Dolomiti - Day 2

This morning we set out on our first via ferrata of the trip: VF Brigata Tridentina. Here is an overview of the route - it was basically a climb of 3 sections with a bit of a walk in between the 1st and the 2nd sections. 

We were both pretty scared and nervous this morning as we set out and drove from Alba around the Sella massif, which has these huge intimidating cliffs! 

Car park and approaching view of the first climb we did

Both of us were pretty nervous, but once we got going our nerves eased and it became enjoyable. The first part of the climb was easy and short, then there was a 20 min hike to the start of the next stage of the climb. This is when we saw the traffic jam of people ahead of us!

Start of the 2nd stage of climb, with trail of people winding up and to the left

It was really slow going, which was fine for awhile, but then started to get quite boring. At the junction for the 3rd and final part of the climb, Rhods and I peeled off and hiked up an alternate way to the refugio at the plateau.

Refugio at Al Pisciadù

We were a bit disappointed to leave the final stage of the climb, but by then we had already met our objective of getting our mojo back after we lost it at the end of last year's trip! It felt good to hike after standing around and slowly climbing up the cliff for several hours previously. We rested in the shade at the refugio "Al Pisciadù" and then came down a different way - Via Setus it is called - which turned out to be a very steep descent down a ravine. There was a cable to hang onto for the first few hundred meters, and there were people of all ages on the trail. We were surprised by how crowded this whole route was today - then again it was the Friday of a long weekend and perfect weather: sunny and 25 deg C/ 80 deg F so we shouldn't have been so surprised.

View of Marmolada with glaciers down the left shoulder

That evening we went for dinner at Cima Undici which is across the dam at Lago Fedaia. The full moon rising behind sunset-illuminated peaks as we approached the venue was breathtaking, although this photo makes the moon look so much smaller than it was in real life!

Dolomiti weekend - Day 1

Rhodri and I traveled today from Gatwick to Verona, Italy, then rented a car and drove to Canazei in the Dolomites. We came here 11-12 years ago in the winter and had vowed to come back.

The pretty little hotel we stayed in - Garni Cirelle

The 3 hr drive from Verona into the mountains east of Bolzano was exciting as we headed off the motorway and got our first glimpses of these beautiful mountains.

We checked into the hotel around 5 pm and then walked 1.2 km down from Alba where we were staying into Canazei to buy maps and plan our stay. So exciting! We had a beer at this cafe on the main road - it was a perfect little start to our trip with extremely pleasant temperature and a slight breeze under clear skies. Ahhh.

Then we walked back up to Alba and had dinner at Resole which is directly across the road from our hotel. They were fully booked but we managed to find a table outside on the veranda in the corner. We had this amazing meal with delicious local wine and it was so cheap thanks to the favorable exchange rate between ££ and Euros at the moment. We planned our first climbing outing for tomorrow and sketched out the outings for the next few days as well.

Canoeing in the hood

Our friend Dave and his kids Katherine and Jonathan came up from Southampton to spend a couple of nights with us. The kids all remembered each other from when we saw them in Washington DC a few years ago, and they were fast friends again. Love it when that happens!
We all camped in the back garden on Tuesday night, then I took yesterday off and we played around the neighborhood, then Wed night it rained quite a bit so we decided to camp inside instead.
No camping photos for some reason, but I did take photos of our canoeing adventure in the forest across the street! Dave has this amazing inflatable canoe which is really awesome.

All the kids took turns - first the 4 of them together, then trading off paddlers, then just the girls went, then just the boys, and on and on for hours! We took a break for some lunch and then kept going, while Dave and I stood on the shore chatting and listening to country music from my phone. What a great day! It was so wonderful of them to come up to spend good quality time with us. We love it when people visit us.

Rescue Services day in Llandudno

This morning all the rescue services were on display down on the promenade in Llandudno. Nia, Rhods and I took the 4 kids down there to admire (and climb in) the fire trucks, ambulances, fast rescue crafts and police vans. Big excitement down at the shore.

Llandudno promenade

In the police van making criminal faces

In the FRC

Sioned, Nia, Cris and the kids had to leave in early afternoon but we were able to all have a BBQ lunch together before they left.

We stayed another night and then drove back today (Monday). A truly great weekend.

