A Birthday in Wales

In Europe we celebrated four birthdays. Most of these fell on a travel day, so the kids had such fun proclaiming that their mother took them to Madrid, the United Kingdom or Austria for their birthday. Annie's big day was no different. We awoke in Ireland, crossed on the ferry to the UK in the morning and spent the rest of her birthday in Wales. With an 8:00 am ferry departure, I had to wake the children up at 6:00. Our traditional breakfast in bed seemed almost impossible, until I was able to convince room service the night before to bring Annie her breakfast a little earlier than their usual first round made to guests who are early risers.   

 Although we were rushed, she enjoyed our usual birthday tradition, Irish style. We made our ferry without any glitches, and spent the next two hours playing cards, wandering the ship and catching part of a movie.

 Once off of the ferry we had another two hour drive to Liverpool. We spent the afternoon wandering Albert Dock, the spot where over 9 million emigrants left England for the New World. Many of the early Mormon emigrants left England from this port, including our ancestors.

 We spent most of our time in the Merseyside Maritime Museum, wandering their immigration museum. An entire floor was dedicated to a section about smugglers, which the kids found most interesting. It never occurred to them that rare animals would be snuck on planes or that such strange approaches were even considered in bringing drugs into our country.

 Jenny had been to the museum before, so she suggested a visit to the top floor where we wandered an exhibit on slavery and England's role in promoting and ending this dark chapter in history. Unfortunately the museum was closing, so we were rushed through by the security guards. Yet another reason to revisit the UK!

 We stopped by The Beatles museum, but, contradictory to our travel guide, the museum had closed at 5:00 pm. It was 5:03. We stood outside the doors with another party, hoping to be let in, but to no avail. I ran to the Beatles store and picked up a CD of their greatest hits to play in the car as we drove through the birthplace of "Beatlemania".

 We arrived at our hotel in Preston, England, late at night. Since we hadn't done much to celebrate Annie's birthday, we relied on room service again to help us make Annie feel special on her 10th birthday. They arrived with a piece of chocolate cake and a small fruit tart that we all shared.

 The next morning we visited the Preston, England Temple. Although the temple is relatively new, the church membership in Preston dates back to 1837. This is the first spot that Mormon missionaries traveled to after landing in Liverpool, England. When they arrived, an election was underway and a banner hung above the street with the words, "Truth Will Prevail!" This brought joy to their hearts. In just nine months, 2,000 converts joined the church, with 400 in the Preston branch alone. My ancestors were amongst the early members of the church here, so it was fun to think of my roots coming from this area.

While on the temple grounds, we visited a church distribution center. We all were so enthused by the little bits of home that we were able to pick up. The kids collected as many Friend and New Era magazines as they could find, as well as bookmarks and little pictures of Christ. I found a few DVDs that the kids could add to our back seat movie collection. We had a long drive ahead, with a goal of making it all the way to Belgium by evening, so our time in Preston was limited. We jumped in the car and settled in with our new reading material, set for a new adventure back on the mainland.