Nothing...

 

We did nothing but enjoy ourselves.

This is the Dordogne River just by Fay's home, where we spent the next 10 days.

The McDonalds where we went to get internet and food! Once Nath tried to order a sprite in french and the worker gave him fries. Good times! :)

Finished Season 5!

We ate lots of cheese and crackers!

Dune de Pilat! The largest sand dune in Europe! We climbed all the way up and then back down sans towel, camera and footwear!

The Para Olympics was the background sound as we played scrabble

One of our fave games

THE favorite game! Played this way too much.

One of the shows we watched endlessly

We ate large amounts of fresh french bread purchased just down the street. One night we made french onion soup to go with it. It was delicious, and cheap!

We visited Nathans grandparents old house, Le Malpas, in Montazeau, France.

 We figured it would be easier to share what happened during our South of France time with pictures, most of which we were too lazy to take in real life. It was wonderful to hang out and do whatever we wanted, just Nath and I.

Next we get a closer look at the Dordogne river as we canoe it...

It begins in Paris

We left for Paris after a couple nights stay in London. We took the ferry from Dover to Calais. On the ferry ticket stub was a free voucher ticket to Disneyland Paris!! Well who can pass up an offer like that? Not us apparently. We bought the second ticket on board for 20% off! BARGIN!!!

Once we reached the hotel we were freakishly hungry and knew of no where to go so we stayed nearby checking out the restaurants.It was all in french so we just guessed and ended up eating at the most delicious japanese restaurant.

The next day was our first full day in Paris. We started off with the Eiffle Tower. I was so excited! I saw the Eiffle tower from the plane to England a month ago and had been dying to see it up close ever since. You know how some places just don't live up to your expectations? Like this thing you have been waiting to see is a lot less impressive and smaller than you thought it would be? Well, that is not the Eiffle tower at all! It is so much more detailed and incredibly larger than I thought it would be! It is absolutely amazing!

After that we saw the Arc de Triomphe. It was pretty large and impressive too. As we took pictures some guy came up to Nathan who had found a ring on the ground. It was too big for him so he gave it to Nath and began to walk away, then came back asking for money probably thinking his act of kindness deserved payment. Well we told him we didn't have any money and so he took the ring back. A week later Peter, Nathan's bother, sent us an e-mail warning us of scams that may happen on our trip, including the ring one! Apparently it had happened to him as well. When the guy gives you the ring he is marking you as a pick-pocket target for his cahoots. Good thing we didn't keep the ring!

Inside Arch de Triomphe

Last thing we did was travel across town to this giant shopping, Galleries La Fayette. Then we realized we were heading the wrong way and just decided to carry on home. We needed our rest for tomorrow: Disneyland day.

We took a train the next morning to Disneyland!!! It took us a while to get going on the rides because our first choice, Space Mountain: Mission 2, broke down just as we were about to get on. Fine, no matter, they gave us a fast pass for any ride at any time. Bargin. So we went to our next choice, My favorite ride ever! Tower of Terror!(Always reminds me of Kati Fischer, she loves this ride too) The lines for everything had been so long that we used our fast pass right away just to get on a ride. Well, fast pass fail. It still took about a half hour to get on the ride. After dropping from a massive hight, we were energized and took off to ride, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indian Jones, Haunted Mansion and so on. We did finally get on Space Mountain and it was amazing! It was a real coaster, with a loop and corkscrews, in a scarily realistic representation of space. Loved it. All and all, you can just never go wrong with Disney.

The next day we recovered from walking and running and standing massive amounts at Disneyland. We took it easy all day and spent the evening at the Eiffel Tower. At the start of every hour after 7pm the tower lights up in a speckatular show for 5 minutes. We just sat on a blanket, drank fancy sholer, and played cards while waiting for the lights to begin. Once they did we just watched in awe and listened to Owl City.

Outside the Louvre,  I was tired

 

Inside the Louvre glass triangle

Statues

Our last day, the morning was spent at the Louvre. We saw aphrodite (the sculpture missing the arms), along with thousands of other pictures that were nice but lets be honest, we don't know art so it wasn't thrilling by any means. It was still enjoyable though. We saved the best for last.. the Mona Lisa! There were lots of other people around it and you had to stay back about 5 feet, but it was really cool to see in real life. After the Louvre we went to Notre Dame. It was neat just to say we saw it. It honestly looked a lot like the many amazing churches around France. We have seen lots of churches. :)

We were just really worn out by the time we left Paris so we were excited to get to the South of France to spend a week just hanging out. It has been so long since we have been able to do absolutely nothing. So on to the next Adventure!

