Allsorts

I have been really bad at writing posts this year and only managed to do birthdays and other 'bigger' news.  This one is going to be a mish-mash of all our news from the last few months.


Toby seems to have most news at the moment.  In April he started going to football (soccer).  He is very excited by it and despite looking rather lost for most of the training (and all of the match), he just loves it.  I suspect it's because it's him and 19 other boys with hardly a girl in sight (poor sod, having spent the first four years of his life totally surrounded by girls)!


To counter this, he has also started going to Beth's dancing lessons.  We have always loved these as there is no uniform, you can pay as and when you go (great since they seem to change their minds rather often when it comes to hobbies) and there are no big shows, just smaller ones through the year.  I wasn't sure if he would enjoy it even though he asked to go (rather than me asking him), but so far he is loving it and doesn't seem bothered that he is quite often the only boy.  It could be a very good thing as 'they' say dancing is good for football skills. :)


On top of all this, just this week he started swimming lessons again.  He went for a while when we first moved to the area but just wasn't interested so I pulled him out.  This time he is ready to listen and it is a big bonus that when we arrived for his first lesson, his best friend was in the same class.  Hopefully a bit of friendly competition will spur him on!


Beth has been doing loads at school and it's hard to believe she'll be going into year two in September.  I'm not quite sure when they have fitted lessons in this term since they've done a lot of 'extra-curricular' stuff like celebrating the Jubilee, the Olympic torch relay, a school play and sports day (along with many practices)!


For her birthday, Beth received a live butterfly garden from cousins Adam and William.  We sent off for the caterpillars and spent the next four weeks watching them grow huge, turn to chrysalides then emerge as Painted Lady butterflies.  I would highly recommend it as the kids just loved seeing them grow and change.  When we released the butterflies, they hung around the garden for a few hours before disappearing off.


Half term at the beginning of June was a welcome break and we had a few trips out.  One was to Bradgate Park where I worked as a park ranger for a few years.  The kids were very excited to see Dr Who's tardis as they are both fans!  We also did some rock scrambling and deer watching.  Amazingly the weather was fine that morning - I think we had our summer with 10 warm days back in May.

Finally, this morning, we headed a few miles down the road to bag a prime spot to watch the demolition of the cooling towers at High Marnham Power Station.  It was very quick and quite impressive - if you'd blinked at the wrong time you would have missed it!