This week it feels like we’ve settled into the summer holidays properly, getting our days organised in and out. The children are getting used to each other, sometimes playing well together sometimes not!

 

Proud Mummy moment

Charley is finally ready to move up a group in her swimming lessons to Big Frogs. Yay. We started the lessons last September, mostly to help with her arthritis, but in the last few months her confidence in the water has really grown, she’s happy to dunk under and try to swim by herself. Things that she’d never have done when we started the lessons.

Day trip to Birdworld

We live just down the road from Birdworld so we’ve had membership since Charley was small. We’ve not been for a while so thought we’d have a little outing there for the day with a picnic.

We started in the Aquarium and had a quick look around the tanks of fish. We stopped halfway round to go on the scales to see that Charley is the weight of a two-toed sloth and I’m the weight of an orang-utan. Says it all really.

We also stopped to watch the little crocodiles.

Next, we wandered on to look at the birds. I’d bought some meal worms for Charley to give to the animals so she was quite happy to have a go with this (although I think most of it ended on the ground outside the birds cages).

The flamingos are always quite stunning to see.

After the picnic the children had some time in the play area, mostly on the swings and on the climbing apparatus. Then it was onto the other end of Birdworld, passing by the penguins (bit stinky) to Jenny Wren farm where I was hoping to see some little piggies but there were none.

Still, we got to the see the peacock with its feathers fully out and plenty of chickens, turkeys, goats and a big fat piggy.

We even managed to fit in the customary daily ice-cream.

A day out at Wisley

We had another day out at Wisley. During the holidays they have the Alice in Wonderland theme going on to celebrate 150 years so there were numerous displays around the gardens. Very clever how they sculpted them into the bushes and plants.

We had a picnic in a quiet area but with plenty of room for Charley to have a good runabout and do some odd dancing.

There was also some music sessions going on throughout the day for little ones with lots of instruments for them to play. We all had a great time singing and doing a bit of a dance.

Bouncing with Daddy

One day in the week before bed Charley managed to get daddy to bounce her up and down on the bouncy hopper. She loved it and was laughing away saying “one more, one more”. Think the hubby found it a bit of a work out though.

Dinner for all

Our last dinner of the week was a Carribean pork stew (less the chillies) which ALL of the family ate. Charley looked at it to start with and said “I don’t like it” but after she’d had a mouthful ate the whole bowl, as did Bodhi. I love it when I actually find something that both children will eat and it doesn’t take too much time to cook.