The Deep

Della has 10 days away from school (including weekends) and her teacher has nine days off as Della keeps informing us. You can tell the tone the teacher must have said it in and the amount of times she must have repeated it to the children - I'm guessing nine days off isn't quite enough to recoup from a first half term! 

Della asked to do three things while off school

Visit her friend Annabel (who she went to nursery with but who attends a differe school) 

Go to Frankie and Bennys (a restaurant) 

See some real life penguins - preferably Gentoo 

I figured these requests weren't too unreasonable and so far we have completed two of them (we're going to Frankie and Bennys later tonight) so all we have been completed - and a whole lot more. 

The Deep (Hull) 

M

Jellyfish 

So many mirrors

Icewall! 

Real life Gentoo penguins

Gus meets sharks and stingrays in the glass tunnel 

Last weekend

This week has been half term. This meant Della got the Friday before off too so we shipped the kids up to Durham for two nights. Ridiculously this is the first time I've ever had two nights away from Della, let alone Gus. Instead of lazing around, drinking beer or going out we set to work to changing our spare room into Dellas new bedroom and giving Gus Dellas old room. After a lot of hard work, sanding, painting, building Della was very happy with it. As are we! 

Bedtime stories are different on a bunk! 

And Gus is quite happy too

Last weekend

This week Della and Gus went to stay in Dirham for a whole 2 nights - more on what we did another time. 

Last weekend though we did a small about of work in the garden before winter sets in. After a trim of the hedge Della decided to make a nest out of the cuttings. Then she asked to dress up like a bird - luckily we were able to squeeze her into the penguin jumper we made her years ago! Like a true dedicated mummy bird she sat on her eggs and warmed them until they hatched. The hatched eggs were a combination of any bird that could be found in our house - testament to the amount of stuff we have and don't get rid of of we were able to find 9 birds in just the kitchen - although one was freshly made. 

She fought off owls and eagle to protect her best - GranAnne as an owl which randomly swooped surprising Della was my favourite! 

Gus never stays still and now that it's damp pretty much all of the time changing trousers and washing his clothes has become slightly tedious so we were very happy to get him a puddle suit (let's hope he doesn't take to crawling through puddles though!) 

Note the scaffolding around our house - this is for the extension we are having built. Again there will be more on this in another post 

Bridlington

While our visitors were here we headed to Bridlington for the day. We played on the arcades and rides, went on an actual pirate ship out to sea, ate fish and chips and played on the beach. 

The Swiss family Collins

It's been over a week since all our visitors came to visit. We did lots including

Trips into town

Watching a marathon 

Visiting the seaside

A walk round a lake

And lots more. 

Unfortunately two days after they left I walked into the bathroom to find my phone in the toilet - thanks Gus! So I'm not sure how many photos I lost but here are some from the beginning of their trip here. More will follow. 

Some pics from last weekend

We had visits last weekend from lots of relatives - Uncle Ben, auntie Emily, cousin Bluet and cousin Ilona, gran Helen and uncle Nick. It was a lovely few days, and all the kids enjoyed spending lots of tone together. Here are a few pictorial highlights... 

The first morning - della woke to find Bluet in her bed! They woke up and chatted or played every morning. 

Mmm banana!

This was after lunch on day 1

'12th century church you say? Meh...'

Playing in waterstones cafe in york

Hello uncle Nick!

The Shetland ponies at allerthorpe lake were well fed with handfuls of clover after this visit.

'You need to put it into neutral first...'

'And maybe take the handbrake off too?'

We had a very good day in Bridlington which included staring out over the harbour before catching a ride on a pirate ship... 

Then sitting waiting for chips to arrive.

Then burning off the chips by climbing around. 

Dodgers

Back at home the toy kitchen proved popular with everyone including gran Helen.

On our way to watch the Yorkshire Marathon, Della showed everyone her school. 

Then we watched several thousand runners many in funny costumes, run past us. It was mile 3 and many looked like they might not make it all the way round. 

Gus received some very nice birthday presents.

Emily and Gran Helen took half of the kids to see Clifford's tower.

While the other half played at home.

When they'd returned, we took some more photos then had lunch. 

There was lots of drawing and writing.

And scary monsters.