On Wednesday we headed down to Dorset (Alison’s Country Home) for a relaxing last few days. As we were driving we happened upon Stonehenge – so we had to do a quick walk around. Stonehenge is quite a site – Eddie Izzard gives the best description of its creation. Elsie slept through the tour – clearly she wasn’t impressed.


Alison’s cottage is in a town called Sanford Orcus and to get here you travel on little country roads not much wider than the car with giant hedges on each side – this is a two way street. You have to be quick with your breaks in case you meet an oncoming car – you then stare at each other to see who will back up first. This would never work in the states because everyone would just sit there waiting for the other to back up – but in England, they are fighting over who can back up first.


When we arrived we decided to take a walk around the area – it was so lush and green and we packed the little bean up in the bjorn and headed off (without any diaper bag – we are still new parents)


As we walked up the field, the cats followed… (Puck and Basil have a great country life)


We happened upon some dairy cows … Elsie is also the name of the borden dairy cow, which many kind people informed us when she was born.


We walked into town and ate at the local pub – we had a not-so-cold pint (who knew that british people don’t like cold beer). Elsie was a trooper – she had her own meal and then dropped a giant poop bomb that came out of her pants and onto alison (a badge of honor!) – here is where we realized we should have brought a diaper bag.


We high tailed it home and played a board game by the fire (with clean pants of course). The next morning we had breakfast on the lawn and Elsie had her first snuggle on grass – its much softer than US grass, but Elsie wasn’t so sure she liked it.


Alison showed mark her bee hive which was very prolific with its honey this past year. they were all suited up in bee suits and I was hiding in the house in case they decided to pray on the young (thats me and elsie)


We went to the Sherborne Abbey just a few miles away – this church was constructed over 1300 years ago (when they say old, they mean it)


Inside the church showing the perpendicular style (late gothic)

To finish our day Alison and Michael packed us a picnic and we headed up on the hill to watch the sun set.


The sun started behind some clouds …

and then it became “magic hour” – Bruckheimers favorite shooting time.

Elsie was snuggled up – she didn’t seem to care about the sun setting, she was too schleepy.



the next morning we packed up and headed to heathrow. We left lots of time to drive to the airport, return the car and get through security. At Heathrow they were extremely accommodating with us and the baby – they helped us through security. We went to the red carpet club where elsie had a melt down – she was hungry and hot. The ladies at the front quickly found us a cool room (we didn’t ask, they suggested) for a quick feed and she was back to new. We even had the real bassinet on the way home … elsie did great. Sadly the flight was over an hour late and we missed our connection in Chicago. Transferring in chicago is a huge chafe and on a good day might take an hour – what a horrible welcome to the states.


We managed to get on the late flight to denver and some kind soul switched seats with us so we could sit together. My parents were waiting for us when we got to Denver and Elsie had no jet leg, Mark and I on the other hand…

We had a wonderful time in England and it showed us that traveling with an infant is not too difficult – we can’t wait for our next adventure!