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!

Summer '11

I can't believe it's almost August and I've been very slack at getting a post done. Guess with the summer holidays things have got busier and there just hasn't been time to sit down, go through the photos and think back on what we've been doing. I'll try and do justice to some of our news, visits and activities here but I'm quite sure that a few will be missed!

At the beginning of the month, Beth took her Rainbows promise. It was all very relaxed as that week they had a trip to the park for a picnic tea and games. As you can see from the photo, she wasn't too fussed about recording the moment for posterity!

Toby, not to be outdone, had his sports day. He loved it and every day since has been asking to go to sports day again. I think he would be very upset if he grasped the concept of 'yearly'! Every child got to go in every type of race. Amazingly there were very few tears from any of them (not bad considering there were close to 30 kids ranging in age from 2.5 to 4.5) and they all had great fun, even the weather was nice. Toby won the obstacle race. :)

Around Easter time, Beth stopped going to gymnastics. She was very good at it but she just wasn't that fussed by it. There was a lot of sitting round waiting for her turn and she didn't really know any of the other children.

A couple of her friends go to dancing once a week; very informal and it sounded like a good replacement - nice to try a few different hobbies! Anyway, we started going and she seems to enjoy it. I think she sees it as a social activity over learning dance moves - perfect! To finish the term, all the classes held a show of works for the parents. I think she enjoyed dancing for an audience but it was hard to tell since she was literally frowning with concentration for the entire recital!

Finally I thought I'd get in a bit about the veg patch. We've had quite a lot out of it so far and I think some of it would have done quite well in a 'big veg' competition!! Our first cabbage was 2.5kg without the outer leaves, I picked a beetroot that was over a kilogram and nearly half a kilogram of french beans (now in the freezer).

We're already sick of courgettes and I suspect pretty soon cabbage will loose it's appeal, especially since we still have 20 of a similar size waiting to be picked!! I think our neighbours may get to share out good harvest (whether they like it or not).

The Peaks

Sunday was beautiful - temperature of 28°C (82°F), blue sky, fluffy white clouds and no wind. We decided to have a day out in the Peak District with a little walking, rock scrambling, ice cream eating and small picnic.

Steve and I used to go up to the Peaks quite often when we were at uni - a drive, a wander and a pint at the pub. Sunday was a little different, ice cream instead of a pint, but probably much more fun. Despite the hour drive, we'll have to do it again soon.

June Jumble!

Okay, so it didn't quite work to do little posts to update this month and I'm left rushing to cram it all into one before July (!! July !!).

We do seem to have done rather a lot this month. At the beginning of the month we went to meet up with a couple of my old school friends, Sarah and Iain, and their respective children, Abigail (3) and bump, and Archie (3) and Charlie (1). It was a beautiful day and we spent most of it outside in the paddling pool, on the bouncy castle and eating ice creams. Toby thoroughly enjoyed himself - most of the friends he has of his age are girls so to spend the day with a boy the same age was a dream! He asks most days when Archie is going to come to his house.

On June 5th we went to The Big Lunch in our village. There were 'big lunches' all over the country - an initiative to try and bring people neighbours together. Steve was off on a 80+ mile bike ride so I took the kids and met up with a load of friends. We didn't really meet any 'new' neighbours since we already knew most of the people there, but it was a very relaxing day. The kids both got their faces painted - I was amazed how still Toby sat to have his done; he really wanted to be spiderman so was motivated not to move! Beth went for a butterfly. A very thoughtful friend provided the Pimms, and the ice cream van was on hand for kid treats. I suspect we will repeat the picnic throughout the summer though I doubt with so many people.

A couple of days after, Beth's friend Elizabeth turned five. We helped celebrate on her birthday at a small birthday tea, then went to her party at the weekend. There was loads of yummy food, a bouncy castle, treasure hunt and races; great fun! I mentioned that Toby has a deluge of girl friends; here are two of them (Nelly and Lara) - he just loves his friends. :)

On the 17th it was the school sports day and summer faire (very sneaky - get parents there for the races then force them to spend all their money on ice creams, games and cream teas!). Beth was in two races, the 100m sprint (she came second) and the 100m 'angel' race where they balance a small hoop on their heads (she won). I don't think she really cared much where she came though I suspect she didn't enjoy being out in front as she was checking around her and waiting for people to catch up! I think she was just happy to get a shiny sticker at the end! Toby was in the pre-school race and came second, he didn't care what anyone else was doing but also wasn't fussed about winning either. I'm very thankful that neither of them are too competitive; life would be very stressful if that was the case!

Finally, the first of our homegrown produce was ready to pick this week. :) The beetroot has done really well and is pretty huge and the early potatoes are ready too. Toby helped pull them out - I was quite excited to be 'harvesting' though in some ways it is more satisfactory to see everything perfect in the ground (especially since I'll probably ruin loads of it with some experimental recipes!).

Fun with Friends

Yes, I know, the blog is like a bus - no posts for ages then two come along at once! I just thought I'd do a quick one from today so that all our days out don't build up and then never get written down.

Today we met up for a play with three other families at our friend's house/garden who have the pigs. Poor Toby was the lone boy among seven girls and it didn't take him too long to wander off on his own to make mud pies and go on the zip wire.

