Grandma & Grandpa came to visit!

We were SO excited to hear that Grandma & Grandpa Whitehead were coming to visit!  We haven't seen any family in a year and it was time!  The only down side was they came when the kids didn't have off school.  They are very strict here about missing school.  If I want to take my kids out, even for one day, I have to get a form to fill out requesting permission.  They send the form to someone, I am guessing like the district, and will let me know if it is approved or not.  If it is not pre-approved and the kids are taken out of school we can be fined.  It isn't a small fine either.  It is around £200 per child!  Insane!  Needless to say, the kids didn't get to miss school much to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa.
We didn't do much, first because of the school, and second because we were quite content just hanging out and being with them.
Also, what we did do we really didn't get any pictures of... oops!
While the kids were at school we went into York.  It is a town pretty close to ours that is pretty touristy.  It has a lot of history.  (really, everywhere here has a lot of history)  Grandpa really loves to soak it all in.  Like, he wanted to read EVERYTHING!  Which would be fine, but he really only got to see about one-fourth of the cool stuff in the city because he was looking at the lame stuff! :)

We also planned on taking the steam train up to Whitby again.  We drove to Pickering and found out at that time of year they only do the Santa train.  It only goes about 2 stops and then they turn around.  Didn't interest my kids and we really wanted to see Whitby so we opted to drive.  It was quite a long drive but we made it and we loved it!  It is such a cool place!

The last few days they were here we took the kids out of school and headed to London.  There is always so much to see in London!  It was nice here because Grandpa was on a bus and we didn't have to wait for him, much! :) (we love you Grandpa!)  We were able to stay in a hotel right close to everything!  I love it there! (actually, I love it there in the summer.  Winter sucks.)

Thanks so much Grandma and Grandpa for coming to visit.  It is just what we needed!

I started this post a long time ago and must have forgotten I even had a blog... I am back and am going to finish this post!
There are more pictures than I thought there would be.

The boys loved playing Risk.

Grandpa loved walking Delaney to school.

Here is Whitby.  It is so beautiful and fun!

Here we are on the tour bus in London.

Clearly they are excited about seeing it!

 I told Kyler that he should bring a warm coat because I knew

it would be cold.  He didn't listen - and he is too proud to take my

extra jacket... so he froze!

We walked around the Tower of London.  It was pretty cool!

 I took this picture and then got into trouble.  Apparently

you aren't allowed to take pictures of the crowns... oops!