Stonehenge, Adventure, Quirky Cottage & Preparing for Home

We packed up for one final move before our return flight to the States.  We all agree it’s so strange how “normal” this lifestyle has become.  Packing our bags has become second nature and we have a system down for loading the car with a year's full of gear. We’ve stayed in roughly 80 different places this past year – from hostels, to campervans, overnight trains, apartments, concrete bunkers, houses and villas.  We all agree that our accommodations have definitely impacted our experience in each location more than we would’ve anticipated.  It’s interesting the things that we begin to look forward to (and dread) as we can sense home around the corner.  Until our London apartment, we hadn’t stayed in a place with carpet for 6 months - and that was only one night.  We had a two or three month stint where we never had a shower large enough to turn around in without accidentally bumping a temperature nozzle and either suddenly scalding or freezing ourselves, not to mention the hand-held shower heads that don’t stay mounted.  There’s lots of remembering and processing happening among us as we continue to watch slideshows at night of the countries we’ve visited.  And so we rented a car and headed to the English countryside to see what God had in store for us there.  It was awkward for Dad to be sitting on the right of the car and driving on the left, and took a bit of getting used to again.

We stopped along the way at Stonehenge to see this historical site and all that it had to offer.  It is a fairly large facility and there were a fair amount of cars in the parking lot, including some campervans. The history here remains largely unknown with the Heritage site largely dedicated to speculation on what and who built the monument. They believe that it was a temple of some sort, and recent excavations have confirmed it was initially a burial ground as over 150 remains have been found. 

Visiting Stonehenge!

Not quite sure what these Star Wars guys were doing at Stonehenge, but they sure attracted some goofy looks!

Fourteen and oh so strong! 

As we drove the narrow windy paths to our cottage, we’d occasionally have to pull to the side to let oncoming cars pass, as we couldn’t both fit on the road at the same time.  It felt a bit as if we were driving in a Pac-Man maze.  As we approached an intersection there was a tractor pulling several hay-bales turning onto our road, Dad pulled over to stop and allow the tractor space to enter the road.  Then we heard it - the hissing.  

Nothing like a flat with no spare - at least they speak English here.

When he pulled over, the tire hit something and the air quickly leaked out.  The farmer got out of his tractor, smirked, motioned where we should pull the car aside to, kept smirking, climbed back in his tractor and drove off!  We had no idea what to do as we were in the middle of nowhere and had no cell coverage at this location.  We started unloading our bags from the car planning to walk until we could find coverage or our accommodation, whichever came first; meanwhile hoping to uncover the spare tire.  We soon learned that this car didn’t have a spare tire!  Stupid French cars!  (Ironically, this rental had an offer for tire insurance (the first of all our rentals), which we, of course, turned down.) Upon a bit of wandering around, we discovered our accommodations were within sight, in fact basically across the street!  The hedges prevented us from seeing anything until we entered the gate. We carried our bags into this unusual 500 year old English cottage and for the first time on our trip, our kids got settled in their rooms without any squabbling - better late than never we suppose.  Dad prayed for God to send us some angels and went out and introduced himself to some people walking their dog.  These people ended up being new to the neighborhood and happy to assist us.  They helped Dad get through to the car rental company (which required standing in a specific spot 100 feet away to get a signal) and she drove Mom to the grocery store as we had no way to get food until we had a vehicle.  The next day, a repair company came out and fixed us up.

Our quirky 500 year old cottage in Somerset, England

A typical stone wall in Somerset with stones tilted sideways and left jagged on the top

We spent our time discovering random quirky aspects about the cottage, taking hikes, playing poker, riding scooters and bikes, visiting the nearby city of Wells for it's market and church, having fires, and continuing to watch slide shows of our year, and prepare for returning to life in America. Each day Mom would have a few questions for everyone to journal about and we took some personality-type tests which identify spiritual gifts and your love language (Gary Chapman's work if unfamiliar).  The boys would squawk at the questions each day, but by the end they admitted they were worthwhile and helped them think about things they otherwise would not have.

Breakfast with frilly hats... only in Somerset!

Beautiful hikes

Make-shift Smores around a bonfire

Hill leading down to our cottage

Most public hikes took us through fields of grain and livestock!

Somerset is well known for its wool

Poker nights - thanks Uncle Ray!

Our final day we did a small hike up to The Tor, which is a mid 15th century tower with little knowledge as to why it was built. It provides a great view of the city. Each family member was to write a letter to every other family member explaining what we learned about them on the trip and why we were glad that they were with us. At The Tor we exchanged the letters and each spent 5-10 minutes chatting with the person individually. The boys really got into this and put a lot of time into their letters and it was quite sweet.

Our final family outing of the year - a hike to The Tor for family letter exchanges

Pano from The Tor

We have experienced an incredible year and are so thankful for the opportunity. We sacrificed a great deal to make it happen but we felt we had to be obedient to God's calling. We didn't fully understand why or how we would do it all, but looking back at this point is overwhelming.  Our marriage has grown and turned a major corner that would have never occurred without this trip and our boys have all grown closer in unique ways. SJ... well..., we are not quite sure how this will affect her but one thing is certain, she may be the toughest 4 year old on the planet and her comments are always right-on, it just takes everyone else a few minutes to figure out what and where the context of her memory is!  Mom & Dad aren't really ready to go home but know it's time and, honestly, it seems like we just hit our stride, but our own bed will be a welcome place.