Celebrating at Barnard Castle

For Nathan's birthday, the two of us took a trip to Barnard Castle, which is only about 35 minutes away in the car. We spent the afternoon in the sensory garden quoting Brian Regan's butterfly pavilion bit, exploring the castle grounds, drooling in a theology used book store (okay, that was just Nathan), and counting bunnies on the lawn. Then we finished off the day at Pizzi's, an Italian place in Durham. It was our first dinner out at a restaurant - just the two of us - since December, and it was really nice. The next day we were back on the Dave Ramsey train, and I bought a 10 lb. bag of rice at Tesco. They don't sell dried beans in bulk, but I would have if they did.

We started out at Barnard Castle in the sensory garden. 

I didn't sense much, really.

"I'll be here to answer all of your butterfly questions, today."

Nathan decided to do a handstand, but I snapped the photo a little too late.

And then he started seeing stars.

Success!

Overlooking a big ditch

Castle ruins

We're at the top of the tower!

We ended up having our picnic lunch at the top because my sugar was low, but it led to this fun episode.

The view from the top

Back at the bottom

Isn't the birthday boy so handsome?

He decided this background called for some planking.

And then he decided to push the wall over.

We sat on a park bench and watched rabbits come out of the bushes. We counted 11 at once!

Do you see 11 rabbits? Me neither. But I promise there were...

Here's the happy customer with his used theology books. The shop stayed open an extra hour for him so that he could browse.

An artsy shot

Happy birthday again to my husband! You can check out his sister Hannah's blog for pictures of the birthday boy as a baby, most of which I'd never seen before. I loved them!


You can also count how many times I used the word "decided" in this post. Geez.