while we were there!
Day 3: Land’s End & St. Ives At Land’s End, the most westerly point of mainland England. The coastal area here was so pretty! I loved our time spent here.
On the beach at St. Ives, one of the best seaside towns in England. It used to be primarily dependent on fishing, but now it’s known for its number of artists.
At the beach just a walk down from our B&B. The walk was really pretty, and it was so peaceful sitting on the rocks by the beach.
Day 4: Healy Cornish Cyder Farm & The Eden Project
A brief stop at Healy’s Cornish Cyder Farm. One of their most popular ciders is the Cornish Rattler. Andrew and I sampled a variety of of ciders and juices — yum!
Arriving at the Eden Project, a large greenhouse project in Cornwall.
Inside the Tropical Biome… it was so hot & humid in there, but the plants were beautiful! The Mediterranean Biome was much more comfortable. 🙂
Andrew in front of the cathedral in Truro, which is where his grandpa spent some time when he was overseas with the US Army during WWII.
Day 5: Bedruthan Steps & Tintagel Castle
At the Bedruthan Steps, a spectacular cliff-top view of sea stacks on the northern coast of Cornwall.
Exploring the remains of Tintagel Castle, which has a long association with the legend of King Arthur.
Looking down at the cove from where the remains of Tintagel Castle is. I just love all the gorgeous coastline in Cornwall!
So that was a taste of our busy trip to Cornwall! We saw so many beautiful areas, and I would definitely like to go back someday. The beaches in the summer are probably amazing, and I’d love to see Trebah Gardens when all the hydrangeas are in bloom. This is probably one of my favorite trips we’ve taken, and I would highly recommend Cornwall to anyone!
When my friend Emily told me she was officially coming to visit (as in the plane tickets were booked), I was really excited for our first house guest and our first visitor from home. Some of the excitement drained when I found out she had a nasty cold the week before she was supposed to arrive. And then I happened to catch a cold too. Seriously, what are the odds of both of us being sick when she was scheduled to visit?!
With this in mind, I had to figure out what we were going to do for the seven days she would be with us. I thought the smart thing would be to have a “big” day every other day of her stay. She arrived on Easter, so I still had my Easter dinner planned (complete with a glazed ham, of course!). But other than that, we had a low-key day since Andrew and I were tired from waking up early to drive to the airport, and Emily was tired from a very long flight! We did get several games of Bananagrams in though!
We both love word games!
Monday was another pretty low-key day, since I thought Emily might want to sleep in a bit. I introduced her to the show “Dexter,” and she quickly got hooked on it! We also made some Easter/spring cookies. I had postponed making them so that Emily could help.
Learning the joys of decorating with Royal Icing 🙂
Our first actual outing was on Tuesday. I had looked up a few places that were about a two hour drive away, and one place that looked interesting to both of us was Somerleyton Hall, near the east coast of England.
We brought our umbrellas, but we had a fair amount of sun that day! The tour was very informative, and we even got to go through their maze in the garden. We worked up an appetite just in time for sandwiches and tea.
Emily enjoying her first English tea
Our sandwiches were really good, and we also got scones with clotted cream and preserves– yum! I could probably eat English scones with clotted cream and preserves every day, they are that good.
Wednesday was another fairly low-key day, although I did take Emily on brief tours of RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath.
WWII memorial on base
I spent most of the morning sleeping, since my cold decided to get worse instead of better. After spending some money in the gift shops on souvenirs, we went over to where Andrew works for a tour of an F-15. I think a lot of the info went over our heads, but it’s always impressive to see the aircraft up close!
We had another excursion on Thursday: to Chilford Hall Winery! It’s down near Cambridge, and it’s a fairly small winery. We were given money by Emily’s parents to do the full tour here (coffee on arrival, tour, tasting, and 2-course lunch, then a bottle of wine to take home) for an early birthday gift for Emily. It was really a great tour, and the wine was delicious!
For dinner we took Emily to a local pub: Friday was another fairly low-key day since the night before turned into a late night! A few of Andrew’s friends came over, and Andrew really wanted to light a fire outside. 🙂 I took Emily to meet a friend of mine for lunch on base, and then we just ran errands until Andrew was done with work.
Saturday was our big day in London! We drove to Epping, where we took the Tube into the city. After figuring out where we were (parts of the Tube were shut done for renovations, so we didn’t get off where we had planned), we walked to the Tower of London, which is where we spent most of the day.
There was a lot to see and do here! Definitely could have stayed all day.
After getting some dinner at a pub near the Tower Bridge, we walked down to London Bridge to get on the Tube to go up to Westminster. I would have felt bad if Emily didn’t get to see Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey!
Tower BridgeEmily & me in front of Big BenWestminster Abbey
On Sunday, Andrew had homework to do, so I took Emily to base for some last-minute shopping and souvenirs. I also stopped by Tesco to 1) show her a British grocery store, and 2) to pick up some good British cheese to try before she left! After dinner, we enjoyed our souvenir bottle of wine from the tour on Thursday with the extra mature cheddar I picked up. It was early to bed, because we had to get up early to get Emily to the airport for her 10:15 flight!
Andrew had to work on Monday, so I was on my own navigating my way to Heathrow. We hit some terrible traffic (“queues likely” was an understatement!), but I got Emily to her terminal with enough time to get on her flight (which, thankfully, was delayed 30 minutes). It was a quick vacation, but I think we got a lot of fun things done in those seven days! And, yes, I will write more detailed posts about each of our excursions, but this was our week in a nutshell. 🙂
Ah, week 7. It was a doozy. We were in Cornwall for a week to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. And I did NOT feel good. 😦
On An Even Kiel 