A few fun things we've learned or noticed along the way:

There are different cars in the UK and Europe than in the US and Canada. Most of them are smaller, and there are a lot of Mini Coopers and Fiats in the UK! There are NO Suburban's there. Our Suburban looked like a beast to us when we came home to it! And there are very few pick-up trucks over there. I think I saw a total of 10 of them! (Yes, we started counting.)

Most of the homes are townhomes, duplexes or apartments, with small yards. Now we understand why our friends from England say that everything is so big, when they come over here! 

There are also a lot fewer restaurants there, fast food or dine in.

English people don't like to mix "types" of food in a meal. They want their savory food, and then after that, they're okay with sweet food. So you would never serve a fruit salad or banana bread with dinner, (which they call tea).

Some new things that we experienced:

Driving on the "wrong" side of the road.

Hanging laundry out to dry, and in Scotland having it still feel damp 2 days later! (We used the hair dryer to finally get it dry.)

Everyone in the UK greets each other with "Are you alright?", instead of "How are you?" It was a little awkward to know how to respond at first.

Playing "Careers", the board game at our Scotland apartment. The kids had never played it before.

New yummy foods: 

Shawarma

Halloumi - grilled Greek cheese w/ herbs. Thickly slice and then grill under the broiler. 

Vegetable swede. Like turnips. Can steam and then mash coarsely with steamed carrots. 
Dinner crepes
Belgian waffles - authentic ones
Kebabs

Different phrases and words:

Tea time - dinner

Jumpers - sweaters

Lorries - semi-trucks

Wellingtons - boots

To let - to rent out (as in rent out a house)

Boot of the car - trunk

Queue - line (as in "the queue begins here for entrance to the event")

Double carriage - 2 lane road

Emergency Layby - pronounced lay by, emergency pull-out on the side of the freeway

Satnav - GPS

Courgettes - zucchini

Diary - daily planner

Profiteroles - cream puffs w/chocolate topping 

Chips - fries

Crisps - potato chips

And lastly, Tyler created a family Bingo game with things that went on throughout our trip! 

Family Bingo-Da-Dingo

Each of these would be in a square on a Bingo card:

Dad says "Stupid thing." (When frustrated with something.)
Mom says "Give me your phone." (When one of the kids are in trouble.)
Josh goes "Puh."
Tyler fixes his hair.
Janae gets her phone taken away.
Dad gets on Pac Man.
Dad talks about how many steps we've taken.
Mom pretends to hit somebody.
Tyler shrugs.
Anyone references a movie.
Tyler makes a random statement.
Dad says "Piece of crap."
Someone impersonates Golem.
Josh makes random faces.
Mom/Dad talks about Josh/Janae's school.
Tyler/Josh start rough housing.
Janae starts rough housing with Josh.
Dad says "Stop" to Janae/Josh.
We get a new rental car.
Someone asks about playing their music in the car.
Someone tells Janae to use headphones.
Mom goes the wrong way, trying to follow the Sat-Nav.

Dad says we're going the wrong way.

Someone tells Josh to "Hurry up" or to "Catch up."
Janae brings up WiFi, "Is there WIFI here?" "There's free WIFI here!!".
Dad says "Sausage roll" or "Fish n Chips".
Josh plays with an umbrella.

An umbrella gets broken or lost.
Someone impersonates Uncle Mick.
Someone does an English accent.
Someone lists everywhere we've been.
Someone says "What the crap is this??"
Tyler trips up the stairs.

Someone says, "Not me!" In an English accent.

Someone yells, "Scotland!"

Oh, such good times!!!

Our last day in England of this grand adventure was Monday, Dec. 7th. Dave and I dropped off Tyler and Josh at the climbing gym in Stockport and then went and did some errands. Janae didn't feel too well with her cold, so she stayed home and worked on her school classes. In the afternoon when Uncle Mick came home he got out his TT racing bike. Pretty cool! He loved to race back in the day, and he still goes to watch the races quite often.

Flying high!

Uncle Mick on the left.

