One week left ....

Hello! We are getting very excited here about our forthcoming trip to England next week; in fact every time we put our shoes on to go out, Esther asks, "Are we going to England now!!" I keep trying to explain but it is not sinking in well! This time next week, we shall have completed the flight there, which will be a relief! I am a bit anxious as we are coming from Vancouver this time so not only do we have to be on a plane for 10 hours, we have to get to Vancouver too! I hope that we can stop off at a park for a while, but we will see.

Hope that this finds you all well; we are fine here except that I am very tired. Silas is not sleeping well, either at night or in the day time and consequently, I am very weary. Tim had a bad night too last night and so he is tired today too, but hopefully, as he was anxious about an event today, which went well, he should sleep better tonight at least.

We are having a week of endings this week, really. It was our last gym class on Monday and it is the last school and music class on Friday. We will have our last afternoon with Maddie and Alex tomorrow (well, with it just being Vanessa and me and the children - we will see them on Monday with the guys), which is sad!

Having said that we had a busy day yesterday as we saw our friends Marie (Mum) and Caitlin yesterday morning and we will all meet on Saturday for a trip to the Folklife Festival on Saturday which should be fun. In the afternoon we saw Amy and Elisabeth, which was lovely too and we will see them when we return, which is good. We also will see the twins and their Mum when we return too, which will be fun; they are in California this week so we didn't see them. This weekend, we will see Melinda and Chad on Friday and Naomi has a birthday party to attend on Sunday, so we won't be lonely!

Today Esther and i had the morning at home (with the hope that Silas would sleep for a bit longer than 30 mins!) before collecting Naomi and having the girls' hair cut.. This afternoon we went to the supermarket where the girls could go into playland for a bit whilst I did a bit of last minute shopping.

I think we are getting there slowly. I am running out of things that i can do with the children around but am conscious that we don't have too many evenings left! I keep writing lists but as fast as i cross things off, I add at least one other thing on! I think that it will be unlikely that I will write any more blogs from this evening until we return; we will be seeing many of you in person though.

Silas is fine, so happy and smiley during the day but is just a shocker at sleeping. He doesn't take too long to go back to sleep which is good but just wakes up again a short while later. Not fun! Whilst I know that it is only a phase, I am also conscious that he will be terrible next week too! Ah well, we'll get there!

Anyway, have a mammoth pile of ironing to do this evening and need to clear up from the day too, so will end it here! Normal service will resume in about a month! Until then, take care and lots of love to you all.

Delicate rain

Good Evening. Hope that this finds you well! We are fine here. I don't think that there is too much to say tonight, so it will probably be quite a short blog today. Sorry!

Firstly, I hope that you have enjoyed the photos that Tim has posted of our trip last weekend! There are some lovely ones of Silas, which is nice! He is such a gorgeous little boy, which comes across in some of the pictures.

We had a great day on Thursday as I took the girls to the International Children's Festival in Seattle. It was a beautiful warm and sunny day and we had a lot of fun. I had bought tickets for a play - the children's first proper one - that had been specially written with the young child in mind. The play was a little surreal - a grown man playing the part of a baby - but it was about all the 'firsts' that a baby experiences during the first 2 years of life I would say and the children really enjoyed it. I did too - some of it was so accurate, it made me laugh! We sat on the floor and the actors were just in front of us so it was brilliant from that point of view. The girls really did enjoy it and were still talking about it on Friday.

After the play we went to find some craft activities - we made maracas which Naomi took into school on Friday for sharing and Esther took to music class too and we also made an origami house and a shadow puppet dragon. The girls enjoyed this bit too (obviously!!) and then we went for a play with the hoops and things outside by the fountain. After this really, it was time to go home but we had had a wonderful day.

On the way out of the Seattle Center the girls were pretending to be a gate and not let Silas and myself through. I was pushing the buggy around them and they were chasing and laughing and stopping me again. As you can imagine, we made slow progress across the hall and when we finally got to the end, it was clear that a man had been watching us and laughing too. He said to me that we were "having way too much fun". I had to agree!!

On Friday Naomi had school and Esther had music class and then in the afternoon we met up with Maddie and Alex at the park for a short time.

Yesterday we stayed at home in the morning, catching up with some jobs and then went shopping in the afternoon. We bought the girls some shoes and some tops to go with their clothes, which was good! Today we went to church this morning and then this afternoon went to see the McNiven's for a joint tea, which was fun!

It has been raining here today, quite hard at times but Naomi made me laugh yesterday when she described the rain as "delicate". I thought that was a wonderful expression and description for the rain!

That is it for now! Will write on Wednesday.

Ocean City, Washington

Hello! Hope that this finds you all well and not getting too wet with all the rain that you have been having. We are enjoying a spell of gorgeous weather at the minute but the showers are coming back over the weekend.

We returned yesterday from our trip to the beach! We were staying in a tiny tiny place called Ocean City on the Washington coast line and we have had a lovely mini break away. It was great to be able to spend some time with the McNivens too before they go next month. We were staying in a converted shop that was a short distance from the beach and it was a good size especially for two families. It was fine for the girls and for Silas but not so good for Alex, who had one or two mishaps. Nothing too serious though, thankfully!

