Ireland Part III (Days Out)

We did manage to fit a few other things in among beach days and the wedding. One place we managed to spend a couple of days was The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Holywood. We got free trial passes in an offer from one of the Sunday papers and they definitely got good use! The museums are separate but situated on the same site so on our first trip we managed to do both.

Beth loved the Folk Museum as all of the houses were furnished, some had fires lit and quite a lot of them had people all dressed up ready to answer questions and demonstrate stuff. I have to say that the first trip was mainly taken up with them running wildly between houses, shops, banks, schools, sweet shops, etc. generally causing chaos!

It was pretty impressive the amount of detail and care that had gone into every building - kinda wasted on kids. ;) Despite making it back for a second trip, I'd quite like to go back without the kids sometime just to have a proper look at everything and appreciate the attention to detail - can't imagine that happening since both Beth and Toby continue asking to go back.

The Transport Museum was also worth seeing and of course was Toby's favourite. He was rather obsessed with the orange Herbie car and was very reluctant to leave it - said it would be lonely! Again I enjoyed wandering round, the trains were impressive and the Titanic exhibition was pretty interesting. I suspect that Beth enjoyed playing on the trains, planes and motorbikes just as much as 'playing' at the folk museum but she would vehemently deny this if asked! Anyway, a very successful introduction to museums.

Steve took his bike over with us so he could do a few rides. I don't think he quite did the mileage he wanted but he did get out for a long ride on one day. I was going to drive to meet him for lunch at the end of this ride but on the way, to entertain the kids I took them to Castle Espie wetlands. I had been as a child and had good memories of it and hopefully Beth and Toby will have the same.

They seemed to have a great time. Don't think we really saw that many birds - apart from the ducks and geese we fed, the others didn't stick around once they heard us coming! We did rather a whistle stop tour and could have spent quite a bit longer there, another place the kids just keep asking to go back to.

The last little outing we went on was to Exploris, the aquarium in Portaferry. The last time we went to an aquarium it was using our season tickets at the Long Beach aquarium. This one was rather like a poor cousin in comparison but the kids enjoyed it all the same since they had nothing in memory to compare it to. We did two loops of the entire aquarium as it didn't take very long. Toby made friends with a stingray - it kept popping up to say hello. :)

I think it was a great summer holiday - must have been since the kids just want to go back to all the places we've been, hope we can match it next year!

One last little bit. Toby has got quite into his drawing recently so I thought it would be nice to highlight it. Here he is with his picture of a scooter. :)

Ireland Part II (The Wedding)

The wedding seems a long time past now, I'm sure it does to Rebecca and Ian who are back from their honeymoon to Malta and back to work!

Beth was pretty excited about the prospect of being a bridesmaid/flower girl and loved the dress we chose for her. She was a little apprehensive about knowing what to do but was reassured because there would be three other bridesmaids, all grown-up and one my cousin Miriam.

On the morning of the wedding we headed to headquarters to have Beth's hair done and pick up her flowers. She loved watching everyone get their make-up put on, hair preened and dresses fitted. I may have got my face painted slightly - as most of you'll know, I'm not very talented when it comes to make-up application so jumped at the offer! Beth's hair looked lovely - I was a little skeptical as to whether it would last the day but apart from the loosening of curls, it did pretty well.

After a quick lunch we all threw on our glad rags and headed to the church (the same church where my parents were married). :) Everyone looked very glamourous and the bride of course looked fab. The ceremony was lovely and went without a hitch (certainly less tears than at the rehearsal!). There were a few tears from the youngest bridesmaid on the way back up the aisle - I think the excitement of the day started to catch-up with her a bit. Thankfully that didn't last long.

After a run round outside the church, a few photos and some magic tricks from Auntie Jane's friend Rob, we headed to Clandeboye Lodge for the reception. Beth's favourite part of the day was outside at the reception kicking a ball around with grandma and grandpa, hanging off trees and generally hurtling around screaming with all the other young guests!

The meal was easily the best had at a wedding (apart from our own of course) even if the long wait for it meant us stealing the kids food . . . After a short interlude it was time for the first dance (You Got It - Roy Orbison) then lots of dancing. Beth and I danced and danced, and Toby, after a little dancing, passed out on Daddy! A fun day and hopefully the first in a long and happy marriage of Rebecca and Ian. :)

Ireland Part I (Beaches)

We've been back from Ireland a week already and I am only just finding a few minutes to pull together a few photos and write about our holiday. We were over there for almost two weeks with my cousin Rebecca's wedding right in the middle. As you can imagine we have quite a few photos, especially from the wedding so I think I'll have to split the blog post up or else I'll get totally bogged down and never actually get it done!

Before we went, Beth's main focus of the holiday was to spend lots of time on the beach. Thankfully the weather was pretty good and we managed quite a few trips and grandma & grandpa also took them a fair bit. My favourite beach trip was to Crawfordsburn Beach, a very pretty little cove with Great Grandma Ruth's hospital overlooking it (she was a nurse there, though it has now been converted into apartments).

We spent quite a long time building sandcastles, collecting shells, paddling and in Steve and my case, drinking a flask of coffee. Very pleasant! After that we packed the buckets and spades back in the car, got out the bikes and rode along the beach path all the way to Grandma Ruth's. The weather was fab and it was a perfect morning.

The other beach trips weren't quite so warm and enjoyable (for us at least since the kids wouldn't have noticed if it was raining and blowing a gale). Steve made sure that there was no sitting round building the average sandcastle - he had the kids digging channels and moats, all very technical. :)

We did try to get an extra few hours at the beach in Seaton Carew (last photo on the right) once we came home. It was a little chilly and windy but the kids still managed to have a ball.

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).