Staycation Fun

Jam packed week

I don't really know where to start (except at the beginning) but we had an amazing staycation, and for the first time ever when not going away, we really feel we had a holiday AND we got to tick lots of our list as well as add things to the list (then tick them off!)

Legoland

The fist activity was to go to a theme park, we had a lot of discussion over which one to go to and in the end opted for Legoland, which was a great choice. Olly loved the mini land, they both loved the Star Wars mini land and we all enjoyed the rides (me, maybe not as much as the others!) my favourite was the log flume, mainly as we only had a 15 minute queue!  We all loved the sharks and fish in the Atlantis ride though, and the mini land is always going to be fascinating.

Day at the Beach

Technically we had already ticked this one off, but his time we decided to inclued the dog. This was actually very successful and we all had a lovely day at the beach, playing games, swimming and flying the kite. The dog only cried for about 10 minutes if we all left him to go to the sea!

 A morning at home

We managed to tick a few things off - family bike ride - this was our first bike ride with us all riding bikes and was like a little adventure!

We also made some homemade ice cream - this was delicious, I literally just put some cream, a spoon of icing sugar and some frozen strawberries in a blender and hey presto - yummy strawberry ice cream!

BBQ- we have had many BBQs over the summer but this was just a family BBQ for lunch and I felt it deserved a mention, it was absolutely delicious!

Canoeing and catching crayfish

Canoeing was not on the list, but should have been. Fishing was on the list! Some very kind friends took us out for the afternoon, canoeing and cray fish catching and it was the most idyllic afternoon of the holidays, very peaceful and relaxing (even with our boys!) the boys loved catching the cray fish, Olly particularly loves holding them! The dogs also joined in! On the water is such a lovely place to be, we saw a huge heron, a sea snake and a duck brushed my shoulder as he flew past! The boys also enjoyed getting VERY dirty on the banks!

Going to see Granny and Baba

This was on our list and I can't believe we only managed one visit in the whole 6 weeks, but we had a lovely afternoon playing in the garden and of course cooking our catch from the day before. We also pitched the tent in preparation for the camping weekend ahead!

Camping weekend

Aside from the tent getting broken, the car braking down and the torch not working, we had an amazing weekend camping at the Langlands leisure centre and the weather was almost always kind!  Thanks to Olly being such a lovely boy and twisting Baba round his little finger, we had a brilliant display of fireworks after a delicious BBQ (where we had invited guests!). Over the weekend we had so much fun, playing rounders, stomp rocket, boules, tennis, biking, scooting, fire making, picking fruit and veg, water sliding and for me sitting, chatting and tea drinking! The boys just thrive on being outside and having free reign of the Langlands campsite (Robin included!), the addition of great friends was a bonus all round! Olly was absolutely delightful (most of the time) and Thomas was on the verge of his first holiday romance - all very lovely! 

We also ticked going to a fair off, as we spent a very chilled out afternoon at Southsea, watching the most amazing display of kites, playing in the sea and spending some time in the amusement arcades! Thomas even successfully skimmed a stone or two.

Return to normal

It was not so hard returning to normal as my very kind in-laws have got the boys to stay for a holiday this week, so not a lot will be crossed off the list as I am childless for a few days.  After handing the boys over at our half way point, i spent the entire afternoon cleaning - this was in fact very therapeutic especially knowing t would stay that was for a few days! Robin and I had a lovely day though yesterday starting with brunch on the terrace and  ending in an evening at Gunwharf  with 3 hours spent trying to lose £20 in the casino, in fact we came home with and additional £80 so not bad
and lots of fun!

Today Robin is back at work and I am spending the day painting chairs and booking holidays!

We only have a few things to tick off now and a week to do it. 

As always if you have bothered to keep scrolling down, thank you!

Quite Few Days

Quiet Weekend - yeah right!

Well, this weekend was going to be a quiet one and actually has been relatively, whilst at the same time being able to tick off quite a few from the list!

There was great excitement Friday morning as we found a frog in the paddling pool - not sure who was more excited the boys or the dog!

