BATE

DATE NIGHT

Kel and I got together with the other board members at Hallmark for an after Christmas dinner.  We enjoyed a night out in Leeds this past Friday.

 

TITANIC TRIP

On Thursday I attended a Hallmark meeting in Belfast Northern Ireland.  The family went to Ireland (Southern part...that is not a part of the UK) in October 2013.  We had never made it to Northern Ireland.  It was a short 40 minute flight from Leeds Bradford Airport to Belfast.  (Quicker than my drive from home to work on a typical day)

 

 

The meeting was held at the Titanic Museum in Belfast.    I wasn't clear on the history of the Titanic there, but it was actually built there in the harbour.  The museum is housed in the same location where it was built.  You can see in the photo below the outline of where the Titanic was when it was built.

 This picture from the internet shows the outline which is lit at night.  The Titanic was built on the left and the Brittanic was built on the right.

 Here is a picture of the two boats being built.  It was surprising how narrow the boats were compared to their lengths.

When the ship was done, they greased up the bottom and launched it into the water and it was said to take about 60 seconds.  Below is a You Tube link to a re-enactment of the launch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjP21QEHG78

 

A BUTCHER...A BAKER

On the way to work each morning I just stop at stoplight in the town of Otley and to my right is a busy butcher getting ready for the days work.  I snapped a couple of pics this week.  Butchers seem to be doing really well in little towns and villages much like it used to be in small town America.

 

MANCHESTER ESCAPE

We decided to spend a night last weekend in Manchester (about 2 hours away from home) and enjoy some swimming with the kids and allow Kel and Chloe to do a little bit of shopping.  Manchester has the only proper mall we have found in the UK so they enjoyed being in a large mall once again.

 Dawson was nice enough to carry Sadie a bit when we picked the girls up at the mall!

 Swim Time

 Dinner Time

 

BATE

2015 Here We Come

A new year is in front of us ....I wonder what all it will hold...likely challenge, change, triumph, happiness, sadiness. We will do our best to embrace it all.

We enjoyed a nice quiet time at home last night with some friends and their kids.  Topped the night off with some fireworks!   Ka Bam