Way back in April we took a trip with our beloved Schwartz’s to the Cotswolds…..a beautiful rolling hill area of countryside famous for it’s charming little old ‘typically English’ villages built in honey colored local limestone. It’s about 2 hours west of London, but because of that blasted traffic it took us more like four. Despite the traffic, the combination of charm and lush soul refreshing country green and the company of dear friends was just want we needed. We stopped first in a town called Bibury which some say is the “loveliest village in England.” I’m not sure who did the ratings, but it was pretty darn charming there. We met up with some good friends of the Schwartz and spent a beautiful afternoon picking different foot paths to explore.
The kids climbed trees, ran free in the meadows and walked along the nearly ancient rock walls while the adults talked. 
It was really quite lovely, but what I liked best about this place was that Peter took some of his first steps in those meadows. And we had someone there to help us capture them. 
Sorry, I know this is total overkill on these pictures of Peter, but I just couldn’t leave any of them out, they all say something different about who he was on that day. 
I think this is one of my favorite pictures ever:
I love Emmeline squeezing her way into this moment in time, trying her best to steal maybe just a little bit of the attention back.
She’s not always this cute while trying to get attention. 
there he is, totally walking on his own!
There’s no stopping him now!
Here’s that famous Cotswold honey colored stone. Aren’t those buildings so full of stories? I love the roofs. 
We stopped for cream tea at the Swan Hotel: tea, hot cocoa, scones and clotted cream. And afterwards the nice hotel manager gave each of the kids a coin to throw into the wishing well.
Next stop was Bourton-on-the-Water, another charming little Cotswold village with old limestone houses built along a sleepy river. One of the attractions there was a pretty unique hedge maze, the Dragonfly Maze. I think it was the best one we went through while in England. As you search your way through the maze there are 14 clues that help you solve the riddle in the middle of the maze. The kids were delighted to find this awesome frog that did a pretty cool trick once you solved the riddle. 
We walked through the center of the village, did some shopping, watched a cute little village duck race (see those rubber duckies?) and had a picnic on the water. It was freezing, which is why none of us look especially happy here. 
Oh, we miss those schwartz’s already! 
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