Category Archives: Holiday

Holiday Time

Fantastic Weekend in Bridlington

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We have just returned from a fantastic 4 day / 3 night stay in a wonderful house in Bridlington to celebrate Caroline’s 40th birthday.

We all arrived at the John Bull Rock Factory on Friday lunchtime for a bite to eat in the cafe, followed by a tour of the rock factory (and roll our own rock 🙂 ), before a quick hour in the play centre for the kids to burn off excess energy. Finally at around 4pm, we headed to the house – Foremans Cottage near the town of Bridlington – a house that would be home for the following 3 nights and that could comfortably fit all 10 of us 🙂

The house was immaculate and we immediately all felt at home with the kids all disappearing off to play and explore the rooms while the adults flipped coins to determine who was going to sleep in which rooms before unpacking and preparing dinner and beers / wine 🙂

On Saturday the girls all went out for a 4 hour Spa session at a nice Hotel Spa in Scarborough and the boys (and kids) off into Bridlington for some time on the beach. Of course Elliot almost immediately got himself soaked in the waves as per usual 🙂 The boys cricketed for around an hour with Gracie and Jessica while Elliot and Oliver played with the sand toys and (of course) water. Lunch was of course Fish and Chips and the boys then head over to Scarborough to find the restaurant (where we would have dinner later) to deliver some party goodies (balloons etc).

We all met up again at the cottage at around 3pm to relax a little before heading out to dinner for a 6pm start. Just before departing Simon got the Parrot AR Drone out – flew it for all of 4 minutes and the wind caught hold of it and whipped it away into the farmers fields over the barn by the side of the house. After checking with the farmer that it would be OK to try to find it, Lee and Simon went in search – no avail. They even searched for 40 minutes the following day covering about a square mile – no joy 🙁 Oh well, the thing only seemingly was getting used once a year so tough luck…

Dinner at Giovanni’s in Scarborough was lovely and we were soon back in the cottage for more wine 🙂 We learned about shimmying up on Saturday night as well 🙂  

On Sunday we all went out for a lovely walk in the morning (lots of whinging from the kids – tired legs. bored etc etc) and we covered about 4 or 5 miles across the fields near the house. Then in the afternoon the sun came out and we all played swingball and various other games outside with (you guessed) it more beer and wine flowing. It turned out to be one of the nicest (if not THE nicest) weather days of 2015 so far and it was certainly the nicest day of 2015 – very relaxing in the sunshine in peace and tranquility with great friends.

Monday soon came around and was pack up day as we needed to be out of the cottage by 10am, so we head back into Bridlington for some arcade fun – well we thought it would be fun but of course those grabbing machines became our evil enemy causing all but one of the kids to shed tears due to not winning anything…. We will never learn from our mistakes with these things…

A quick game of crazy golf for the kids and lunch and it was soon time to head home. We nipped over to Flamborough Head to checkout the lighthouse quickly before venturing onto the roads home.

The journey back was pretty eventless and relatively quick (certainly quicker than our trip in the opposite direction just 4 days earlier) and we are not nicely relaxed and ready for a mega sleep tonight before work re-commences in the morning.

Massive thanks to the mummies for arranging the weekend and to the kids for behaving almost impeccably all weekend. Here’s to doing it again soon 🙂

BIG day today – Tim and Heather’s wedding

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This day has come around VERY quickly indeed – suspect more so for Tim and Heather of course but it really doesn’t seem that long ago that we first met Heather here at ForkHall for the first time a few years ago. Those 3 or so years have passed by in no time at all.

While our little ginger is still not well – still requiring drugs to tame his raging temperature every couple of hours – we are going to brave taking him up to Ripon as apparently he has a dance to participate in 🙂

We are looking forward to celebrating with everybody later today – see you all soon.

XX

Weekend at CentreParcs in the Lakes

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We set off right as school finished on Friday, dropped off Pepsi for a weekend at Grannie’s in Halifax and then got on the way to Whinfell Forest, just next to Penrith in Cumbria.

