Summer Holiday Fun

There just doesn't seem to be enough time to have lots of fun then blog about it too! Here's just a quick one with lots of pics of a few bits we've been up to so far this summer.

At the beginning of the holidays Toby cracked the toilet, it took just five days (go Toby!) after a year of total resistance! His reward/bribe was a new Spiderman bike which so far has been used only briefly - he's still rather attached to his 'wobble' bike.

At Easter, Beth came home from school with a £5 gift token for achievement during the term. It has sat and sat on the mantlepiece just waiting to be spent. Last week we made an effort and went into town to choose something.

The first items of choice were princess sticker books of which we have hundreds (or so it seems!). Despite knowing what it would

mean, I steered her towards an item she has been hankering after for months; face paints! As you can imagine, the rest of the afternoon was spent experimenting - this is a first attempt, not too shabby I don't think. :)

Our last trip to a theme park was Disneyland the day before we flew home from California in 2008. It seemed about time for another visit . . . Fifteen minutes down the road from us is Sundown Adventureland, a theme park designed for the under ten's (though I suspect that by eight or nine kids would have just about outgrown it).

Despite the proximity to home, we had never quite made it and it took a lot of 'nagging' from our friends to get organised to go. Thankfully they did nag as we had a fantastic time.

There were a few rides, like the Robin Hood ride (a little weird - see the photo!), the tractor ride (that we went on at least seven times) and the Santa's Sleigh ride (yes, a year-round ride that felt a little odd riding on in August but again the kids loved it - it was a bit like a Christmas themed 'It's a Small World' on a small scale).

I loved Story Book Village the best. It was a little square with tiny houses all around. Every house was from a story, my favourite was Hansel and Gretel. It had a cage with bendy bars, a cauldron, and the witch in the oven. I did rather like that cage, I wonder if I could get one for home, perhaps without the bend in the bars. :)

The last batch of photos are from our now annual trip to the Pickering Traction

Engine Rally. Apologies if any seem like duplicates from last year or the year before,

they are rather similar! Although it was still great fun, I have to say that I don't think we had as much fun as in previous years.

Beth has grown wise to the delights of bumper cars and fairground rides and less interested in tractor pulling and the general sights of the fair. Toby was still captivated by the tractors but I think still slightly less than previously. I have suggested to Steve that next year we spend two days there - one with the kids around the fairground and one on our own seeing everything else.

We are soon heading over to Northern Ireland for my cousins wedding - Beth is a bridesmaid - so the next post will probably be filled with drizzly days on the beach. Fingers crossed that we get a few days of sunshine as the kids have been asking to go to the beach for ages, obviously Beth's California roots are shining through!

Sorry if the formatting is a little odd on this post - I'm using a different computer and haven't quite got the feel for it!