Russell, Sarah & Georgie

They came to visit again and this time we had pretty good weather. Lovely to see them all as usual, and we'll be seeing them again as they're getting married later this year (not Georgie).

Here's Jo and Georgie making a cake:

Cara's 4th Birthday

Cake!
Originally uploaded by Lenny&Meriel

Cara was four on Monday. We had a very small family party, as she and Jonah will be having a shared party on the 8th June with all their friends.

Not long now 'till she starts school.

Recent images of the kids

Just a visual update. Their Birthdays are coming up soon. Must organise party.

Kayaking with the boys

Kayak fishing weekend
Originally uploaded by Lenny&Meriel

We went out with Ant & Ash from Outdoor Guernsey and a load of other people and Jack and Steve came along. So we stuck the boys in this three man sit-on-top and I paddled. We stopped halpf way through so that the boys could go rock climbing and Meriel led them to a spot where they found some pirate treasure. Who would have guessed that all those gold coins would have chocolate in them. Pirates, eh? Chuh!

Lenny's been making stuff

As per usual. This time, however, at least one of the projects is useful:

Cara's Story's

Cara has been drawing pictures and then dictating the story's in the picture to Meriel. here's the set on Flickr. There are more to come, she seems to have an inexhaustable supply.

For my money this is the best one at the moment:



It reads like this: "Mr Shelley walked and walked and he found the cage and she didnt know how to get in it again. And then he found a key he locked the door but it was still closing he couldn't get out. It was still closing so he couldn't get out. He was sad and sad and sad cos he couldn't lock the door. His fingers were too little. He was turning into a baby. He couldn't get out of the cottage cos he was turning into a baby. And he was called Mr Shelley baby. That's a very long story though.
Mr Shelley trips over at the beginning. She does. She does at the beginning. No, she does it at the end. She does. She just does, cos she does. He had blood on her toe. The doctor was sad. The doctor was cross. The doctor was cross and sad again."

Nice one Cara.

Meriel's Birthday

So we're obviously catching up on the blog, because Meriel's Birthday was a few weeks ago. Here's the card that we all made for her. the kids did themselves and we all did some of the other people at the party:

Jonah's Handwriting

Jonah's handwriting has been improving alot recently:



This was a picture of a board where they display handwriting achievements in St Martin's Primary School. Well done Jonah.

Jonah's Tooth

Although we're only posting this now, Jonah lost his first big tooth (he's lost the two front lower teeth already):



Well, he looks pretty happy about it.

Coasteering

Lenny Coasteering
Originally uploaded by Lenny&Meriel

We went out Coasteering for Lenny's Christmas presentand it was fantastic. It's basically scrambling over rocks, jumping off them into the sea and getting swept up and down gullies by the swell. Did I mention the rock climbing? Excellent persuit - we'll be doing this again very soon.

More images, here

Christmas, but faster

At Alan's house this Christmas we all decided that the delays usually suffered because of the drawn our present-giving should be overcome by doing thewhole thing alot quicker.



In reverse, we found that the whole thing looks alot more sustainable, what with all the presents being broken down into their constituent parts and eventually returned to the earth, adding to the natural resources and capturing carbon.

The strangest thing ...

And so it was that Jonah & Bebe were sitting in the exact same places as they were three years previously. As soon as I realised I ran for the camera and these are the results ...



The thing with Cara not being in the earlier one is quite odd. Even weirder is the fact that they seem to be eating the same thing.

Cider with Foley

We went down to the Foley's annual cider pressing again this year.

First we all had a go pulping the apples in the crusher:



Then we helped fill up the press:



Lovely day punctuated by pumpkin soup and sausages.

The other pictures are all here

Halloweeny

Jo and Cara went out trick or treating last night and the most we could persuade them to dress up in was a mask and face paint.



and here are the pumpkins from the party before we went out:

Making tracks

So we were making a train track in Cara's room and filmed it in a time-lapsey kind of way. Sadly the batteries dies before the train could get going.

Cara

Just to illustrate the growing up thing, here's a couple of recent images of Cara:





The butterfly face painted image was from when we went to a party. Cara overcame her shyness to have her face painted and I'm sure she'll want to do it again, being as she was, very pleased with the result.-

Jonah's sticker book

Jonah's sticker book
Originally uploaded by Lenny&Meriel

Jonah finished his first year two sticker book, clever boy.

His teacher is leaving at the end of term to have a baby - it's a carbon copy of what happened last year.

Meanwhile Cara is going to pre-school three times a week and sometimes staying for lunch. She's growing up.

Viola

Jonah is now at the age where he is becoming eligible to do all sorts of activities - poor old Cara has just got to wait a little longer and she'll be able to do the same.

The two main stories are that Jonah has joined Beavers (like small scouts/cubs) and loves it very much. The other thing is that he's been accepted to learn the Viola and is very happy about the instrument he's been given to look after:

Catching up with the Summer

I've left the blog for a while so here's a quick catchup in very basic chronological order:

First there were the Gate family. Here's George from the kite:

Then, the Bayfords were over which was great for the kids. Much jumping off rocks, sandcastles and beach stuff in the lovely summer sun:

And the other big event of the summer hols was the trip to England for Gran & Pampa's fiftieth wedding anniversary, which was endowed with lovely weather again:

Rib ride in the fog

I think this may be a really old video, from about three montha ago, but it was a Youtube experiment, so I'm posting it up as a kind of experiment - and a memory of a foggy rib ride. Jonah is loving it in the passenger seat.