A visit from Uncle Shad and Miss Elizabeth

Last week my brother and his friend Elizabeth came to Durham for a short visit -- they headed to London and surrounding areas after they left here. The boys were really excited to see Uncle Shad and 'Miss Elizabeth'. The visit started off well when Shad pulled out a Transformer comic, 2 Transformer choose-your-own-adventure type books, and a book full of Transformer posters. What a cool uncle!!! One day we headed into Durham to see the Cathedral, the river, and City Centre after we picked Silas up from school. The next day we checked out the Durham Botanic Gardens -- we had wanted to go and hadn't ever been...and Elizabeth is a florist. Shad was the only one out of luck there. ;) We had decent weather (not fabulous) and ate a packed lunch there. We probably missed the gardens in their full glory by 2 weeks or so...but it was still a nice place to walk.

We also played loads of games -- thanks Shad and Liz! We may have to ban Risk from our family for a while. There was a bit of ugliness during that one...and only from people named Blackwell. Yikes! We did enjoy Whoonu, Settlers of Catan, Blokus Trigon, and Zigity though. Fun times!

Below you'll find a few pics of our day out to the gardens.