A pool day today which has nicely born some handy fruit 🙂

A couple of years ago we were holidaying in Maui and Elliot learned to swim in the pool at the house we rented. Sadly his confidence took a kick an he subsequently ‘forgot’ how to swim. Anyway, today we were swimming in a deep pool (2.5 metres) and Elliot was very keen to be able to jump in and have his feet touch the bottom. Well it was never going to happen with his arm bands on as they are super buoyant so daddy persuaded him to try with only two bands (instead of the four that he was using) and he reluctantly gave it a go. Still unable to get close the bottom we suggested losing another band and then another one. Mummy and Daddy were both in the pool so he was comfortable that we would ‘save him’ should he be unable to keep afloat. Well, Elliot rapidly realised that he could float so jumped in again only this time he wanted us to get further back to let him do it on his own and to enable him to swim the 10 feet back to the steps.

An hour later he was swimming breaststroke, backstroke and reaching the bottom of the pool every second or third try. Let’s just say he is VERY pleased with himself right now and has declared that he will not be requiring the armbands tomorrow :-s

Finally we captured some on video for his web friends an family to see 🙂 Olly of course was in on the action too although his confidence WAY outshines his ability at the moment 🙂 Sorry folks, the video refuses to upload from here 🙁 will have to wait until we return…

Yesterday was a BIG day for the boys – we had a mega walk to the wonderful beach and back, then a pretty big swimming session in the main pool. As a result we had two very tired boys, the littlest one had a mini meltdown before dinner so we elected to go to the pool bar for dinner given the close proximity to the room.

Anyway, yesterday was the first day that did not require Calpol or ibruprofen to control a temperature so we are in pretty good shape. We have continued to give him the remainder of the tonsillitis antibiotics as they are definitely working (he is not having as much trouble swallowing again) and hence it just makes sense to follow the course and then we should be good for a little while 🙂 Fingers crossed.

Today is to be a pool day, much to the boys delight – they just want to jump in, get out, jump in, get out (repeat until tired).

We are thinking of heading out to a water park tomorrow as the temperature is going to cool down to low 20’s from tomorrow for a few days making it actually warmer in Ossett for the remainder of the week – typical right?

We are also going to investigate the hiring of a car for a few days to let us explore a little further than our wee legs will take us 🙂

We decided to walk the 1km road to the beach this morning – apparently the prettiest beach in the viscinity and known as Smugglers Beach. Well we got about 3/4 of the way there and decided that we had travelled way too far and that we must have head to the wrong place. We trekked back but around the cliffs – fantastic sights but definitely not for flip flops….

Anyway, it pretty quickly became obvious that the first thoughts were indeed correct the first town around to turned around. At this point we had put an extra 1km of rocks onto the walk to the beach.

When we finally found the steps down to the beach we were not disappointed – there was a handy hole that had been hand cut into the rock face and steps inset all the way down to the sand – probably 40 to 50 steps and maybe 150yards of rock face…. Check out the photos below 🙂

The beach was an intimate place that was maybe 150 metres across and maybe the same in depth with only the cut out hole as the means of access. Sadly the water was a little rough for he boys to properly enjoy but we managed a little over a couple of hours nonetheless. Also there was a really cool cutout into the side of the rock face where you could walk up along the side of the cliff and the super adventurous were then jumping into the icy waters below (perhaps 40 or so feet down).

Don’t think we will be going again as it was probably closer to 2 km even without the detour 🙁

Anyway, check out the photos..

Just getting ready for the second swimming trip of the day and a final check to ensure we have everything we need…. “OK, so has anyone seen my wallet?” were the famous words uttered out of Daddy’s mouth. All went quiet….

A swift rip out of everything in the apartment followed….. The usual questions were flowing such as when did you have it last? and what were you doing with it last?

It clearly was not in the apartment after Mummy checked the places that Daddy had already checked – obviously checking that Daddy can actually look….

The last place to check was the onset shop as Daddy had the delicate job of selecting and purchasing the bread rolls for lunch while Mummy escorted the boys back to the apartment.

Yep, the wallet was waiting there – dipstick had just left it on the cashiers desk as he picked up the four bread rolls – a grand value of €1 – leaving almost €400 behind plus bank cards etc – nice work Mr Rust. Thankfully the lady n the counter knew exactly who had left it and kept it for the next hour or so until the pillock figured out where he left it…

Lucky this time….

Today we have mostly been playing in the swimming pools 🙂

A leisurely breakfast followed by a quick visit to the local supermarket for pool toys, and then n for a couple of hours in the large swimming pool. Unsurprisingly the large water pistols were broken within the first two or three minutes 🙁 Thankfully Daddy thinks he can fix them with some superglue (let’s just hope he doesn’t fasten his fingers together again this time 🙂 ) so we will need to go shopping again on the way (or back from dinner tonight).

A nice lunch back in the apartment to keep out of the midday sun and then out again to the ocean view pool at the further reach in he complex. It took some finding but was very quiet and secluded down at the bottom and included a little pool that was only about 1 foot deep, so Elliot, Olly and Mummy spent some time playing sharks in that pool.

Thankfully Olly has only needed 2 sets of Calpol today (10 yesterday by way of comparison) so we think is well on the way towards recovery, although as we are getting ready to go out now at nearly 6pm he is demonstrating tiredness along with hunger so we may not make it through dinner yet 🙁

Hopefully there will be no sickness tonight and mummy and daddy are looking forward to a glass or two of vino 🙂