our first family road trip: a birthday adventure in wales!

*** you can still register for the mom conference! it started yesterday and i loved the bits i got to listen to! there’s two more days of awesome speakers on varied, important topics – so register now! (it’s free!!) ***

august twentieth was the boy’s birthday! we had a two part celebration.

1. on the nineteenth we had a birthday party with some of our favourite people – ian’s brother and his family! (hyrum, heather, and their five kids were in london for a month this summer. it was so, so great to have them close by!) the three of us went up to the airbnb where the seven of them were staying and we all enjoyed cake and finger food together.

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^^ we adore these kids! and also i love the reflection of those thirty two candles in ian’s glasses. it had been a bright year and there’s another bright year ahead! ^^

2. that weekend, we took a little road trip to wales. on the way we stopped at our friends’ gorgeous house in the countryside near gloucester. (they hosted a little reunion for the group of new parents from our prenatal classes. it was so fun to see everyone, especially all the new babies!) and then we went on to wales to explore some spots near the english border that my welsh coworker had recommended. the weather was pretty rubbish and the timing was a bit tricky with feeding six-week-old-moses and the early closing times of neat places, but we definitely still consider this first family road trip a real win. moses was pretty happy in his car seat, we saw some stunningly beautiful things, and it was just wonderful to be together away from the city.

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^^ moses’s first real time in a car seat (the way home from the hospital was so short and he was snoozing the whole time!) he did great. i sat in the back seat with him the entire drive so ian was just chauffeuring us around – haha! ^^
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a roadtrip to wales with a six week old in near constant rain? an epic ^^^ adventure indeed! click through to see pictures from our weekend.
IMG_0283^^ i had been excited for months to put moses in his “my dad is super rad” onesie on ian’s birthday. i had to have a picture! moses wasn’t feeling it – can you tell? ;) this is in the darling little town of hay on wye, known for its many bookshops. we got there quite late in the evening, so most things were closed … and it was rainy. but we still enjoyed a bit of its charm and some of its pub food! ^^
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^^ ^^ we stayed at a cute little bed and breakfast, and little mo was soooo happy when he woke up. just about a week before this, he had just started showing off real smiles. i had to snap some photos of his delight on that welsh morning. he just can’t contain his joy when he’s feeling very happy! ^^
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^^ birthday boy outside the b&b. ^^
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^^ on sunday morning before church we took a little walk around countryside surrounding the bed & breakfast. there were a lot of sheep! ^^
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^^ after church we took a little hike in brecon beacons national park. the clouds parted and rain stopped for just an hour or so right as we started on this stroll, and we were so glad and grateful! the sweeping views were just stunning – these pictures don’t do them justice ... but doesn’t that beautiful, intense green just almost burn your eyes with its glory?! ^^
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clearly i couldn’t stop trying to capture the grandeur…
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^^ an attempt to get more than moses’s little hat in a picture – haha! ^^
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we stopped by raglan castle. ian took this photo from the top of one of the towers ^^ … IMG_3319 … while moses and i hung out down here ^^ since baby boy was sound asleep in his car seat!
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^^ tintern abbey was a fitting finale for our little road trip – our favourite part and a truly stunning sight to see. ^^
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^^ after moses was fed and changed, we had just fifteen minutes to go inside the ancient and magnificent cathedral. ^^
the rain let up again! and we were totally in awe as we scurried around and marveled….
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^^ i mean, isn’t that so cool? we decided the moody weather added to the ambiance. ^^
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^^ apparently this mirrored epic statue gets moved around to different parts of wales and is set up in front of spectacular vistas. kind of cool that we happened upon it at tintern abbey! ^^
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^^ ian took this photo in the parking lot. i love that he noticed something so tiny yet so beautiful under his feet. our world is full of small wonders! ^^

it was a happy birthday for the boy. i am so so so so so so so so grateful he was born!

Comments

  1. That last picture just goes to show how much you are rubbing off on Ian!! I love your pictures of Wales. I found it so frustrating not to be able to capture the brilliance of the greens and the contrast of the earth with the sky via camera. I hope my minds eye can keep it all for me.

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  2. hey charity! long time blog reader and fan here. i'm sincerely interested in the car seat photo. is moses really sitting upright in that car seat or is that just the angle of the camera playing tricks? i have a baby who is a little older and has HATED the car since the day we took him home from the hospital. we don't live in a city so he's in the car a lot, ugh! anyway, i was just curious as i've never seen an infant car seat click into a base like that before, where the baby is sitting up right rather than mostly laying on their back at an angle.

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    1. Try turning your screen 90 degrees. The pictures are oriented to make it look that way.

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    2. he was mostly laying back - the angle of the photo is deceiving :)

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  3. I bet breastfeeding is super convenient on all your travels!

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  4. What a grand adventure! That Cathedral looks so much like St. David's which was the abandoned Cathedral near where we stayed in Wales when Grandma died. Those things must be everywhere. So incredible!

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  5. Absolutely gorgeous - you have a gift for chronicling travel!

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