We spent the entire morning in the garden, as it was sunny and lovely. A bit of colouring was done, followed by lots of climbing, swinging, zipping and flower picking. As you can see, the pigs are coming on nicely and still have a good six months to pack on a few more pounds.

I don't know if I've mentioned in previous blog posts but we have got the patch the pigs were on last year to grow veg - an allotment in a friends garden! It started off as a big swamp of compacted mud and pig poo but with lots of digging and hard work it's now looking pretty good. The potatoes are starting to flower, the sweet corn, beetroot, french beans, broad beans, tomatoes, parsnips, courgettes and purple sprouting broccoli are coming on really well, the cabbages are getting nibbled (any suggestions for preventions gladly welcomed). The runner beans are also doing great - hopefully soon they'll be covering our bean den/swing nicely! Not too much else to go in though I do have some more potatoes to go in along with some mange tout and I think some 'spare' plants from various people that don't fit in their gardens.

We had lunch of freshly laid dippy eggs though were plagued by the hens; you can see Beth pointing them out under the table. I think they wanted their eggs back though they didn't reckon on four ravenous children!

May's End

Thought I'd jam a quick post in before the end of May. It's half term at the moment and nothing much is happening - lounging around in our pj's until midday, makes a change from our daily race to get ready in time for school! I think we're meeting a few friends over the next couple of days and catching up. Hopefully I'll get a few photos for the blog at them and I might get a few photos of the pigs so you can see how they're growing. We don't tend to go in with them much these days as they're a bit hungrier than before - they've eaten most of the vegetation in their patch and try to eat your shoes if you go in!

Last week we went to Thorsby Hall for a walk and bike ride. We did the same route as last August when we went. This time Toby was on his balance bike rather than walking/pushchair. He loves his bike but it won't be long before he's on a pedal bike as he can ride Beth's bike pretty well (though he doesn't realise no one is holding on!). It would be quite an achievement to be on a bike with no stabilizers before he's three and a half! I highly recommend balance bikes to avoid the pain of removing stabilizers. I don't think Toby will be put off with a few falls - the photo of him with bumps and bruises was taken the day after he fell off his skateboard!

As always, Beth still loves all things pink and twirly - yes, another twirling photo. As I mentioned in the last post, we watched the royal wedding. Here's photographic proof - as you can see the kids are playing the parts of princesses perfectly, I didn't get into the mood quite that much though I did manage a flag to flip about (I suspect this pic was taken just as princesses Eugine and Beatrice turned up - their outfits were definitely interesting!).

Beth is getting into the wedding thing as she's going to be a bridesmaid in August for my cousin R's wedding. We got her dress last weekend and she loved it, I think she would happily wear it everyday until the ceremony. I did manage to pin her down and get it off her eventually; it's now hidden to prevent a mock wedding (probably resulting in a trip to the dry cleaners or back to the shop to get a replacement!!).

Think that's about it for now, hopefully I'll be a little more dedicated to the blog in June and try to (a) go places and do things that are interesting to read about, and (b) remember to take the camera and actually use it! :)

Camping and May Day

With it being the Easter holidays, royal wedding and May Day all together we seem to have done quite a bit, leaving no time to actually blog about it! For the wedding, we went to a friends house to watch, leaving Steve at home to potter (as Mr. Bennet would say, "enough about the lace!") - no photos of us but I'm sure you've all seen enough pics of the actual wedding to last a lifetime!

Steve took a few days off to give him all of Easter and last week off - reluctantly just back today. We thought it would be as waste not to go away for a short break somewhere so we booked to go camping. Quite a big adventure as we haven't been since Beth was about a year old and the good CA weather could be guaranteed! Thankfully the weather was pretty good, bone dry but a bit windy. The campsite was on a working farm near to the seaside town of Filey. We didn't do all that much - Toby was obsessed with the actual tent and being in/around it, protesting if we just went for a short walk. Having said that, we're not sure if he had a bug or something as on the first morning he woke up and was promptly sick in his sleeping bag.

Beth loved that there was a playground that she could take herself to and from whenever she chose. She taught herself to swing unaided and wowed the older girls by flinging herself, one-handed, down the fireman's pole, twirling as she went (really hope that's not an indication of future employment!). She also loved going to check if the hens had laid any eggs and to check on the lambs. We didn't get that many photos - I've just included the one of the campsite from a walk we did. Our tent is blue and just above and to the right of the post.

Yesterday the May Day celebrations were in full swing in the village. Thankfully the weather was behaving this year, last year was terrible! Again the pre-school had a float, it had the theme of princesses and princes. Beth went on even though she is no longer at pre-school. Toby cried as soon as I put him on; I blame Karen, one of the mums and a childminder who Toby adores, she was dressed as the queen and looked rather odd! He did eventually get on for about a minute just as it was driving back into the field.

As well as our float, there was also the usual May Day Queen float, one for the church, a village gardeners association one, an emergency planners one (!), and the brownies, rainbows and guides one. I can proudly say that ours, the pre-school float won this year. I think the judges were being a bit biased as I thought some of the others were better. After that we got ice cream, had donkey rides and hot dogs. It was a very friendly, community-spirited day. :)

Oh, thought I'd include this photo of Beth as I liked it and she's wearing a sundress that doesn't 'bother' her (yay!).