To the beach!

We've been to the beach mostly this summer (I know we posted already about this). WHenever Jonah has had a mate round we've headed for Petit Port or Marble Bay - Cara's mates are a little too small to take on a hike like that, but so saying Cara usually accompanies the boys.

And at Petit Port there were more waves - and bigger!

We also went down to Ladies bay to look for razor clams. No luck yet, but we'll try again some other time.

Cara's tooth

Cara lost her first tooth the other day.

She wanted to keep it, so she had to write a letter to the tooth fairy asking for the money, but also asking to get the tooth back.

In the morning, there was the tooth, and there was the money. That fairy's a soft touch!

Bake on!

Still baking

Still eating.

Sea side

One of the commonest threads linking most of the days of the summer holidays (for the children at least) is going to the beach. They're in the water every time we go down and most of the beaches have been right on the doorstep. Now that the water's really warm (by comparison) we're all swimming in the sea regularly.

Even if it's not too sunny, they've been playing in the waves and generally having an awesome time. These ones are taken from when we were at Petit Port with Jack & Harry:

And of course there's alot of jumping off the rocks (as you'd expect):

You can never miss with the beach. Always a winner.

I wocup

Cara and Jonah have been writing diaries over the summer hols, partly to keep a record that they can look back on in years gone by and partly to keep some vague link with the school work that they don't have over the break.
Jonah's writing some genuinely good stuff, really funny and engaging. Cara's drawings are completely awesome. Perhaps we'll get round to scanning in some of the entries before long.

Regatta '09

So we all went down to the Regatta and the weather was awful. Still. there was a decent crowd throughout the day and the kids joined in and even came 1st (equal) in the sandcastle competition (out of 2):

The kids went off with Grandma so that the parents could carry on helping out and doing the bay swim etc. All in all a good day, if a little cold and long.

(That last one is Lenny shortly before the swim)

Jethou

In an attempt to catch up with family blogging, here's a few images of our "recent" trip to Jethou. Grandma bought us a trip to the island when the National Trust were granted permission to go there with a group of visitors.

Much as you'd expect, it's a small island which takes an hour or so to walk around (even with small children). But it is relatively untouched and it's quite something to sit on top of an island that no one usually gets access to. Needless to say, it's beautiful there.

Accesorize and pamper

Ankle bracelets and hair straightening. What have we let ourselves in for?

Beads from Gran and Pampa.

Nice beads.

Happy 8th Jonah

Jonah was 8 last weekend. He had two mates around to play and got a skateboard and a chocolate fudge cake amongst other things - lucky boy:

On the road

And not too soon after learning we all go for an ice cream down the road:

If you look closely, you can still see the chocolate covering most of her face.

Cara's 5th Birthday

Cara is 5. Were it not a period of time that is rigorously defined as 365 days, we would say that it has taken an age for her to get here.

She got a scooter and a DS, for which she has been angling for a long time.

Happy? She's very happy.

And what kind of cake did she ask for? A chocolate cake with pink icing. Why not?

Bread and cakes

It's open season on wheat.

We've been struck by an addiction to flour-based cooking and the results, which have been consistently awesome, are now all gone. In fact, they tend to disappear within five to ten minutes.

Oh well, at least we're brimming with Omega-6.

Cyanotypes

Meriel' been making gorgeous cyanotype prints as a result of an inspirational visit from Helen

Many more to see here.

The evolution of a bike rider

So now it's Cara's turn to learn how to ride a bike. It's been a while since we posted anything here, so here's the sequence of her learning.

First we start with the "Parents run alongside the bike bending over to hold the rider upright" routine. Thankfully this doesn't last long, but my my, isn't it killer on the back:

Then we move on to the individual starting, which looks a bit wobbly and works without the benefit of good breaking, but at least the back doesn't ache any more:

Once that phase is over, it's pretty much plain sailing and she's off and running:

Bye Cara, don't forget to write when you get where you're going:

Lazy Saturday

No orchestra for Jonah on Saturday, so we all had a nice lazy day:

Although Cara does look a little worried about it. Don't worry , Cara.

Foraging again

We went on the hunt for sea spinach and rock samphire and found loads of each at Petit Port.

Meriel pickled the samphire and made the spinach into filo parcels with feta cheese - yum.

Here's the parcels:

And here's the samphire prior to pickling:

Now we've just got to wait 4 months before eating it. How long!?

Finally Meriel and Jonah went on the hunt for Alexanders, which were peeled and steamed. Nice:

Meriel's Birthday

Meriel's 39.

So we made her some cakes:

Perhaps we got a little carried away, but hey.

She got some PMC (precious metal clay) stuff for making jewelry along with some really nice books.

Oh, and we went to Petit Port for lunch - beautiful weather. We just had a packed lunch and watched the tide coming in. Here's the spot:

Happy Birthday, Meriel

Ben's Christening

We went to Ben's Christening last Sunday and, without being able to find anything in a shop which would convey a deep enough feeling of love and money, we all went home and made the nearest thing to it ...

... fairy cakes!

We each made one and put them in this really snazzy box we found in town.

Now, surely that was better than shop-bought tat, wasn't it?

And it was fun.

London after the holiday

We stayed with Meriel folks for a few days after we returned from the ski trip. No guessing which restaurant we went to when we hit Soho:

Skiing! Eeeeek!

So we went on this skiing holiday and knock me down if it wasn't completely perfect.

We went to La Plagne in the Alps and got good snow every day. Neither Meriel or myself are wildly experienced, but it was far and away the best conditions we'd ever seen.

The kids had a lovely time, going to ski school in the morning and bum-boarding and eating cake in the afternoon - what's not to like?

I was waiting to stitch together some images from the holiday which is why this post is so late, but I just haven't got round to it, so here's some of the other images from the trip:

Here's Chalet Ingrid, where George, our fantastic chalet host, lookaed after us with sublime food and daily cakes (yum):

I'll post some videos and some other images when I get round to uploading them.