More Marvelousness

In the words of Caleb, "I misspoke." No kidding. The kid actually says that. The trip to Stonehenge was Tuesday, October 24. Monday was spent getting Cindy & Alan's rental car and cell phones to use in the UK. You would think this wouldn't take more than an hour or so, but it took 3 hours just to get the car. No joke. Talk about a nightmare! But they finally got everything sorted and got a nice big van. Post-van they got a cell phone, then we all went to eat a very late lunch (or slightly early tea) at Chili's. Then we did some looking around and shopping at the Oracle Mall, where the little kids got to spend the commission money they've earned for doing household chores. The each had £10 to spend. Audrey got 2 princess ballerina Barbies (Belle and Briar Rose a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) and Caleb got 3 of the 4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in ninja knight gear. He has Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo No Raphael. The Barbies were undressed by the time we got home little under an hour later. Big surprise. We also helped Cindy and Alan get to their cottage in Henley-on-Thames that night. The backdoor opened up to a patio that was about 10 feet from the river. Pretty.

Tuesday was the Stonehenge/Portsmouth trip like I mentioned earlier. Tuesday night the kids and Steve worked on the pumpkin for Halloween.


Wednesday was the finale of the adventure that the Nolen 5 had begun back in July: Warwick Castle. We went to see the Mighty Trebuchet. We knew that there were 2 shows and that the first one was at noon. We got there early and ended up having to wait about 20 minutes, but at least we got there in enough time to get a decent place to stand to watch it.


The bottom picture is the trebuchet in mid-launch. Steve caught it on the upswing. Talk about a cool weapon! The trebuchet has over 300 pieces and is moved in those pieces to and from battles. No nails or glue was used - just wooden pegs and wedges. When the trebuchet was assembled for the first time, each joint was marked with symbols that the common non-literate man could understand so that when it was disassembled, it would be easy to reassemble. They would have anywhere from 50 to 200 trebuchets at a battle because it takes about 15 minutes to get the thing loaded and ready to launch. Those 2 big wheels at the base are used to wind the thing up. Two men are in each wheel and they walk in the wheel to tighten the ropes that pull the arm down. They're like big hamster wheels. Apparently in cranes that used this technology in the medieval ages, they used blind people to man the wheels because when you walked in the wheels it was very likely that you would get sick. Anyway, they flung a pumpkin way the yaw (my own personal term used to describe a far distance) down the river. It was cool. We got it on video.

After the trebuchet, we went into the castle and immediately took the kids on the Troll Trail. They had this, face painting, and some other things going on for Halloween. Anyway, along the Troll Trail there were places to stop and read info about trolls concerning stuff like dandruff, ear wax, bogeys, etc. Nasty. And there were trivia questions about trolls. Here are a few:

What ride does a troll like best at the amusement park? A troll-er coaster.

What kind of music does a troll like best? Rock and troll.

What is a troll's favorite sweet? A troll-ipop.

What do you call a troll's vacation? A troll-iday.

I'm not sure if there were more - this is all I can remember. Anyway - at the top of the troll trail we met a troll. Audrey was skittish, but Caleb was fearless. Especially after I recognized the "troll" as the guy who had said that Caleb was his favorite customer on the day we went back in July.

Making troll faces.

After the troll trail, Steve and I stood in line with our 3 kids plus Connor to get their faces painted while the other adults and Jarrett looked around the castle. There was one lady painting faces and we weren't that far back in the line but it took us an HOUR to get all 3 kids to the front of the line and their faces painted. They had the choice of a fairy, a giant, or a troll. We ended up with 2 fairies and a troll. The girls had glitter on their little frou-frous and Caleb ended up with 3 brown warts. The paint lasted until the next morning, but most of his green was gone - he just looked a little jaundiced around the temples. Audrey's was mostly intact the next morning.

That's all I'm going to write for now. Our trip home from Warwick was an absolute NIGHTMARE, so I'll save that for the next entry.

P.S. Audrey is getting sick now. Maybe the tonsillitis....