For the rest of the day we packed our suitcases, did laundry, cleaning and work (Dave and Tyler) and school (Josh and Janae). After dinner we played Ripple Golf. Tyler smoked us! :)

It has been such a wonderful 3 months of traveling! We've had great experiences and met such great people. We're so glad that we chose to do this. And we're so grateful to Uncle Mick and Aunt Marian and other extended family members who opened their homes to us graciously and made this trip much more do-able, and enjoyable! It is something we 5 will remember forever! I like what Dave wrote on Facebook so I'll copy that here:

And so it comes to an end. Our trip of a lifetime, that started back on September 8th. It seems like a life time ago!

Since then we have seen 6 countries, been in more trains, planes and automobiles than I can count, and we have walked and walked, and walked. In Paris alone we walked over 100,000 steps and covered 52 miles in 8 days!

We sang Sound of Music songs with complete strangers in a bus in Austria.

We saw the crown jewels of 3 different countries. England’s are the most impressive and amazing, the Scottish have the best story, and France’s are tucked away in a corner of the Louvre, in a back room that is unmarked, just a side note in the unbelievable history of the place.

We met lots of amazing and interesting people. The woman in Mondsee, Austria who gave Michelle an Austrian charm for her charm bracelet for free. We got a picture of her cute little shop and will always treasure the memory. The church members of Kirkcaldy Scotland and their meal of home made soup and breads after Church, who were so kind and fun that they made us want to move there.

The retired folks of my aunt's walking group.

We met lots of family, even very distant cousins, but also got to know my aunts and uncles better. Of course my Aunt Marian and Uncle Mick here in Hyde who let us use their home as our home base, so that we could venture out wherever and whenever we wanted to and know we always had a home here.

Josh and Janae made the National Honor Roll, while taking classes at Mountain Heights Academy, a Utah Charter School that they have really excelled at.

I have launched new products and kept business afloat, while Michelle has become a world class travel agent and master of coordinating excursions in multiple languages and with various modes of transportation. All on sporadic and low quality WIFI.

We have eaten some amazing food, too. The Crepes at the restaurant near Versailles were heavenly. The little French bakery that charged an extortionate 4 Euro for each pastry… but were totally worth it. We had great meats in Germany and Austria, and Lemon Curd, sausage rolls, meat pies, and traditional Sunday dinners with Yorkshire Puddings here in England. And trifle.

I played some memorable rounds of golf with Peter Hughes at St. Andrews, and a variety of courses around Manchester that were outstanding.

In all it has been a most successful and fulfilling trip, and changed our lives forever. Thanks to all who made it a life improving experience for our family!

Josh and I helped Aunt Marian decorate their living room and Christmas tree on Sunday morning. It was fun to get the room all festive. Then Josh, Tyler and I went to church. Janae was quite swollen and also came down with a cold, and Dave was wiped out with a cold as well, so they stayed home. Aunt Marian prepared a Christmas dinner in our behalf! Peter and Natalie and their kids came over, and we enjoyed visiting, playing games, and eating delicious turkey and ham with all of the trimmings, and lemon meringue pie, which I volunteered to make. Ooo it was all so yummy! :)

Dave, Tyler, Uncle Mick

Josh, Michelle, Janae, Aunt Marian

Vincent, Peter, Natalie, Zach

Written by Dave:

We had a fun expedition down to Liverpool to see "The Beatles Story" with the Hughes family on Saturday, Dec. 5!

I loved The Beatles Story experience, its really well done with lots of original guitars, clothes, images, stories, and of course, Beatles music playing from start to finish.

They've even taken original stages, doors, props etc. from famous places like The Cavern and the Casbah and re-created the stages and interiors of these places. Pretty cool.

Interesting stuff about the Beatles:

-The Beatles were the first band to fill a stadium. In 1965 55,600 people showed up to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium, but the screaming was so loud, and so long, that most people couldn't hear the music.

-The Beatles are still the best selling musicians in the US, at 178,000,000 sales.

-As of 2015, they STILL hold the record for most #1 hits on Billboard, at 20.

-They have sold more singles in the UK than any other act.

-They are the best selling band in history, world wide, with 600,000,000 sales.

-They won an Academy award for best musical score.

-They won 10 Grammys.

All this, and they were only together 10 years! The Rolling Stones have been together to this day but are still playing catch up.