Wedding Day!

I woke up that morning feeling really calm. Everyone kept asking me how I was doing and if I was nervous. Getting married didn't actually seem real, even though it was just hours away. I had been waiting for this day for so long that I never felt like it would really happen I guess. I got ready with the help of my bridesmaids, then Aaron came to pick me up and from then it was just fun. I also remember traffic on the way to the church! I was so anxious to get there and it is like 2 minutes from the house I was staying at but it felt like it took forever. I may have to check with Aaron about the actual length of the car ride.

It was all good and fun until I was waiting to go into the chapel by my dad. Then it was all so real! It was finally happening!!! I held back tears as Ruth began to play “Maestro,” the song I had chosen to walk into. It was so beautiful. She did a fabulous job. I walked in with my dad and I think Naomi may have mouthed for me to slow down. I was so excited to see Nathan around the corner I didn't even really wait for her to adjust my train around the turn. I saw Nathan meet my eyes and he seemed to have the breath knocked out of him. I was very pleased by that reaction. :) I am sure I had a similar one because he looked so perfectly handsome.

The ceremony went really well. Abby and Hanna were wonderful flower girls, well, I'm assuming because they walked in before I did. Same with my bridesmaids, Melissa, Mary and Becca. Rocky gave a great speech and managed to keep the embarrassment minimal considering I have lived with his lovely wife and kids for a long time, ensuring that he knows interesting things about me... :) Nathan had Paul Wilkinson speak. He did well too. I won't forget the acronym he taught us, LCC. Love, communication, and something else. :)

We wed after the speeches. “I do” and all that good stuff. The rings were tough to get on! We were both quite nervous and therefore had puffy fingers. We then signed the register. While we were doing so Nathan and MY nieces and nephews sang “Families can be together forever.” It was so cute! I loved it and I love them! I really do absolutely adore my new nieces and nephews. After their number Melissa and Matt sang “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds. It was brilliant! They are so talented. I love when they perform. The Bishop gave some further words of wisdom and then we walked out of the chapel to another beautiful piece by Ruth. This one was an original written by her.

Nathan and I waited by the doors of the chapel as everyone walked by to congratulate us. Everyone was so friendly! Even though they didn't know me, everyone hugged me and quite a few kissed me! I felt very welcomed and in the end I feel like I had already met most of those who attended our wedding. That was one great blessing of coming to England a month early, I recognized a lot of people.

Everyone walked outside and made a line on both sides of us preparing to throw lavender at us. Nathan and I waited at the start of the line as everyone got into throwing positions. It was actually pretty scary. You should have seen little Jonas's face as he held that handful of lavender. The photographer gave us the thumbs up and we began to walk through. We got hammered by lavender. Some of the little ones even threw the cones that the lavender was in at us. All and all, very funny and I am sure we got some great pictures from it!

We began taking endless pictures while everyone else headed inside for the reception. The hall was awesome--- literally! Nathan's sisters are beyond amazing. They really understood how I wanted it to look in the hall and it turned out better than I could have ever expected. I am completely indebted to them! Best of all---- they found me Peonies!!!

The food was great and the speeches were perfect. My dad has never had to give a speech at a reception before but he did a fabulous job. Peter, the best man, gave a speech as well that was so funny and yet really did help me understand Nath a little bit better. Nathan's speech, of course, was my favourite. I was happy to hear that I have made the knot in the back of his head go away. That has been my goal since I first met him and he told me about it. I am so glad that he is so happy to be with me. Life is so so so good.

After the reception we were off to the temple. We got into Aaron's car and there was a bottle of Shloer and champagne glasses. Nice. It was a quick drive to the London Temple. We got there and realized my temple dress was in my parents car so we had to wait for them but after that we were on track. It was a wonderful sealing ceremony. I am so glad to be with Nathan not just in this life but for all eternity. I am so happy the temple allows families to be together forever.

I am now a part of the Mulligan family. Like! I speak for Nathan as well as myself when I say how grateful we are for all their love, help, and support throughout this journey. Everything has turned out better than we could have ever thought.

I am also very grateful to our Heavenly Father and all that He did to help everything work out. There were many times we fasted and prayed to ask for help over one thing or another and never once did we feel alone or hopeless. There were times when we were not sure things would work out the way we wanted but with a bit of faith, they always did. 

