Trip to Wales- Oh what a trip it was!

Our trip to Wales started out gorgeous.  The mountains and hills... the little towns and trees...the sheep and cows.  A Gorgeous Countryside!

When we arrived it was on and off rain but what we noticed when we went to put up the tents, we found that the wind was crazy.  The guys had to hook the tent up to the truck just to hold it up until it could be staked in the first night.  Before we even went to bed that night, the tent post had snapped.  The wind was taking the tent down and there was nothing we could do about it.  We had to decide what to do.  Mat went and tried to get a place to stay inside.  He was able to grab a room up but stubborn Sara wanted to tough it out.  I wanted this trip to be good.  I had planned it as a trip for the guys to relax and enjoy being outdoors with their families since it was Father's Day weekend.  Unfortunately everything that could go wrong with it, went wrong.  The first night 4 of the kids slept in a small tent while the women and 2 of the kids slept in the remaining tent.  The guys slept in their vehicles.  When day broke, there were still clouds but the wind had settled down some.  Friday night the winds were 50mph sustained winds.  The clouds were breaking and there was some sunshine on and off throughout the day.  We were able to get our an explore a bit and do some shell collecting.  The boys went and tried to get a room for the second night but everything was booked.  They decided to try and salvage the tent and make it work so they came back with steel poles to go over the broken and weak poles, duck tape, and windshields.  The steel poles worked well for the main beams but one of the smaller poles splintered during the evening of the second day.  DUCKTAPE again came in handy!  They got a second windshield for around the canopy that help a lot and allowed us to enjoy being around the fire.  The test stayed up through the night even with all the wind but it was a second night of little sleep.

Sunday of course was gorgeous.  We went for another walk down the beach and searched for sealife and shells.  The kids had so much fun finding everything they did and searching for different shells. Below are some of the photos from the weekend.