Swansea
Swansea is about 45 minutes from Cardiff. It's the birthplace of Catherine Zeta Jones and yummy Welsh cakes! Our very first day in Wales back in 2002, our supervisors took us to the market there and we had fresh baked Welsh cakes right off the griddle. Lord have mercy. They were so good.
I've told you about our friends that moved to Cardiff from Swansea last year and they have three little girls, etc. She was an answer to prayer, I still can't get over it! Tuesday she and I loaded up our VW van with the girls and took off to Swansea for the day. Marc was gracious enough to keep grumpy Addison, so we had five squealing, giggling little girls in the van and they talked the whole way!!! We stopped first to visit some friends of hers and the girls got play. We met with three other mums and between us all there were 12 little children running around. We drank cups of tea and ate biscuits and just enjoyed a nice few hours of chatting while the kids ran wild.
After lunch we headed over to Mumbles- part of Swansea and on the sea. Parking was kind of scary and funny. I can parallel park but it takes me a few tries usually. Anyway, we got stuck in some pretty tight places so several times Mel was directing me and all the girls were cheering me on, it was soo funny. Anyway, part of the reason we were in Mumbles was because they have a children's hairdressers so we took all five girls to get haircuts for school next week. It was a really cute place and after the cut the girls got sparkles sprayed on top of their head!
My girls only got a trim, but her girls all got cute little bobs. Here is Bailey after her cut,
And Cerys...she was thrilled to get her hair blow-dried and all sparkly!I think you can see that Bailey is eating. As soon as she hopped up in the chair the lady passed around biscuits and lollipops. Girl heaven!
After our lovely cuts, we hiked on top of this mountain to get down to Caswell Bay- so much for nice hair! The car park was full so we had to drive back up the mountain and find a place to park, then my friend said she knew a shortcut. Well, this was the shortcut. We eventually found our way down and still had all five girls!! Amazing! Now, hiking back up to our car after a few hours at the beach and very tired girls was interesting and funny. M and I were just laughing at all these prissy girls climbing up the side of this mountain. Oh, the memories!!!
The water was warm for British standards, freezing for Texans. But none the less, it was a blast and the most beautiful day I can ever remember!
As soon as the sun comes out in the UK, clothes start coming off! It can be quite scary actually, but Bailey joined right in! Ha. Not five minutes into it she fell and her dress was a mess so we just stripped her down to her tank top and bloomers. You can see her in the left corner- white tank and green bloomers! As you can see, the beach was packed. I think all of Wales was here that day enjoying the warmth! As cold as the water was, Bailey embraced her British side and walked right into the ocean, waist deep and loved every second of it. Cerys stood cautiously on the sand yelling at Bailey to be careful. :)
After a few hours on the beach we changed clothes- that was interesting- but I won't share here. Ok, so we changed the girls and drove to another place to play on this playground for a while. Then we got Fish-n-Chips for dinner!
To conclude our day out, we ate ice cream at Joe's. It's Swansea's own ice cream and I have to say it was DIVINE! It was so creamy and just flat out good that I didn't regret it one bit until the next morning when I was very aware of my dairy sensitivity.
What a fun, fun day we had! God just kept reminding me all day about how good He is- the beautiful weather, the ice-cold water of the ocean, the tide, the mountains....and good friends! I'm so thankful my girls have these girls in their life and in their class at school!
If you ever make it to Wales you must go to Swansea! And get some Joe's!