Condensed Round-Up

We had a lovely Christmas up at my mum and dad's. We had about a week and a half which was excellent. I really needed a break! We met up with loads of family I hadn't seen in ages, had plenty of cuddles with our newest nephew, ate lots of yummy things, drank plenty of wine and generally had a nice time doing nothing - something of a rarity in our house. The children got so many presents, I still haven't found homes for them all. My parents got Emily her own laptop which she is thrilled about and gets very grumpy if she catches me using it! She is looking forward to using it for her work as well as play. Isaac got more cars and trains which he adores, he is building quite a collection now.

We didn't do anything special for New Year. Not that we do normally, my New Year always begins on Boxing Day. I think it's because I'm usually so busy with birthday and Christmas preparations, from about October, that Boxing Day is the first opportunity i get to think about anything else.

Yesterday was an early start as i had to be at the hospital for 8am to have a minor op. I was really nervous but it wasn't as bad as i imagined and i was home again by 2pm. It gave me the perfect excuse to lounge around on the sofa while Mick brought me cups of tea :o)

Today was Isaac's first full morning at Montessori. He seemed to have had a lovely time. The teachers were pleased to see Emily again, and have invited her to go back to do a "teaching" session which i'm sure she would love.

Sorry no photos I had a near disaster when taking them off the camera and haven't had a chance to sort them out yet.

Happy New Year!

Birthdays!

I wanted to record the children's birthdays before Christmas got in the way. So for those of you that weren't with us here we go...

Isaac had his 3rd birthday on the 20th.

Sportacus outfit from Nana and Grandad


A Wee Robot from Hillary's pattern


Cake Time



Emily was 7 on the 23rd


Horse Life to go with her new DS - metallic pink of course.


More horses in the form of Scheich figures from Nana and Auntie Kath


And yet more horse type stuff...
Lots of brownie points for Auntie Alex - a long awaited my Little Pony



Another pattern by Hillary. Mr Gnome has gone to live with our newest nephew.



Thank you cards will be in the post after Christmas!

Right, off to dig out presents and enjoy mulled wine - Merry Christmas All!!

Where to begin???

Firstly i want to say thanks for the words of advice on my wisdom tooth hell! The reason i was in such a state is because that all happened the week before we were due to go on holiday and i was terrified it was going to plague me the whole time we were there. Thankfully it only niggled me for the first week and after that it was fine.

So, the holiday. We went to La Gomera, which is the second smallest of the Canary Islands. It is a wonderful place, about the size of the Isle of White but MUCH more mountainous (nearly 4,000ft). It took us 45mins by road to get to where our villa was, a journey that would have been 15mins by the local ferry, all hairpin bends and sheer drops, glad we didn't hire a car in the end!!!



We stayed in a villa on an HPB site which was lovely, certainly one of the nicest places we've stayed. The weather was great, hot and sunny without being roasting.
We were very lazy for the most part but we did spend one day whale and dolphin watching with Emily whilst Isaac stayed behind with my parents.



Another day Mick and I went off leaving both children behind so we could have a walk through the subtropical rainforest - or to give it it's proper name 'laurisilva' forest. It would have been nice to take the children with us but we thought they would find it hard going - a 3hour trek downhill, we weren't wrong.

It was really beautiful...




In 1986 UNESCO named the Garajonay National Park a World Cultural Heritage site, unique in Europe. Thanks to the trade winds the summit of Gomera is often shrouded in clouds. This leads to the "Horizontal Rainfall" that ensures the survival of this ancient vegetation. It is also where most of the island's water is obtained.

We had a lovely meal at "La Vista", watercress soup served with gofio and mojo picón (a spicy, Garlicy sauce - yummy). This was followed by salad with local goats cheese (and chicken for the meateaters) and Papas arrugadas - potatoes which have been boiled, in salt water, in their skins and left to boil dry. All this was wahed down with plenty of local wine.

We then headed back via this 575m long tunnel ...



It was chiselled out by hand and took 26 years!! to complete. They started either side of the mountain and amazingly met in the middle.
It was build to carry water to Hermigua to irrigate their banana plantations.

We did lots of swimming, which we swore we would keep up with when we got back (we have been only once). Emily is getting more confident after her scare last year and Isaac (scarily for Nana) had no fear at all. This was incredible as he HATED swimming this time last year. We also used the holiday to ditch the nappies (love those tiled floors) YAY!

Emily did ballet summer school last week and had a fabulous time. They had someone from Riverdance come in to do an Irish dancing workshop which she loved, she did some craftyness and generally had lots of fun. She also got her exam results and is ver proud of her distinction but wanted to know why she didn't get a trophy!!!

We travelled up to Lincolnshire after ballet school to see our new nephew and cousin, and very lovely he is too. Oh and he has a name, Jacob, or as Isaac calls him "Ja-cker". He loves his baby cousin very much and hasn't stopped talking about him since we got home.

Good news on the sleep front....things seem to have *finally* clicked with Isaac- no more 5 o'clock starts for us...fingers crossed. He sleeps through the night now and is waking at a much more respectable 7am :o)

We had a good bank holiday weekend, clearing out loads of stuff from the loft. Honestly i am amazed by the stuff we have hung on to over the years. Freecycle here we come....
It wasn't all hard work though. On Sunday we went to Paultons which was a huge success, highly recommended if you like that sort of thing. Of all the theme parks i've been to this seemed to have a better range of rides/activities for little ones.

I'm An Auntie!

I've been waiting for pictures but haven't had any yet....
My little nephew was born on Tuesday morning. Congrats to my brother and well done Ema!

Can't tell you how excited I am!!!

We had a lovely weekend with Mum and Dad, if rather busy. Dad fitted my new oven which has been cluttering up the floor for 6mths or so (long story of errors on my part) and he also fitted the plinth which means Isaac can no longer keep posting his toys underneath the units :o) So Mick just has the painting and floor to finish and then the kitchen/diner part of the extension is complete - YAY.

Isaac enjoyed some Daddy time (Mick had Friday and Monday off work) and helped him to construct another storage unit for the playroom...

While Emily took the opportunity to finish her wren purse without small fingers helping!

She's Rather proud of it, can you tell?

I'd rather like it for myself ;o)

I got spring fever early and spent a fortune at the garden centre, then Mum and I tidied up the garden a bit in between rain showers.

My parents insisted we went out on Saturday night, as we still hadn't managed to have our Anniversary night out ( that was in September). We went to a very nice Indian restaurant, which was yummy, but ate far too much.

This week we've been doing more on our Land and Water project. Emily constucted her own aquifer which was a lot of fun.

We left it overnight to watch how the silt settled and then we added food colouring to represent how chemicals can cause pollution to the underground water as well as lakes.