Last night the heavens opened and an almighty downpour ensued. It was actually pretty quick to dry up on the driveway etc, but then rained again throughout the night – great as the grass seeds may get additional help to grow now 🙂

Simon got off to Sherwood Pines today with Tim for the first time in nearly six months – was a great run although Barbara threw him off about half way around and knocked the wind clean out of him. No damage to Barbara but he has a couple of grazes etc. Unlucky…

Typical that the weather has changed just before he half term break – guess we may not be doing quite as many outdoor activities next week as we had hoped for.

Vicky and Simon went into school last night to see what the plans are for the end of term Filey Trip. There are quite a few other parents also going along so Simon managed to get himself a seat on the bus (previously we had only requested a seat for Vicky). Let’s hope for a non rainy day as it would really suck if it rained :-(. There are two coaches going with children, teachers and some parents from foundation through to year 2. Should be real fun:-)

The boys have been on separate school trips up to their new schools from September to have a look around etc.

Elliot went to Silcoates on Monday and met his new buddy called jake – a boy from year 6. we think he was expecting somebody significantly older as he said that Jake was only a small boy 🙂 He really seemed to enjoy it as he was telling us about their swimming pool that was inside and that they got to choose their own lunch 🙂 Hopefully this is setting the foundations for his enjoying the school from September – he has two more visits in the coming month or so to familiarise himself with the place etc.

Olly went with 5 of his classmates to Sunny Hill to visit their nursery and meet the new teachers. one of his favourite teachers called Lauren went with them as she is accordingly going to go to the school next year also. He also seemed to enjoy himself although in many ways he would probably enjoy it regardless 🙂

It will be kind of strange for the boys when they go to their new schools next year as they will no longer see each other during the day and even when Oliver is at the Junior school, he will be somewhat segregated from Elliot so will most likely not see much of him there either. That said, we think they only really see each other at lunchtime at St Hilda’s in any case, and this will continue at Junior school in that they will use the same lunch hall 🙂

We have a parents meeting at school tonight to discuss e plans for the upcoming Filey trip – Vicky is already planned in to go with them all, so Simon is hoping to get in on the action too as it seems that there are a lot of other parents going on the trip.

WOW – what a weekend – 27+ degrees BOTH days and not a single cloud to be seen over the whole weekend 🙂

We therefore spent the whole weekend in the garden, ensuring that we maximised the time that we had with the sun.

Tyler stayed over on Friday night and while they (Elliot and Tyler) did not go to sleep until well after 10:30pm, they were both wide awake and dressed at 5am (Elliot usually takes around 30 minutes to come around so… 🙁 ).  We had the paddling pool out for Pepsi and Max although by mid-afternoon, they were not getting a look in – Elliot, Oliver and Tyler took over the running of the pool 🙂

It seem that Tyler and Elliot were singing and dancing during this shot 🙂

The BBQ was cranked on and we had a fab evening meal with Clare, Frank and all the kids.

Simon has also planted the grass seed in the areas that need grass to grow and filled in some top soil, so hopefully we will see fuller grassed areas in the coming weeks 🙂  We also managed to cut the hedge along the rear of the garden and will finish it during the week once the old clippings have been taken away on Tuesday morning.

We have two more days of nice weather ahead of us this week apparently and then the rain comes on Wednesday and the temperature drops back down to 12-15 degrees Celcius.

Enjoy it while you can 🙂

We have basked in beautiful sunshine for more days that I can recall this week :-). So much so that we have been out with the mountain bikes to Newmillerdam and out this morning for a gentle run around Pugneys Country Park. Both days were simply sensational sunshine with no clouds in the sky, although on. The bike trip, poor mummy did come a cropper :-(. On a small upward hill she managed to find herself in the wrong gear, tried to dismount quickly to avoid pain and failed to actually get off gracefully – thus ended up on her ass in a huge area of nettles. Kind of ruined the ride for her sadly – she is still nursing pain from it today and I suspect will not be forgetting to be in the right gear in the future 🙂

Overall, the ride around Newmillerdam was probably around 10 to 12km and reminded us that we have these wonderful bikes I bathe garage that need using and enjoying to the max – we must get out more.

Today was a little gentler with a power walk turning into a run around to the perimeter of the Pugneys Country Park in Wakefield – probably just over a mile and was perfect for mummy’s training. Olly came along in the sports stroller and he and daddy went running 🙂 The stroller is actually very good as a runner as it is really easy to propel and most importantly steer with just one hand while running. this one is now another activity that we should do much more of. Suspect this one will be way more determined by the weather however.

The sunshine looks to be set in for the weekend, so we need to get some garden activities in this weekend – perhaps a spot of gardening might be on…. :-s

The downside to such weather??? It reminds us massively of what we are missing in Northern California and hence makes us miss it big time… 🙁 Can’t win…