John Lennon's original band was The Quarrymen, which he formed when he was 16. Paul McCartney joined when he was 15, and George Harrison was 14 when he became lead guitarist.

One of Elvis' belts. The Beatles were big fans of Elvis.

 The stage of The Cavern, Liverpool's famous music club where The Beatles, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Elton John, and many other English acts played in the 1960's

Beatles paraphernalia.

The Yellow Submarine

Us Sherwins

The Hughes Family

The boys, sporting John Lennon glasses. They wear them well, I'd say!

A monument given to the city of Liverpool by our church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in memory of the massive migration of British people to the Americas (about 9 million of them!) from this harbour.

A few interesting facts from our church's website:

Liverpool: Site where the first LDS missionaries landed in Britain on 19 July 1837. Liverpool was the headquarters of the Church in Britain from 1842 to 1929. It was also the chief port of embarkation for America and the site where the Millennial Star and other important Church publications were originally printed.

Walking with the Beatles :)

The song is written about this street. We drove to the street to get a picture of the street sign.

Unfortunately, as we were leaving, Janae tripped and fell when we were leaving. She was running with her hands in her pockets and fell right on her face! It was so scary. We thought for sure her glasses would be broken and she would have broken teeth! Luckily the glasses were fine and her teeth were okay, too, but she hurt a hand and her lip and hip and one knee pretty bad. Poor girl. She had a fat lip and scratches for a few days.

On Tuesday we traveled back to Hyde. Thankfully, we didn't have to leave too early. We took trains back this time. Everything went smoothly enough. We got back around 3:30 in the afternoon. We spent the afternoon and evening getting settled back in here at the Foster's, and the kids did school work.

Wednesday was spent shopping and schooling and working and laundrying. I wasn't feeling the best. I caught a cold in Paris. :/  Oh, also, Dave cut my hair!! Yes, it's true. I asked him to take an inch off of the bottom. He was freaked out, but he did great and I like it better now! :)

Thursday morning I went and picked up another rental car. Tyler came with me. Then later in the morning I went to a dentist to get my tooth fixed. It's amazing what a difference a broken tooth makes! It wasn't too expensive which was nice - 54 pounds. That afternoon some of us went back to the Manchester Christmas markets. It wasn't raining this time, so that was nice. In the evening some of us played games. Ripple golf this time. 

On Friday, we had planned to go to Liverpool, but I wasn't feeling up to it. We just had another quiet day in the morning, and then in the afternoon I took the kids to a climbing gym, where Tyler and Josh had some fun bouldering. Janae and I watched. That night we watched "Elf" with Aunt Marian. It was her first time seeing it! It's such a funny movie! We had lots of good laughs.

Dave, Tyler, Janae, Josh & I got up super early on Monday morning to catch our flight. We had to be at the airport at 5:30! 

Wiped out, waiting for our flight.

We flew to London Gatwick airport and then took a train to Watford. We checked into our hotel and rested/slept for a while, and then we went out to eat. Huge bummer - while we were eating, a piece of my front tooth chipped off!!! This happened once before about a year ago, but our dentist was able to fix it the same day. Holy crow! Right in the middle of my two front teeth! It looked so bad. I made a point of smiling with my mouth closed in any pictures. :/

We went to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter film studios for the late afternoon/evening. It was great fun. 

Here's what Dave wrote about the making of the Harry Potter movies:

-There's a lot more real stuff than you would think, it's not all just CGI. They really built the Hogwarts cafeteria, interior of the Ministry of Magic, animatronic versions of Buckbeak, and Hagrid, and thousands of props and models that were used in filming.

-The 1:24 scale model of the entire Hogwarts castle is absolutely amazing. They used it for all of the fly by shots, and the detail is right down to working hinges on doors.

-There are literally hundreds of thousands of items. All the portraits hanging in hallways, etc. are real, they made thousands of different wands, and all the little artifacts had to be created for each room. Just the potions room alone has over 3,000 different little bottles and boxes etc.

Wands from the movie.

The Gryffindor common room

They had a full time portrait artist working the entire 8 years of the filming, there are hundreds of these portraits everywhere. 

Potions class

The Burrow - the Weasley's home.

Mmm Butter Beer! :)