English Vacation (Day 16): Godstone Farm and Costco

We figured we'd subjected the kids to their maximum tolerance of castles and stately homes, so we took them to a farm today. This is seriously the coolest place I've been to in a long time! I've never seen anything like this in the US, but then again, I haven't been everywhere in the US. Hyrum and I would love to own a place like this! It would be a dream job for us.

Kiersa got so excited about the animals that she kept trying to jump out of her stroller.


It's a farm with all kinds of regular farm animals,


like adorable baby chicks in all stages from ready to hatch to all fluffy down to just getting wing feathers. The kids LOVED this part, though is was a bit smelly.


They had a miniature horse and a regular horse that the kids could pet, but it was in an area that was also kind of stinky. Hyatt showed us just how stinky.


It was fun to see some animals that you wouldn't expect to find on display at a farm, like an albino chipmunk (they don't have chipmunks in the wild in England),


ferrets, mice in mazes,


and parakeets.


There was an adorable petting zoo area where you could pet sheep, goats, baby pigs and baby cows. Hyatt was actually brave enough to feed everything this time, which is shocking if you knew him. Until recently, he hasn't been very brave about petting, feeding, or touching unfamiliar animals. He doesn't even want to hold worms or bugs, which Tilly LIVES for! She's never been afraid of any kind of animal. Never.


I wasn't allowed to pet the sheep or lambs because for some reason it increases your risk of miscarriage.


There was a working beehive that you could see into, and a decorative beehive like the ones you see at a lot of the stately homes.


There was a large pond with all kinds of water fowl, but they wanted our crackers, not our animal food.


Just past the pond were more goats. Tilly and Hyrum fed the Billy Goat Gruff.


There was a cute maternal area with rabbits and guinea pigs.



The kids got to milk pretend cows, goats and sheep. It was such a great idea! There was a bucket of water behind an animal cutout, and you'd milk a rubber tit that sprayed just like a real one does. You had to really muscle it just like in real life.


Hyrum pretended to be a horse so the kids could climb on him at the mounting block.


There were some seriously cool play areas. There was a little tractor riding area that the kids LOVED...


and an enormous indoor play area with all kinds of equipment in case it rains that we didn't even get time for since there were so many other things to do. There were acres and acres of outdoor playgrounds with huge sand pits, castles, obstacle courses, mazes, climbing structures, zip lines, and so many other things that it would take way too long to list it all. I was so fascinated by the genius of it all that I spent my time getting video of it,


so Hyrum was in charge of the camera. He didn't take many pictures, so you'll never see how cool it really is unless you go there in person.


Edward's parents, Mark and Elizabeth, joined us at the farm. It was fun to get to see them again, since we haven't seen them since Daisha's wedding reception in Ashland.


I had to take pictures of a couple of funny signs I saw. A "queue" (pronounced like the letter Q) is a line. The sin bin was the cigarette butt bucket. I LOVE that name for it!


We think it would be so cool to own a farm and massive play area and have people to pay for it all just by coming to see it. Our kids would have unlimited access to animals, baby animals, playgrounds, and more.

It also had a tea room where we had lunch, and they didn't even have napkins! That's how tidy the English are when they eat. We had to go request napkins and they had to dig around to find any. I thought that was so hilarious! Don't their kids ever get messy? Tabby doesn't.

After we spent the day at the farm, Hyrum wanted to go to Costco. We love Costco, even just to walk around it and not buy anything. We wanted to see what an English Costco was like. Daisha was thrilled because she found peanut butter in a larger container than a mini-jar, and she found American style dill pickles (the hamburger chip kind) that taste like they should. Best of all though, she found Pace salsa, in a huge jug no less! Salsa is a rare find in England, and you can only get tiny jars if you can find any at all. Mexican food is a new thing there. Indian food (the curry stuff) is their ethnic food of choice. Their shopping carts are American style! No swiveling back wheels! We didn't end up buying anything there since the exchange rate makes everything too expensive, plus we'd have to pack it home, but Daisha found a cart load of stuff to buy when she had only meant to get a couple of things. That ALWAYS happens to us, in America anyway. We love Costco, but call it the Devil at the same time because we buy way too much stuff when we go there. Probably because it's so far away, so we stock up when we go.

We got out to the car and remembered that we had 7 people crammed into a 7 passenger car the size of a 5 passenger car in America with a stroller taking up the only available space in the back. We crammed everything into nooks and crannies of the stroller and put stuff on our laps (like the megapack of toilet paper you get there, and muffins of course). Then, because we're massocists, we stopped by Tesco Extra (with all the kids and no room to spare in the car) to grab some groceries. Their shopping carts are so cool!!! They accomodate 2 kids in the front seat, but are the same size as a regular cart. Genius! They also had some with a baby seat hooked to the front like our stores do, but they moved the seat over a bit rather than putting it in the middle so another child can sit next to it. A mother must have been on their planning committee.

After that...we did it again. We stopped at another store. We stopped at Asda (which is basically like WalMart since WalMart is teamed with them) to look for "wellies" (green rain boots) for Hyatt, since poor Hyatt only has purple hand-me-downs. We didn't find any Hyatt's size, but we found some for Talea and me.

So after a day of fun at the farm, and shopping, the thing that was by far the most impressive was Talea's whale-sized bladder! I swear she can hold it indefinitely. She didn't go once the whole 10 hours out to England on the plane (but then again, neither did I). We have to force her to go so we can coordinate everyone's bladders because she will always say she doesn't need to, but as soon as she takes one look at a toilet, wham! It hits her and she's got to go bad! I never have to worry about if she'll be asking to go to the bathroom. That's Hyatt's job.