Wales for the weekend

We had a really special occasion this weekend - Nain Beryl turned 70 and there was a family gathering that had been planned for a long time. Rhodri's 3 siblings were all there - Nia, Trystan and Sioned, as well as Nia's and Trystan's children. We drove up on Friday night after the kids' tennis camp finished at 5pm and due to traffic and a couple of stops, we arrived around 12:30am.
One of the gifts to Nain was a deluxe "zero gravity" chair for deluxe lounging in the back garden.

On Saturday afternoon, we took the kids (+ Gabriel and Valentin) to the beach so they could get some wiggles out before the 5:30pm sitting at Porth Eirias restaurant in Colwyn Bay.

The dinner itself was lovely and we all were able to enjoy ourselves while dining on delicious food.
There is a playground attached to the restaurant itself where the whole herd of kids frolicked between courses under the watchful eye of one of us adults - this was a lifesaver!

Brython and Rhyddid running from the playground

Val, Rhyddid, Gabs, Tryfan, Rhiannon, Brython and Leusa

Trefor, Nia, Rhodri, Beryl, Sioned and Trystan

It was a great evening with no drama or discord. And actually, today was also Trefor and Beryl's anniversary with Beryl's actual birthday on Mon 17 August. Celebrations all around!

STOMP!

Early this week, Cat and I hatched a plan to take advantage of the "Kids go free" month at selected West End productions downtown London and booked ourselves to attend the fabulous show STOMP on Thursday night at 8pm. It was kind of a big deal to get the logistics right - we took the 17:37 train from East Grinstead to Victoria, arriving at 18:35. Fortunately the train was pretty empty going into London at this time, so we could make plenty of noise.

Trying to get people to wave back to them at each station we stopped

Then we made our way to the Underground and took 2 different lines to get to Leicester Square station where we had delicious burritos at Chipotle on St. Martin's Lane in the West End.

St Martin's Lane location of Chipotle

 The burritos were soooooo good. Perfect. Burritos are all the rage right now in the UK and that is fine with us!

Rhods and I saw STOMP in Las Vegas quite a few years ago (12? 13?) and it is just as great as we remembered. The kids really enjoyed it too, and they were laughing so much at some of the comedic moments. Here is a little sample for the uninitiated...

The show finished at 9:45pm and we made our long journey back to deepest Sussex but super happy about the whole experience and grateful that we were able to make it happen!

Long lost neighbors on a lovely Sunday

Last summer, we spent quite a bit of time with our neighbor Ava and her parents, Shaun and Paula. But then autumn came, then winter, then spring, and our paths just have not crossed! We nearly got together for dinner a few months ago but something came up so we had to postpone. Finally we were able to spend a fantastic evening together tonight. It happened to be another incredibly gorgeous weekend. The kids spent most of the afternoon and some of the evening in the pool. And when they weren't in the pool, they were on the trampoline.

Dining set up with kids jumping in the background

Tryfan, Ava and Rhiannon

Pool time

We stayed up quite late - well past dark, getting home around 11pm - and stayed warm chatting and drinking wine by the chimera at the bottom of the garden while the kids watched a movie inside. It was a really great night and yet another Sunday that we broke tradition.

Eastbourne excursion

Today was a warm day, nearly able to be described as hot.
We hung out at home and lounged about in the shade in the late morning while Rhodri was out on his bike.

After our weekly call with Grandma Debi at 4pm, we broke all traditions for a Sunday evening and drove 45 minutes south to Eastbourne to join some friends (2 other families) at the beach. Low tide was at 8pm, so when we arrived just before 6pm, the tide was well on its way out and all the kids went rock-pooling/ tide pooling. I went for a run up the hill at the end of town which is also the start/end of the South Downs way which goes past Beachy Head. It was such a gorgeous day and felt really great to just run a bit.

View from part ways up the hill to Beachy Head looking back at Eastbourne to the east

The kids had a heck of a good time looking for crabs and whatever other live sea creatures they could find.

We had fish and chips from a local vendor and sat in the setting sun on the grass above the beach

It was really great to do something a bit different on a Sunday eve, and we all loved the feeling of being salty and chilly, then warm and well fed once we got in the car to drive home.