After I had taken the boys to see Monsters University on Friday afternoon,  we got stuck in the most almighty traffic jam causing my 20 minute journey to turn into just over 2 hours, 45 minutes of which were taken up by an off the wall tantrum from Olly who then proceeded to sleep for an hour.

That evening we had planned a family games night which was good fun even if we were all exhausted from our monster journey home, although we do need to work on the ability to lose gracefully - Thomas won (Robin lost)!

The boys then all trooped outside armed with a midnight feast to camp in the garden. I could still hear them all chatting pretty late but found it quite cute that the 3 of them were having fun!

Saturday was our 11th wedding anniversary and we had planned on a quiet family day. This didn't really happen with the tiredness levels due to camping!

We started the day with some one to one special time with the boys which we alternate at weekends. Olly and I tie-dyed some t-shirts whilst Robin and Thomas played football.

 
 We then all went bowling - this was also a chance to work on our losing - Olly thrashed us all and Thomas and I were pretty gracious losers!

After bowling Robin took the boys swimming which they had been badgering him to do ALL day! I was looking forward to a relaxing hour, but this didn't happen as the dog decided it was his turn for attention!

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day - the most excitement we had was emptying the paddling pool, which I almost think the boys enjoy more than playing in it! It creates a massive flood, which this time was used as a shower.

We are slowing introducing the boys to Robin's extensive collection of 80s films, so in the afternoon we all watched Brewster's Millions with some popcorn.  The day was marred slightly by the behaviour of #2 who just seemed to have got out of bed the wrong side!

Monday was my last day alone with the boys for a week as we are going on "Staycation"!

We ticked NOTHING off the list today! We did go to Reading for lunch with Robin which was a disaster due to Thomas's behaviour at the table.

Olly and I felt something had to happen this evening so whilst we were waiting for tea to cook we made a butterfly feeder - I am not convinced the wasps won't like it just as much but we will wait and see. Of course we hung it up just as all the butterflies had gone to sleep.

I am off on "staycation" now for a week which we have decided includes no Internet or television, so the next blog will be a long one!

If you really have got this far, even if just by scrolling down, thank you!

Boredom

A Bit of Boredom

Today did indeed involved some boredom, but to my surprise the boys coped very well and if I think about it the reason they are never bored is because they do indeed very quickly find things to do.

We usually watch TV for an hour in the morning when normal people are still asleep (only half an hour in term time) but due to bad behaviour this had been banned this morning so they did have to find something else to do, which they did very effectively. They are so much nicer together when TV is banned. Last November we did have a ban on TV that lasted until CBeebies the Christmas specials started - it was amazing the change in the boys behaviour. We will be doing this again once school starts. This is in fact how my activity lists started as I had one then to stop the "need" for TV.

Anyway where was I....

After a morning of tennis again we did have a quiet afternoon, it involved them playing on the Wii for 40 mins whilst I listened to a pod cast, but then we (I) had to do something that didn't involve a screen so we went out to get supplies for some experiments! Our main purpose was to make Elephants Toothpaste. I got this idea from a great blog Fun at home with kids

As we were getting the equipment ready the boys totally stressed me out so I chucked them outside (to experience boredom!) for 15 minutes in order for me to calm down. I looked out and they were doing chalk "paintings" (very handily on the list so now ticked off!) which was lovely to watch - lets call it modern art!

 

Then we got back to Elephant Tooth Paste. We didn't get hold of the exact strength of Hydrogen Peroxide so it was not as effective, but still great fun - the boys loved playing with the foam afterwards.

This was our second attempt, we used blue colouring the first time, but they loved it so much we did it again.  It produces a very smooth foam and is very warm.

We then tried our old favourite Ketchup volcano, but improvised with a homemade volcano as I couldn't be bothered to get the "real" one. It is very effective - its just ketchup a bit of water and bicarbonate of soda. I didn't put enough ketchup in and had to top it up with vinegar hence the colour!

However I was forced to give in and get the "real" volcano which was actually not as good in my opinion!

All these experiments took about 15 mins in total (I always think it will take longer) but then the boys entertained themselves with the sand and bubbles and foam for 45 minutes (I am not exaggerating that's how I wrote this!).