We left on Friday afternoon having worked hard to get ready and go to Music class on Friday morning. We left a little later than planned, but still early (around 3:30) but it was incredibly slow and it too hours to do a very very short distance! In the end we ended up stopping for a short time to feed the children so that when we arrived we only had to put them to bed. We finally got there about 7:45 and the children were in bed and asleep very quickly.

Once they were in bed, we were able to enjoy a delicious meal with Vanessa and James and share a glass of Champagne in honour of our wedding anniversary!

On Saturday morning, the girls went to the beach with Tim whilst Silas was asleep (and Mummy too!) and they were successful in finding shells, crab tops and sand dollars. In the afternoon we had a lovely time on the beach digging sand castles and decorating them! Tim, Silas and James flew the kite (Silas was in the baby carrier on Tim's front!) which they all enjoyed. It was funny at one point looking over to the three of them as they were all looking up to the sky!

On Sunday we went to the Olympic National park and had a wonderful day. We had a lovely drive to the bottom of it and then had a picnic and a short walk through the temperate rain forest. It was very pretty and we enjoyed it; Tim took some lovely photos! We then had a drive through a small loop of the park and saw some very pretty waterfalls, which we enjoyed too.

On Monday we returned to the beach again and Silas had his first taste (literally!) of the sand on Monday afternoon! Although it was sunny, it was very windy and so he didn't like being out there for long. All the beaches along the Washington Coastline allow you to drive your car along it, well, in certain areas anyway, so we were able to drive the cars along the deserted beach and then park and let the children play. We sat Silas between the cars as they acted as a very efficient wind break but it was still too windy for him really. He liked the texture oft he sand though and spent a long time running it through his fingers.

yesterday we packed up the car and headed home, we had a much better journey though and arrived at Point Defiance Zoo in good time. WE had a superb time at the zoo! it was such fun! We saw monkeys, lions, elephants, huge walruses and a beautiful beluga whale that we all fell in love with! It was swimming laps and it gave us this beautiful smile as it swam past us the first time and after that we were all smitten! It was one of the nicest zoos i have ever been too, it wasn't too large, you could see the animals nicely (well, apart from the polar bears!) and it has the most magnificent view of the Puget Sound there is! I will definitely go back even though it is a bit far!

Today we have had a quiet day, which has been fun and tomorrow we are going to the International Children's Festival in Seattle and we are going to an appropriate play, which should be fun!

Hopefully will write on Sunday! Until then, bye ...!

Esther is 3!

Happy Birthday Esther! She is three today and I can't believe how time has flown by. It seems such a short time ago that Naomi was 3 and she seemed so grown up. Esther is grown up too, in many ways and independent in her dressing skills or putting her shoes on but then still likes to be fed at dinner time! Mind you, that might be more me trying to make sure she eats something!

We have had a busy day today and hope that tomorrow is quieter for all of us really! This morning we took Naomi to school and then Esther, Silas and I went to Whole Foods in Bellevue to buy sausages for lunch; the children are going to say when they are older "and when it was our birthday, we could have sausages for dinner" which is quite funny really but not when you consider that 6 sausages cost nearly $12!! Anyway, after that we popped into ToysRUs to see if I could buy an umbrella for Esther but we could only find large ugly ones and so we didn't bother!

After we had collected Naomi we came home and talked on the webcam to both Grandparents which was good and then I cooked some lunch. Melinda and Chad popped round at lunch time for a couple of hours to wish Esther a happy birthday, which was nice and then Ulrike came with the children in the latter part of the afternoon. They go on their holiday next week and aren't back until after we have left for England so it was either seeing them today or not at all for 6 weeks, which we didn't want to do! We had a lovely afternoon as the sun was shining and the children all played happily, even Silas! He was on my knee though!

Tim came home early evening and we opened Esther's presents, which was lovely and then we had a very quick tea as we had to get Naomi to her song festival at school for 6:15. This was very short lived but quite sweet and then the children came home and went to bed!

Yesterday saw an unexpected turn of events! I looked out the window yesterday morning and discovered that there was a fencing company at the house behind us. Naomi at the same time looked out the door and said "Mummy, there is a big hole in our fence!". I went out and enquired what was going on and it turned out that the family behind us had contracted this company to build a new fence, but as it was a shared fence, I was not keen on them continuing until I had some more information!

About 6 weeks ago, the lady who lives behind us rang me and said that they needed to put a new fence up in their garden so that they can let the dogs out and she asked whether we would be interested in sharing the cost of the fence as it is a shared fence. At the time, i asked her to send me some more information, quotes and stuff, and said that I would talk to Tim and get back to her but then I never heard from her. I regularly check my junk mail folder regularly anyway and so I know it wasn't in there and I just didn't hear anything from her. In the meantime I had contacted the company that had done or side fencing and they couldn't come until the 21st May even for a quote. I emailed her this information on Monday but still no reply!

Eventually I spoke to the men and get an understandi