Ketchup

It's April already! I'm behind on photos. Here's some backlog.

Lovely afternoon tea at the Landmark to celebrate my birthday.

February snow!

After a history lesson one morning, E and I started putting together a Meccano airplane. 'Scuse the laundry in the background. I was sorting; he was building.

Holding a cacao plant at a Home Ed chocolate-making workshop in Covent Garden.

Making truffles.

Rainy day homemade slide fun.

Winding up his Spitfire plane for a test flight at Kenwood.

C taking a little break from rolling down the hill. E in the background still rolling.

E's second pony ride ever, at a nearby city farm.

C's very first pony ride.

Peck, peck. Who's there? A photobombing goose.

Petting the big horse.

Funfair today on Hampstead Heath. E did an even larger slide twelve times in a row.

Trampoline funhouse.

Bungee trampolining.

Don't mess with this biker girl.

If you squint, you can just about see the kids and me on the roller coaster here.

And that's all for now! It's been busy here.

CA, Part Two

Uncle Howard, his wife Nii, and son Jack (7) arrived late at night on July 4. Dad and I waited up for a phone call, but the phone booth was broken at Manzanita, so they walked! Tell you what, in this day and age where seemingly everybody is tracked, and informs you of their littlest movement, it's almost surreal to have people... just show up! Very refreshing, too.

So, we coped with our respective jet lag. Our first foray out was an early morning walk to the local playground. We started heading to Safeway afterward, and Howard points into the distance: "That looks a lot like Derek's recumbent bike."

"That's because it is his bike," I said. Which was great, because the kids were starting to flag, and small rides on the bike really pepped them up.

Anyhoodle... pictures. We went to the Marin Headlands in two different cars, aiming for a Pt. Bonita lighthouse visit. Unfortunately, we got the timing wrong, but we did get a great little explore out of the trip, even if it was foggy.

Dad and C hanging out on a foggy Hawk Hill.

Visiting a foggy Rodeo Beach after our hike. This cooler weather arrived just in time for Uncle Howard's family to feel extra cold after flying from summertime in Thailand.

The next trip out was into San Francisco, via the ferry.

We did some walking around, some shopping... and it was so windy coming back that the kids giggled and danced for ten minutes straight. They were having so much fun. (Also, I love that E and J have the same missing-top-teeth smiles!)

Next time: B arrives! More adventures.

Home education is going well. We did two museum visits: the British Museum, and on Friday E and I went to the Science Museum, where I was pleasantly surprised to find that even on term-time weekdays, they run shows! So we went to "Flash, Bang, Wallop!" where he got to see some explosions/flames and learn that fire needs three things: oxygen, fuel, and heat. He also learned that dry ice can "sublime" from a solid straight into a gas, bypassing the liquid phase. We've hit a few workbooks this week, couple pages out of each one: Math, Spelling, Handwriting, and Science. We finished "Danny, Champion of the World" and are now halfway through a nonfiction moon landing book.

C and I are doing "Teach Your Monster to Read" which is a free, interactive online game that is a) fun and b) teaches your CHILD to read. We've been reading a book a night, lately - "Each Peach Pear Plum," and other short books she chooses daily from Nursery. During my last library visit I got her a short chapter book and read it to her in a cafe while E did some workbook pages and we all drank nice, hot drinks. It's a fun way to do things.

I have 67,000 words on the novel. Plan to put in some more time in the evenings since my time during the day is a bit eaten up by home edding.

Tomorrow we all go to S's (cousin's) 5th birthday party, which will be science-themed. We are in a cold snap but two years ago I remember at this very time (when S turned 3) everything was covered in at least a foot of snow and we went to his party with heavy snowflakes falling outside!

Long Overdue...

...update.

We have been busy! We pulled E out of school a month early (since we were moving to North London anyway) and went to California for 7 weeks. What we did there... well, that warrants about 5 blog posts on their own! Suffice it to say we had a family reunion and did a ton of stuff that was almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Uncle Howard, his wife, and son Jack (7) were there, and we were able to see many good old family friends. B, the kids and I also traveled to Mendocino for a midweek break at one point.

I hardly know where to begin with this update. Certainly I want to catalog what we did in CA, but maybe I should start with mundane matters. We're now living in the top bit of B's parents' house, with much more room than in our old flat. E is in Year 2 in a local school, and C is at the same school in Nursery, going 5 mornings a week. They seem to be settled-ish, although we have our doubts about that particular school. We may try to get them into a different one. This is mainly because a lot of the school's funding is focused on bringing children with skills below their age level up to an appropriate one. E doesn't need that, at all. Neither does C. So... we wait and see. Meanwhile, he is not unhappy there although I don't think either of them are challenged quite enough.

This year, we've taken life by the horns and really lived it. I've learned that sometimes the actual doing of things is difficult, but having done them is awesome. Like flying that Cessna in Cornwall. This year we have been to Cornwall, rural Norfolk to stay with family, California, moved to North London, and this weekend we went back to Norfolk again. We're so lucky to have family members who have access to a holiday cottage up there.

So, since CA will have to be its own updates, here are some pictures from this weekend.

E catches a crab! All the kids caught some, and we wound up with 20+ seething in our bucket. Drama ensued when a little girl next to us went right over and into the water! We helped her and her grandfather (who went right after her) out.

C stirs her witchy cauldron at the festival we went to. She was making a potion (with leaves, water, mud and her magic wand).

E and C at the top of the biggest "drop slide" in the play area we went to on Sunday. Yes, they both went down it, multiple times!

The boys conquered this tandem zip wire. It was enormous.

One last photo, from the festival's candlelit procession. The children carried jars they had decorated earlier, with little tea candles inside. There were drummers and fire dancers. It was a very cool thing.

