Happy New Year from the UK!

We left on Boxing Day for our family vacation in the UK. As soon as we landed at Gail's we got straight down to business with some proper English bacon...

And a half of bitter shandy at the pub....

And a mince pie at mum's...

...and a snowball at another pub:)...

We (over)indulged in many more British pleasures during the trip and I didn't photograph them all thankfully but suffice it to say shares in Walkers prawn cocktail crisps and Bovril probably saw an uptick that week...

Since my two grandnieces both had chicken pox, we switched out the order of events a bit and headed up to the Lake District at the beginning of the visit to give them chance to recover:). We live on the border of the Orlando town of Windermere so I wanted to show Mike and Maddy the original place that it was named after. This is me and Mike at Lake Windermere on our 19th wedding anniversary...

We saw a tiny bit of snow in Kendal, and a boatload of mint cake:)

We had a lovely walk around Tarn Hows and took lots of selfies with pretty English cows:)

The next day we had breakfast on the infamous Lake Coniston where Sir Malcolm Campbell had set the water speed world record at 141.74 mph (228.108 km/h) in the Bluebird in 1939. After his son Donald Campbell had set four successive records on the same lake he decided in 1967 that he needed to exceed 300 mph to retain the record. Although he achieved a top speed of over 320 mph he then sadly lost control and was killed instantly.

Mike and Maddy loved the scenery and especially the sheep:)

The Lake District is the home of William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. We loved pretty Hawkshead in particular...

But it was cold...! We headed back to Gail's and enjoyed a day catching up and snuggling up watching British TV. I got my fix of British birds through the window...

Then we went over to see Sean and Tracy and Mike got to meet Skyla for the first time - she loved him!

I miss my Tracy so much....

Then we headed over to see Stephen and Kayz and meet Nancy for the first time:)

She is so adorable!

It was so strange seeing in the new year with Big Ben!

We spent our last night seeing Jan and Darren and saying goodbye to Mum and Dad...

Thank you Gail for putting us up (and putting up with us)...:)

Hope to see you all again soon and Happy New Year!