To learn more about how families can be together forever visit www.mormon.org

Yours, Mine, and Ours

My turn! Here's a little entry written by Nathan. :)

So I get to write a bit about out time at a big family reunion of mine in Somerset. We headed off from Wales with Naomi, Vince, and little Loren for Knowle Manor, which is a massive 20-something bedroom house which was going to be filled exclusively with my family. I'd done my best to prepare Megan. 

What with traffic it ended up being quite a long journey, made slightly longer because we had to make sure that we approached Knowle Manor from the correct direction to maximise the effect.

Worth it I'm sure.

It was early evening when we arrived, which meant that as soon as we turned up Megan was introduced to at least 20 members of my extended family, not too mention more than a dozen nieces and nephews running up and grabbing her legs. Despite this overwhelming situation, Megan did absolutely great and before long she was gathered round the piano with some other girls, singing 'Wicked' loud enough to fill the house.

The days were all pretty relaxed, everyone doing all sorts of different activities. By Sunday pretty much the whole family were there, making about 50 people in total I think. So during the day, the gardens had people playing everything from badminton to boules, the swimming pool was full of people with inflatables, each of the lounges were occupied, one with video games, one with movies and one with a pool table and ping pong table, and the kitchen always had someone running in or out with a snack. Even the dining room had people playing board games and completing puzzles. Megan and I would wander our way round taking a turn at each of these activities. I'm pretty sure Megan's favourite was playing football with lots of the guys and plenty of the nieces and nephews.

After dinner the house did quieten down a little bit in that all of the 18 children were steadily put to bed. The general idea when that happened was that all of the adults would gather in the largest of the lounges to play games until you couldn't take it any longer and gave up and went to bed. The most common game was one called Werewolf. In this game each person is given a character, with two or three people being assigned as a werewolf. The point is for the rest of the people to try and work together and to figure out who the werewolves are and to eliminate them, but without anybody knowing who is who. Hours and hours later.. the game ends. That and a game called sign took up most of our evenings. Mostly it was just great to be around everybody hanging out and having a good time.

On Wednesday morning it was time to switch families, so Megan and I set off first thing to head off to London.

Back to my turn! We left the family holiday a little early to meet my family along with Rocky Fischer and Abby in London. We went to the London Bridge Experience. It was a walk through thing that explained about the history of the London bridge with sets and interactive actors. It was cool and informing. The second half of this walk-through was just meant to be scary. I will have you know that my family is a bunch of scardy-cats. It was really funny and okay, I was scared too. I can tell you who wasn't... Abigail! She is a beast! :)

We did all the classics after that... Big Ben, Westminster Abby, Houses of parliament, London tower... It was all very good. I had such a great time showing my family (Rocky and Abby included in the use of the word family) the cool things I have learned about England. I am so very grateful they came to England for our wedding. It was amazing having them around!

My life in Ruins

Monday, Nathan, Loren (future niece), and I went to Carmarthen to do some shopping. Loren needed new flip flops and Nathan was still in need of a wedding ring. We went to this store called Argos to get the ring. It's this big building that has only a small store front that is full of catalogs. You go in and look through these catalogs that show you everything they have in the back of the store. The back is huge and full of all these things you can buy. Oddly enough the only ring in Nathan's size wasn't in the gigantic back but in the display. Funny that.

After finding the ring, it began to rain. We tromped through the rain to a castle that was not too far from the shopping centre. Can I just say that I love the shopping here? Even in Wales where I have found mostly small villages, they still have sweet awesome shopping nearby. I like all the stores too, they are all really trendy and fun. I am yet to go into a store and leave without begging Nathan to buy something for me--- he has all the pounds (£). Actually not true, I have £1.70 in coins I carry around with me in case I get lost.

Anyway, back to the Carreg Cennen castle! We trudged up the hill to this castle ruin on the top. Loren's pet pig, 'Peppa Pig', aka- a pink fluff ball on the top of a pink colored pencil, was getting too cumbersome for her to hold so she trusted Nathan with the pig. --Maybe not the best choice. More on that later.--The view was absolutely amazing up at the top. This castle was really different than Warwick. Warwick was really touristy and dressed up like it is still functioning but the ruins were just quiet and beautiful.
 
 

We found the best way to explore the ruins would be to play hide and go seek with Loren. It was really fun to wander around looking for the others. I particularly liked the moment pictured below where I found Nathan and Loren hiding behind a wall. I managed to completely surprise Loren. She is really fun to have around.

