my brother and his family kind of spontaneously came to europe at the end of august. we had just settled in to life with a routine after a summer full of travel, but we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to adventure with some of our very favourite people … so we last minute we planned a road trip to cornwall with eli, julie and their crew.

we all had such a blast being together in a beautiful place. i think moses had the best time of everyone – he was just thrilled to be with his cousins. we were lucky to have incredible weather and we saw some really gorgeous scenes. it was a party in our nine-passenger van, and we did a lot of reminiscing about our trip to the faroe islands a couple of years ago (when we both told each other we were pregnant!). it was a long weekend for the books!

here’s moses waiting at the window for his cousins. when he spotted them coming from way down the road, he started yelling with excitement 🙂 we took everyone out to our garden right away. dean (a bone fide expert) taught moses a thing or two about climbing trees. later that evening we went back to the garden when ian got home from work. zara and dean call ian “uncle starburst,” and he delivered all weekend.

 
we had an afternoon together in london before we headed out for cornwall. we headed to the park, where dean climbed more trees:
 
and we admired the sunken gardens at kensington palace.

then we did a double-header splash pad afternoon! first the princess diana memorial fountain in hyde park and then the paddling pool at the v&a museum. the weather was amazing – a perfect day for splashing with cousins!
 
 
and after, we got ice cream 🙂

we headed out around 5am the next morning, in an attempt to beat the holiday weekend traffic towards cornwall. the kids fell back asleep in the car and we did in fact avoid traffic, so it was a smooth drive!

we got to see stonehenge on our way:

and our destination to start taking in cornwall together was lizard point, the southernmost point of england! we walked along the coastal path, the kids still in pajamas and marveled at the colourful moss, the teal ocean and the dramatic cliffs.

 
 
 
can you believe the colour of that water??

i snapped these photos of moses because i want to remember his perfect sprinkling of freckles at 3 years + 1.5 months old!
 
that afternoon, we went to the beach! it is a rare occasion when it is hot enough to actually get in swimsuits and even more so to get in the water at a beach in cornwall. but this day was one of those rare occasions! this beach was perfect for the kids because it had a little stream running down the sand into the ocean that made for a fantastic play area for little ones.

zara took this shot of the adults 🙂

and on our way to our airbnb we passed by a sweet playground with a zipline. all three of the “big kids” rode on it together. they were giggling like crazy!
 
the next day we went to services at a local branch of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. afterwards, we visited st-just-in-roseland, which has this incredibly beautiful old church and graveyard that’s right on the water. it was a really fun place to explore.
 
 

deanie and zara trying to get inside this gorgeous door (we did go in the church, but in a different entrance), and an attempt to get a picture of the babies together (always a fail these days!):
 
we skipped rocks down by the harbor for a while…

a couple self-timer photo attempts:

 
we saw hydrangeas and wild blackberries everywhere in cornwall!
 
we walked along the coastal path on the roseland peninsula, picking berries as we went, and found this little beach:

attempts to get a good picture of mo and deanie together…

… they’d much rather be doing this kind of thing than smiling for a photo!
 
we serendipitously ended up at this spot on the coastal path that evening:

we walked along, taking in the beauty, picking blackberries, and then camped out on top of a green hill for a while and let the kids run and wrestle (their favourite thing ever).
 

gabriel’s current favourite thing ever:
 
we tried to get a picture of all the kids together. does gabriel look into it? haha. and yes, moses had a little potty accident so ditched his trousers 😉

here’s where we stayed, at a little holiday village:

which had a playground…yes!!

moses and dean had such a blast together, on the “spiny thing” and one night feeding each other ice cream…haha!
 
on our last day, we visited tintagel castle. ian and i went there a few years ago and loved it so we were happy to go back. the views are just to die for.

 

love this picture of zara and moses so much! they really love each other a lot.
 
the boys just wanted to climb and jump and climb and jump forever.

and this picture of mo and his aunt julie! <3<3<3

looking down over the edge of the cliff:

we headed down to the beach as the tide was coming in…
 
… and then had a little cornish pasty picnic on the stairs …

… and then had ice cream in the town right by the really cool old post office.

these pictures are hilarious. can you tell we really tried but never succeeded at getting a good picture of all the kids together?

this one with julie holding dean’s face into a smile is the best! ha!

this was our car situation. we called that seat that ian is in, completely surrounded by children, the hot seat, and then the other three adults sat squished together in the front row of the car (there was a middle seat in addition to driver and passenger). it was wild and crazy!

we stopped in one more darling little town before we zoomed back to london. since all the “big kids” were seriously zoned in on shows and we only had a little bit of time, ian volunteered to stay back with moses, zara and dean while eli, julie and i took the babies to explore a little bit.

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gabriel and etta were only interested in touching each other, ha! this was one last gorgeous cornish spot to enjoy before we were back in the big city.
 
and the next morning, eli and julie and their crew headed back home to new york city! another great adventure together – we hope there will be many more in the future with these guys!