And that's it for now. I'll do my level best to update again soon, but National Novel Writing Month begins Nov. 1. I am going to try to write a heist/thriller in about 30 days. I won't finish it, of course, but it will be fun trying.

More Cornwall

I'm on a roll, so I might as well keep going.

On Mondays, I tend to have some spare time in the morning between E's school drop-off and the beginning of C's sports class. Right now our schedule seems just right. C goes to playgroup Tuesdays and Thursdays and we do varying activities (library, park, etc) on Weds/Fri. Obviously this will all come to an end in late June, but I'm enjoying it while I can. And I'm sure I'll get into a similar groove in N. London.

One of the cool things we did in Cornwall was visit a miniature steam railway. It had a good amount of things for kids to do. Miniature golf, other miniature train tracks (all ride-on), go-karts, pedal tractors, canoes for paddling around the lake, and an adventure playground. Unfortunately, rain arrived and got us pretty wet, so we didn't enjoy it as much as we could have, but we still had a good time.

Yeah, it says minimum age 6 years, but E crossed it just fine. And he didn't get wet. This was part of the smaller, initial playground next to the station where we caught the steam train.

Cousins and children and dog all waiting to board.

E enjoyed watching the locomotive on the turntable. Found out later that the guy driving the engine was the owner of the place.

Little Red Riding C getting a hole in 20.

Rainy go-karting. These things went fairly fast!

After we got back to the holiday cottage, we built up a nice fire in the woodstove and played cards. E and I (and B) have been reading 101 Dalmatians, the original unabridged version. It's a long book for a 5 year old. He sometimes reads independently, sometimes takes turns with us. He's enjoying it.

E's school sends a lot of books home. Six per week. So he has a lot of books to read, but he's always up for a challenge. Besides, I have great memories of 101 Dalmatians.

So, that's pretty much it for Cornwall. We had a fantastic time, rain or shine, and are planning to go back in two years.

When we do, we'll probably visit the Eden Project again. We had a good time there! Those domes are biomes. One's a rainforest and the other is a Med-type climate.

C and her cousins took most of their clothes off partway through our walk around the very hot rainforest biome!

I must say, being inside felt a bit like walking onto the set of Logan's Run. Minus all those cool zippy gadgets and the very 70s garb.

There was a small natural playground outside and a fair amount to do here. Things tended to be quite hands-on and child friendly. There was also a very neat (and long, and high, and terrifying) zip wire, but that was for adults and you had to pay. Maybe next time...

June

We went on vacation last week! Or, as the Brits say, "holiday."

We stayed in a Centre*parc*s again - this time in a different location, in Wiltshire. Slightly easier to get to than the other ones, at least from our area of London, there was also the perk of driving past Stonehenge en route.

The kids really enjoyed themselves - and B and I had fun too.  E and C are small enough to enjoy the free parts of the resort - swimming, playgrounds, the "land train" that you can catch from the cabins to the central area.  B got a massage, E went to a pirates playgroup one morning, and we all generally hung out.

What's that you say?  Pics or it didn't happen?  Well then...

Kids enjoying the tire swing in one of the large adventure-type playgrounds.  This place also had huge wooden structures for kids to climb up/in.  Designed for 6+ but my kids shrugged that off and went gleefully roaming.

Feeding time for the goblins kids.  Note huge wooden structure in background.  Did I mention they were alll over that?

Oh yeah, and on the zip wire.  They both loved this.  There was actually a larger one that we stumbled upon later, but this one E could do by himself, and C wasn't too intimidated by.


Gonna leave you with one last picture because I'm running out of time to blog.  Here's E at the Pancake House enjoying a kids cocktail, a real treat for him.  The view was amazing.  I never knew how much I missed redwood trees until I left CA.  Being among them again was really nice.

That's all for now!  We have been really busy - we came home to the school fete (summer fundraiser) on Saturday and a classmate's party today (swimming party!).  Tomorrow we're settling back into the groove of school, sports class, C's playgroup, etc.  C and I are a bit under the weather but nothing terrible, probably just a bug picked up in the last few days of vacation.  Looking forward to winding down the last few weeks at school and enjoying a hopefully not-too-rainy summer.  I'll come back as soon as I can to post the last few photos.

Recent Photos/Days Out...

Got a photo backlog, so grab a cup of tea.

Easter... we dyed eggs using food coloring and shaving foam.  It didn't work too well, but the kids were pleased and, well, the eggs smelled nice and masculine.

For UK Mother's Day I got a very nice breakfast in bed with a homemade card and ornament.

A few weeks ago, we went to a farm in Surrey with animals to pet and a huge outdoor playground.

I have no pictures of the kids actually playing (we went with another family and their trio) but here's the aftermath:

I built a playhouse (plastic, flat-pack) in the garden.  Humphrey the classroom bear came home with E to enjoy our home life for a weekend.

We visited Kew, multiple times.  Went yesterday, in fact, and traipsed to one of the far corners and saw a tower we'd never seen up close, plus the bamboo garden.  Here's C on a swing in the playground.

And that brings us to today.  We went to visit the Bekonscott Model Village.  There's a scaled-down train that takes you for a short ride through the grounds.  Here's E, C and their cousin S enjoying:

Then we traipsed through the model village itself.  It was a wonder of detail, and frozen in the '20s/'30s or thereabouts.  Of course, many small model trains ran through the place, under bridges, through detailed stations, etc.  The children paused many times just to watch....

E found the signal box.

So much detail in this village, very impressive.

And... that's me, 99% caught up with photos.  I have a few more I'd like to post, but the site's being slow now.  So there may be a small Part 2 to this model village post.  For now - I'm planning to get cracking on my wordcount for the day.  This novel won't write itself, etc.