First Day of School

Needless to say, Amy had a fantastic day at Friary Playschool.

First Steps at Wayne Manor

Anna, Sam and Isaac spent a lovely weekend with us up in Nottingham. The highlight of the weekend was watching Isaac take his first steps in the back garden of Batman (quite appropriate really as one of his first words was Batman!). It was lovely to let the kids just play around in the sun and potter round the grass. Bobbie took her first steps a couple of days earlier (13th) so the pair of them learnt to walk in the same week!

It was also Stake Conference weekend and for the first time in nearly a year Dan got to attend as he wasn't working for a change. It was lovely to see so many old friends. The conference was held at the East Midlands Conference Centre in the university grounds and around 900 people attended. As we looked around the hall it seemed as though we knew and had worked with easily over half of the people there. It is quite incredible really how many people you get to know well over the years.

Grandad's Garden

Thanks to my dad we have had a well stocked fridge in the salad department. Although he hasn't done as much in the garden as he usually does, there's still plenty of edible goodies growing at the bottom of the garden. It's been wonderful to just pop outside to grab some fresh ingredients. Amy has enjoyed helping me gather and eat it too.

 Girlies having garden fun.

Laura Comes To Town

We saw a lot of the Stephenson's during September. There were quite a few occassions to visit. One of those included a very rare treat of Laura coming to town to visit us and our little ones. She was over from Australia for a few weeks and managed to see us (thanks for driving all that way Laura). We had a very chilled out afternoon chatting and letting the kids have some fun at the park. Laura is creating a wonderful life for herself out in Perth. Hopefully it won't be too long before we see her again... you never our next meeting may be on the other side of the world!

 Big swings for BIG girls.

                                               

One of Bobbie's favourite things to do.

Araujo's Visit Nottingham

We spent a wonderful sunny weekend with the Araujo's. We miss you guys so much!!

Fun In The Sun

This is what summer is all about. We just had a right laugh and got totally soaked.

Camping In North Wales

It has felt as though we haven't had a holiday for ages, so a bit of time off we decided to head to the hills and have a short break in North Wales. The weather wasn't on our side like it had been earlier in the year in the Yorkshire Moors. We spent the first night up at the Preston Temple and stayed over night in the accomodation there. We had a lovely little visit and really good for all of us to be there together.

The next day we stocked up with supplies and headed to the hills. I'm really gutted because I managed to copy over all of our holiday pics, the ones that I have left are a random selection of the discarded images which thankfully were safe in the Recycle Bin. Anyway, they give you an idea of what we did and bring back a lot of fun memories for me.



 Tryfan

Originally we planned to camp up in the hills by Tryfan, but it was far too cold and windy so instead we settled for a walk on our first afternoon and headed down the valley towards Caernarfon to look for a site.

 All wrapped up and ready to go we wanted to head on a little circular hike towards the visitors centre then back to the car.... unfortunately we missed our path and ended up hiking over Tryfan the big, pointy, very steep and very rocky mound. Amy had tottled up the hill with no difficulty at all, once we realised our error it was at the stage where it would have been a lot worse to go back (It was really very steep and steep things son't tend to bother me). We just carried on and careful picked our way down the otherside with both girlies on our backs. It ended up being quite a hike.

 A local mountain goat seemed to find us quite amusing. He got on top of the rock and made what sounded to me like laughing sounds! It was nice to have a little company up there though.

 Safe and sound in our tent. We found a lovely site called Riverside Camping just outside Caernarfon. Amy was instantly attracted to the play park and spent most of the rest of the holiday playing with other kids from the campsite.

 The next day we headed into Caernarfon, bringing back loads of lovely childhood memories of caravan holidays with the Devines in Coed Helen. The castle is well worth a visit if ever you get a chance. We spent hours exploring the castle. There are various little exhibition rooms, but I really enjoyed trying to navigate all the pathways and little dark corridors leading to steps and yet more steps. The views from the turrets were stunning. A really enjoyable visit.

For the rest of the afternoon we explored the town. Towards dinner the weather really started to come in just as we headed up a vantage point overlooking the Castle and Menai Straights. We really had to hold onto our hats as we were blown about. My old and trusty camping stove that I had purchased many years ago in the Cinque Terre sadly met its death, we had no means of cooking back at the camp site. With the weather cold and miserable we sheltered in Morrisons Cafe for haute cuisine.  

 On the last day we headed out for one last drive throught the hills. We found a lovely vantage car park point round the back of Snowdon. Again stunning views and a fun picninc lunch in the car. I'm looking forward to exploring Snowdonia more it's so lovely to be out in the hills.

We also stopped off at Sychnant Pass for a beautiful quick hike, with gorgeous views out over Conwy and back towards Anglesey. The heather was perfect and in full bloom.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Llandudno and had fun on the beach in the last of the afternoon sunshine. We had such an exciting and interesting little holiday, we seemed to manage so many lovely things in such a short space of time. Although Bobbie hasn't quite got the hang of camping yet.... Amy was far easier at the same age, I guess she also had lots more camping experience compared to Bobbie.

We had one last stop of in Chester Sainsburys for freshly cooked pizza and getting the girls all washed down, teeth brushed, pyjamas on and ready for bed.

All in all a wonderful holiday full of fun memories.