It was lovely watching them, until they decided to tip all the muck, which, by that time included a lot of stones and mud, over a freshly swept patio! They did a pretty good job of tidying it up though which involved a lot of getting wet!

It has been a lovely "quiet" afternoon - but tomorrow is a trip to the cinema so even quieter really!

Thank you for getting this far I think I could get hooked on this blog writing!

Busy Day

Today has been Busy!

I am always going on about how my children are always wanting to do something (hence the list) and then I read this article today about time for boredom. 

Time for Boredom 

 

It really hit home! By not often experiencing boredom children are not getting the chance to discover things for themselves or use their imagination or rest! My children do not sit in front of a TV all day and have their time with technology very heavily restricted and it is definitely not daily (for which I am always made to feel guilty!) However they very rarely have the chance to get bored. So I am adding "Experience Boredom" onto my bucket list!

Having said all of that we have had a VERY busy today and I realised that it is all my fault that the children always want something to do! Tomorrow will be a quiet one (ish!)

After baking cookies to give to a friend and then a morning of tennis, the boys tried trampolining which they absolutely loved, even if half way through Thomas announced he had forgotten to put any pants on this morning!

 
After that we (they!) spent an hour in the soft play area which was absolutely bliss. 

Then after a very sneaky MacDs tea drive through (which is now all over the car!) we went to Frensham ponds and went pond dipping. It was great fun - I timed it perfectly to coincide with Robin passing the ponds on the way home from work so I didn't even need to get my hands dirty. The boys really loved it and there was even a fish caught amongst all the other cool mini beasts.

 

 

 All you need is a net and a bucket. AND the dog can get involved!

Tomorrow I am looking forward to some boredom! 

As always thank you for reading my waffle!

Our Summer Bucket List

I thought it might be beneficial to actually post the list on here so here it is:

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Going off list

Today we did something crazy and went off list! We did manage to tick off rolling down a hill which was great fun (for the boys!) but then we fed the ducks at the bottom of the hill. This was a bigger event then usual as we had the force of a dog chasing the ducks against us, but we did succeed in the end!

 Thanks again if you have got this far!

The Summer Begins

Summer Bucket List

I have not done anything like a blog since I wrote a diary every day for 10 years - last day was written 10 years ago!

I can't see why anyone would want to read what I write, so I am going to write it for my benefit!

As the 6 week summer holidays approached I was dreading the time with no routine or time out for me so I had to come up with something. I like to be organised and I like to have things to do. The boys bicker continually if we don't have plans. So after much Internet searching and blog reading I decided a bucket list was on the cards. We all sat down together to compile this list with tick boxes and a goal to tick them all off. It means that we always have some idea of what we can do.

This blog is going to act as a diary of how we ticked off the items from our list. We have already ticked a few things off so the first entry will be a long one!

The first week of the holidays was a quiet one for us so we managed to tick off a few:

We went fruit picking and made our own jam - Strawspberry! It was delicious 

 Junk Modelling - this needed very little intervention from me which was nice!
 

 We made a catapult which used bamboo canes and elastic bands and was brilliant fun. I got this idea from somewhere on the Internet but cannot remember where.

 Nerf Target shooting - this was fun and very cleverly (!) the holes were too small so the boys played for a long time trying to get the bullets in (not at all easy if indeed possible at all!)

 We have captured a caterpillar (its a Gray Dagger moth) and have made a lovely home for it. Now we just need to wait for it to become a moth! a new post to follow - hopefully.

 Balloon boat races in the bath - this sounded so much fun but actually in reality was not as good as it should have been!

 Fruit pizza - this was really fun to make and I thought it tasted delicious, however boys did not! It was puff pastry with a layer of caramel then fruit and then maple syrup for "cheese"!

These are yummy chocolate and melted marshmallow biscuit sandwiches which were made for our family film night.

We are currently in the middle of trying to grow our own pineapple plant - if it works I might devote a whole post to it!

We have had a lot of fun doing other things like going to the beach, going to the cinema, playing in the paddling pool, bike rides, den building, golf lessons, spending lots of time with friends, playing in the woods and much much more. AND we are only half way through the holidays, I think I will need a holiday come September!

If you have actually got this far, then thank you for reading!