Harrogate, you are good to us.

On Sunday we decided to hang out in Harrogate and spend the day learning about the town we live in. Well, first of all, we went to church that morning. We did a search for churches in the area, checked out their websites, and chose one to try out. It was called Life Destiny Church. For those who are interested: http://www.lifedestinychurch.org/ The church used to meet in a nearby town, Knaresborough, for the last 15 years, but recently moved to Harrogate. So it was only 10 months old to this town, but not altogether new. And of course they didn't meet in a normal church building... we don't go to "those" churches anymore. ;) We met in a movie theatre! First a nightclub and now a movie theatre, haha. I hope next week will be in a mall or a zoo or something! We thought the service was alright. It taught truthful things, had nice/traditional worship songs, and the people were really friendly, but it just wasn't a blow-me-away awesome church. It was no Mosaic or College Park; although, those are certainly hard to measure up to! I think next week we are going to try another place... check out all the options.

Anyways, after church we did some shopping. The best way to start off the process of exploring a town. :) After that, we went to the Royal Pump Room Museum. It was really interesting and we learned all about Harrogate's history. It is known for being a spa town and has brought visitors from all over the world here since 1842. There is a place called the Turkish baths where you can go and get pampered and all this royal treatment. Brandon keeps encouraging me to go, but I have yet to experience it. It's kind of expensive, but I think I need to at least try it out once. Maybe I will head there sometime next week. Believe me, you will all hear about it when I go!

Our last stop of the day was at the Valley Gardens. It covers 17 acres and part of the Valley Gardens is known as Bog's field where it is believed that a greater number of mineral springs come to the surface than any other known place on earth. 36 of Harrogate's 88 mineral wells are found within the gardens, with no two being alike. There are also things available in the gardens like tennis courts, a playground, "crazy golf" also known as miniature golf, "Pitch & Putt" also known as a shortened version of golf, and a shallow pool designated for racing model boats. I think that is so funny that they have an entire pool just for that! It's so cute. We are going to have to go back another day to do some of those fun activities. So the gardens were really pretty and it was such a peaceful and relaxing place! I really enjoyed it. The remainder of Sunday included BBQ chicken and Godfather Part II. What a day! :) Saturday's trip will be posted at a later time.