As I mentioned in my last post, my dad's cousin Trina, her friend Lori, and Lori's daughter Brie came to visit at the beginning of October. The second week they were there, my sister Megan also came into town on a business trip and took an extra few days to be with us before flying home. So while we were all together, we decided to take a trip down to Wales and Southern England. Our first stop was Stratford-upon-Avon, which as many of you know, is the birthplace of Shakespeare. We started out at Mary Arden's farm, which was Shakespeare's grandmother's farm. As a child Shakespeare spent much of his time there. All of the Shakespeare sights in the town have volunteer staff who dress according to the time period and talk to you about Shakespeare and the people's life at the time, so it was very interesting.

We've named these pigs "shigs". Sheep + Pigs = Shigs. My mom has decided that when they move back to Arkansas they are going to have a farm and its going to have shigs on it. I'm thinking it would be great to be their next door neighbor....

Above is Anne Hathaway's childhood home. Before Shakespeare and Anne were married, Shakespeare would walk through the fields from his house to her to "woo" her. Adorable.

And this is Shakespeare's childhood home. His father was a tanner and made expensive leather gloves in a workshop attached to the home. They were considered a wealthy family back then.

The back of Shakespeare's childhood home.

And the front of his home.

As we were walking around we saw this old fashioned candy shop. Being the foodies we are, of course we made a quick stop to get some photos and even more candy.

And finally, this is the church in which Shakespeare is buried. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there, so we didn't get to see his actual burial site, but at least I got some pictures of the church, which was really quite beautiful.

After Stratford-upon-Avon we drove over the Cardiff to spend the next few days there. Everyone in England says Wales is the armpit of the UK, (I guess its the Southern United States of the United Kingdom), but I guess I must have a soft spot for the least favored parts of countries, because I loved Wales, just as I love the South. I'll post that next.