Awesome action pic by Nath

There was a natural cave beneath the castle where they advise you to rent a torch (english word for flashlight). Seeing as how the place to rent them was all the way down the hill and because Nathan and I would never pay to rent something lame like a flashlight, we used the dim light off an iphone to explore the cave. Halfway through Loren said, “I think I am a little bit frightened.” So the rest of the way we sang church songs in the dark and ultra wet cave.

After walking out of the castle Loren asked for 'Peppa Pig'. Nath reached into his pocket to find...nothing. He ran around the entire castle looking for the beloved swine. He even went into the cave looking for it. Turns out he dropped it almost as soon as he got it because it was on the grass before the entrance to the castle.

Then we began the long walk back down the hill. Once at the bottom Loren and I took a restroom break and when we came out Nathan had a surprise for us for being such good girls today... ice cream! It was a really great day. I have really enjoyed my time in Wales... even if these roads are not only terrifying but nauseatingly curvaceous.

Pictures edited by Vince Jones (future brother-in-law)

Beached Wales

Today was great. We drove to Wales with Nathans brother, Adam in the morning. We got to Nathans sister Naomi's house around 10am. The house is really adorable and tucked away in a small little village here in Wales. We soon took Naomi's daughter, Loren, with us to the beach. The drive to the beach was our first adventure because it was Nathans first time in a long time driving on the wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, while driving a manual on the tiniest roads in existence.

Once we got to the beach Adam saw a friend who then offered to give us a ride on his boat. It was absolutely amazing! It was so breathtaking to be alongside such a beautiful coastline. I loved it! Wales is so beautiful. I am pretty well convinced I want to live here.

On the way to this beach Nathan told me about this amazing beach he wants to go to while we are here that you can only get to by boat or by doing some serious walking but he couldn't remember where it was. Well as luck would have it we found it while on the boat! We stopped on the beach and took some pictures of the beautiful bay. There was a wonderful waterfall we took lots of pictures by. 

While on our boat ride of 2 and 1/2 hours we saw a seal and dolphin up close! We chased down the dolphin for a while until we felt really bad for basically trapping the poor thing. We went back to the beach and ate a typical meal of chips and battered sausage. Yum!

I am already really loving Wales. I am glad I get to spend the week here. The wedding is really coming up now. It's in two weeks. That's it! Time is going by really quickly. I spend the rest of the week in Wales then we are off to the family holiday in Devon until Wednesday the 22nd when we meet up with my family in LONDON. Exciting times!

Care for a turn about the castle?

I saw my very first castle today!!! It was amazing. This morning Nathan woke up and asked me if we wanted to go to Stratford, the birthplace of Shakespear. To which I replied, "Um... How about a castle instead?" I have been dying to see a castle, so for me, Stratford can wait another day.

My first dungeon visit

We went to THE castle here in England and it was only a 20 min train ride from where we are staying. It is called Warwick Castle. We walked in an my jaw just dropped. It was so big and cool and exciting! A castle! Nathan took me to his favorite spot first. The dungeon. We walked down a small staircase at the bottom of the castle and no one else was around. It was properly scary. (To use an English word I quite like) And of course, Nathan kept poking me to make me jump. As part of our ticket we could do a tour called, "The Castle Dungeon." It was at a different part of the castle than the small dungeon we looked at. The one we had just seen I guess was 'child's play' because the real tour was 40 minutes long and had live actors running around it. I was starting to get scared.

We didn't have much time before our tour so we played inside the towers for a bit then got into line for the dungeon tour. We made it through pretty unscathed, the actors seemed to pick on nathan and I alot. I was first picked to have my organs ripped out and then Nathan had to demonstrate the uses of torture weapons. It was pretty scary but mostly fun.

After the torture, we walked around the castle and I ran into King Henry the VIII. He told stories about all his wives and such. He was actually a pretty cool dude. Then we watched a jousting tournament. I found it funny because four countries were represented, England, Greece, Italy, and Spain. Then a Frenchman barged in and wanted to join and everyone booed. He was totally made out to be the villian of the show. Everyone was so obviously anti-French. It was pretty funny. After that we watched a trebuchet launch a fireball.

We did lots of just wandering about the castle. There were lots of shows and games going on. It was a really cool place. I liked it lots. There were some amazing views from on top of the towers. I love looking at England. It never gets old.