My Parents visit

As I am sure I have said before, One the best things about working in the UK school system is the term breaks. Our term just ended and we got 2 weeks off of school, which is fantastic. My parents decided it would be a perfect time to come visit and it was. They came for 10 days and we had an amazing time. We stayed in Leicester for a couple of days and then took the train to Edinburgh, Scotland for five days. We all fell in love with Edinburgh and Scotland.

The day before my parents left the US, my mom turned 60, so I had a little surprise waiting for her when she got here

I decorated the house and had flowers, chocolate cup cakes and present waiting for her. We celebrated her birthday and went out for a nice Italian dinner the next night.  I am so glad that my mom came to visit me and I got to celebrate this birthday with her!!

We spent some time shopping and just relaxing around Leicester. We rented a car on Tuesday and went for a drive into the country. Our first stop was Bradgate Park about 20 minutes outside of Leicester. It is a beautiful park around 830 acres. We had actually gone to it before with Kit's parents but it was another side of the park and we didn't even know this part existed. It was a cold day but we still enjoyed it. Kit and I can't wait to go back this summer to explore some more.

These are the old ruins of Lady Jane Grey: This is from the Bradgate Park Website about the ruins:

The Ruins of this former magnificent Tudor house are reminiscent of Hampton Court.  Bradgate House was, in 1537, the birthplace of Lady Jane Grey, the future nine days Queen of England.  Lady Jane was the eldest of three daughters of Henry Grey, Third Marquis of Dorset and later Duke of Suffolk and of his wife, Lady Frances Brandon who was the daughter of Princess Mary, youngest sister of Henry VIII.  Lady Jane spent the greater part of her short life at Bradgate.

We then drove to Foxton Locks, (Kit and I visited here this fall)

We had some yummy lunch at the pub here and watched as it poured outside. Once the rain stopped we explored a bit, but didn't get to see any boats going through the locks.

We also drove through some traditional English villages along the way, but forgot to take pictures at any of them. My parents felt like they got a nice view of the countryside around Leicester and we wished even more that we had a car!

We headed to Scotland the next day and had an adventurous train ride to Edinburgh.