A weekend of frollocking and fun with the Thompson’s was on plan and the kids were SUPER excited.

We stopped to get the boys some McD’s in Skipton and got back on the road heading North. We arrived at the location just before 7:30pm and WOW, what a great place – checking was a drive through affair where there was very little to do other than confirm that we were indeed the Rust party of 4 (they already had the car details so knew who we were well in advance) and take our keys (little hand straps to open doors, lockers and even pay for things in certain locations) and the map and we were on our way. It was a little dark around the park, so finding our way and then unpacking the car in the dark was a little painful, but all done in just a few minutes. Sadly daddy had not properly secured his bike so it had clattered against mummy’s bike on the way and broken off the water bottle holder and the bike lock that we were to use for locking the bikes up at the lodge.

The lodge was AWESOME – a two story affair with 4 big bedrooms and a massive living space in the downstairs. We took the upstairs and quickly the boys and mummy got settled in while David showed daddy where to dump Bruce for the rest of the weekend.

We had a lovely meal (the adults) and the beer was flowing nicely so we all retired at just before midnight as a big day was going to be starting soon. Then it happened, Olly was up at around 2:30am and so we took him in with us for the remainder of the night – then he was up again at 6am, being sick – not good. Then he told us that he had been sick in his own bed, and sure enough the poor monkey had been a little. So after cleaning it up, it became clear that poor Olly was not well and was unlikely to be getting better any time soon 🙁

He wanted to stay in bed so we knew immediately that this was to be a problem for us all 🙁 Mummy staying in the lodge with Olly while daddy went swimming with Elliot and the Thomson’s.

The facilities at the centre were all undercover which was really nice and the pool area was really really good. Elliot and daddy made use of all the slides and pool areas, including the outdoor slide (which was really hot considering it was so chilly out) AND the outdoor pool which again was really hot (almost like a bath) and fun.

When we returned to the lodge, it was clear that Olly was still very unwell (he had managed to get to sleep so we left him to sleep for an hour or so) and that he was not going to be coming outside today 🙁

Elliot and daddy went to the tree top trek with the Thompson’s while mummy stayed in with Olly (mummy didn’t fancy the trek so was OK with being couped up longer) and we rearranged the SPA session that Julie and Mummy were supposed to be enjoying for Sunday afternoon.

We had a great time on the trek and whil Elly was unsure in the first half of the session (he and daddy went last in the group of 6), he wanted to lead the second (the BIG section) and once he got going, there was no stopping him – hopefully the video that daddy took with his SunnyCam glasses (new ones were returned to him just this week following their breakdown in Llandegla in January) will be spot on and show him shooting off like a pro.

The final zipwire was a load of fun and all had a great time.

We managed to get Olly out for dinner at Hucks in the village centre, but sadly he was sick again in the night 🙁

We managed to get all of us out on the bikes on Sunday morning for an hour or two and so got some fresh air which definitely helped Olly.

We set off for home once mummy had been to relax in the SPA (about 5:15pm) and got home at just before 7:30pm, in time for bath before stories and bed. Daddy nipped back to Halifax to pick up Pepsi just in case we had more sickness with Olly overnight (hence we would not have been able to collect the poor old mutt 🙁 ) and the weekend was over.

So, sadly, we were not able to really enjoy the park for all it was, although it was still a great weekend with great friends – just hope that we haven’t put them off doing it again some time…

 

St Valentines Day by the sea

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We got up and head out to Bridlington for the afternoon. Fish and Chips for lunch at a great little chippy near the sea front – Elliot’s choice and it was GOOD.

Then some fun in the amusement arcades around the promenade before getting our wellies on and taking a nice walk along the beach paddling in the sea.

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It was cold in the wind but the sun came out to help make it a fun afternoon. Olly had a little power nap on the way home and the boys enjoyed a cheeky McDonalds on the way back to the house.

We definitely had a fun St Valentine’s Day this year and will be back on the coast soon.