For half-term break we rented a beautiful cottage in Pembrokeshire, Wales with two of our favorite families. We crossed our fingers and hoped for sunshine since we had heard the area had beautiful beaches and amazing coastal walks. We weren't disappointed! Somehow we lucked out and got amazing weather for almost the entire week, which is pretty much unheard of in Wales, which is even rainier than England. Woo hoo!
We arrived after lots of traffic and the kids were thrilled to explore their home away from home, claiming the yard's small summer house as their secret clubhouse for the week. We stayed in a converted old school house with an amazing backyard. I highly recommend
The Old School, Marloes!
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| Sunshine, Pimms and a beautiful garden |
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| Bird's Eye View of the kids playing outside in the garden |
On our first full day in Wales, we decided to visit
Marloes Sands, a beautiful nearby beach. We arrived at high tide and were disappointed to find a small rocky beach that could barely hold our 7 million beach toys, blankets, folding chairs and coolers. While we were busy carting our gear over the rock "pathway" onto the beach, the tide went out and the beach grew, exposing fun caves to explore and nice warm rock pools. If you're like I was and are unfamiliar with rockpools, they are little pools by the sea that fill with seawater at high tide and exist as separate pools during low tide. They are perfect for little kids because they are warmer than the sea and are generally shallow, although we found some pretty deep ones as well. I definitely recommend this beach for anyone visiting the area...they even recently filmed Snow White and the Huntsmen there...but warn you that the car park is VERY far from the actual beach so pack lightly (unlike us)!
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| Brian teaching Elliott to skimboard |
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| Lyla convinced Wayne to put his feet in the freezing cold water! |
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| Picnic on the sand |
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| Lyla and Ben loved the rock pools! |
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Neda and I bundled up on the beach...now I know why the Brits forego all of the crap stuff we brought and bring windbreaks! FYI: this is a windbreak. |
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| Lyla was like a little fish! She swam around in rock pools all day long! |
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| The whole gang |
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| Alex and Ali found fun caves to explore |
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| Lyla and Elliott found a deep rock pool...after Elliott had already changed into his dry clothes. Oops! |
Our second day was rainy so we spent the day playing at the house and exploring the area nearby. We took a nice walk in the rain and made some animal friends along the way!
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| Stole this beautiful picture of Riley leading the way from Brian. |
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| Attack of the killer cows! |
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| The whole gang! |
Day #3 meant a beautiful drive to
St. Davids and a boat trip around
Ramsay Island.
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| Lyla and Ben as the old married tourist couple |
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| Riley and Ali hamming it up |
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| Striking a pose outside of St Davids Cathedral |
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| Riley and Elliott posing outside the ruins of Bishop Palace |
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| Ben found the best hiding place Hide and Go Seek has ever seen |
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| Family photo outside St David's |
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| Group photo! |
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| The Blackburns are quite neon in their lifevests! |
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| Lyla looks thrilled to be there. I swear she was having fun! |
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| Trying to get a look inside a cave. |
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| Can you spot the seals? One is in the water and a bunch are sunbathing on a rock! |
On the fourth day the kids visited Dale Beach with their dads.
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| Welcome to West Dale! Does she look properly waterproofed? |
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| Hiding from the seaweed fight |
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| She wrote that all by herself. Nope. |
Picture overload! You'll have to stay tuned for the next post to see Days 5 & 6, which included the highlight of the trip, our visit to see the puffins on Skomer Island!