The Wedding through the hedge

Our dear friends Emma and Rob got married yesterday (on the Blue Moon of July 31st) after a few busy days of helping them to prepare everything. They are the parents of Sophie and Oscar, who are best buds with Rhiannon and Tryfan respectively (as well as altogether, of course), but although they have been together for 12 years and had 2 gorgeous kids together, they weren't actually married. So it was indeed a joyous occasion! Rob's brother lives 2 doors down from us but our back gardens border each other in the way back because the lady in the middle (Sally) has a small back garden that is sort of wedged between ours. Anyway, that is how we were able to get back and forth through the hedge helping to set things up for the wedding.

Here is us before we got too scruffy

 We realized that all of us were wearing pretty much the same outfits we wore to Annie & Jeff's wedding last year (or was it the year before?).

The Happy Couple arrives

 The reception started at 4pm and finished around 12:30am. Kids left around 9:30pm and we had Lauren babysitting ours plus the 2 girls who were staying with us as part of the family we were hosting (Bex and Phil-the-DJ from Devon).

The scene of the main reception area, marquee on the right

There was a "Chill out zone" in the bell tent that is in the background here.

Inside the marquee

It was a lovely day - perfect weather, happy people, good food - and all went swimmingly. We helped tidy up the next morning for a few hours and then were happy to go back to our own lives for the rest of the weekend. We are so very happy for them, though.

Last day in Wales

Today we mainly hung around the house, but we did take an outing to the park in Craig-y-Don to get some wiggles out with the younger cousins, Rhyddid and Brython. The rest of us kicked the football around and played with Bentley.

Later this evening, Rhods and I met up with Fran, Huw, Gareth and Rachel for a nice meal at the pub called Pen-y-Bryn which overlooks Colwyn Bay. Always nice to see old friends! No photos from this event, though. And actually, on Monday night Rhods and I went to "the best Indian restaurant in Wales" which was up the Conwy valley in Llanrwst. On the way back, we drove on the other side of the valley so that we could go past the new surf park called Surf Snowdonia, which is in the site of an old aluminum processing plant. In previous days there has been a lot of talk about this place which is about to open in just a few days!

RSPB with Fran and Gwil

Today Rhodri and Huw went for a big bike ride, and we had to take the car in for a service in the morning but then when we finally got it back, we picked up Fran and baby Gwil and went to the RSPB.

 Rhiannon loooooved looking after Gwil, and he seemed quite pleased about it too! Rhodri and Huw soon joined us and so we got to have a lovely few hours walking around and looking for birds.

Family Raffle

The kids went to a concert at the chapel the other night with Nain and Taid, and they ended up selling raffle tickets. This got them excited about the idea of having our own family raffle. Rhiannon initiated this idea and got Tryfan to help carefully allocate raffle tickets to each place setting at the dinner table and fold up the other halves to go into a bowl, then neatly wrote a list of all the valuable prizes to be won. I can't remember all of them, but here are a couple:
- You get to choose the menu and cook dinner on Tuesday
- You get to do what you want for the whole day

There was an awful lot of laughter during the prize draw and the whole thing was a great success. 

Climbing, shopping and other rainy day things

It was forecast for rain today, so we planned more inside stuff to do.

We did do some clothes shopping and got Rhiannon a few crop tops to wear when she starts back at school. All the Year 5 girls are supposed to wear these under their school uniform from now on, so it is a rather important milestone.

Unfortunately, Tryfan got a hold of one of them and paraded through the house wearing it and striking poses!

We also went to the Beacons Climbing Centre near Bangor today for a few hours. The kids did most of the climbing and although it wasn't a brilliant time there, it was good to use our muscles and try new things again. 

Lounging and the Little Orme

We've had a bit of a lazy day today, which has been nice.
One of our favorite memories and pastimes of coming to see Nain and Taid is sitting in the back garden in the lovely sun trap and drinking tea, chatting, and reading the paper while the kids play football or swingball or whatever. We did a lot of this today. We've also been following the Tour de France and today was another exciting day. There is a telly in the kitchen, so it is easy to pop in from outside and see the latest footage of the race.
We also took a family trip over to the Little Orme and climbed around, weaving our way up to the grassy top to overlook the whole area. It was a stunning day and we all really enjoyed this little outing (despite the initial resistance from the troops!!).

Little Orme from Llandudo promenade (wikipedia)

Penrhyn Bay and further east behind us from the top of Little Orme

Llandudno, the Great Orme, and the coastline going west from the top.