Ups and Downs!

Hi there! How are you? We are fine here although we have had a weekend of ups and downs! All in the course of life I suppose! We have had a sunny day today, which has been lovely and we enjoyed playing out at the park this afternoon. It has been so wet here this week that even us Brits have been complaining!! Naomi asked me on Thursday morning as we were driving to school in the driving rain "When will the winter end, Mummy?" She was not impressed when I told her that this was in fact summer!

Esther, Silas and I did the shopping on Thursday morning before coming home for a bit and collecting Naomi. I spoke to Vanessa at lunch time and the children and I read stories before going swimming. After Swimming we went to see Grania, Hugo and Aoife at their house for an hour or so; I was disappointed in Silas this time as he did not play well with Hugo, having done so well last week! Never mind, he is only little!

In the evening, I went to my Book Club, which was in Alki Beach; by this time, the rain had cleared somewhat and I had a lovely drive to the meeting. The book club was fun, although there is a new and very irritating member, and I drove home with a magnificent sight of Seattle in front of me. Although we have lived here for several years now and have visited Alki Beach on a number of occasions, it was the first time I had seen the view at dusk. It was extremely pretty, there was a ferry boat going across the Sound and Seattle looked lovely all lit up. It was an extra treat!

On Friday it was too wet to walk and so Silas and I did some jobs; we took a dinner to our friends who have been sick, called in at the community center in Crossroads to collect a programme of Summer events and then had time to take Silas to the Play time at the Issaquah Community center, which was good! Silas is addicted to playing basketball and will spend ages trying to throw a ball into the hoop and usually wants me to help him! I can't get him to play soccer (as a good English child would do!) but all he wants to do is play basketball! A real American!!

On Friday afternoon we went to the Kidzbounce bouncy place with Brooke and Blake, Naomi and Esther's friends from school. It was packed! I think everybody decided that it had been such a wet week that the children needed a good play somewhere indoors! We saw other families that we knew there too which was nice! We then went back to Blake and Brookes house for a little while; we had a good time! Arden (the mother) has just returned from a trip to Russia (she works for Boeing I think) and had stopped in London on the way home. She had brought with her a huge box of Thorntons Chocolates and asked if I had heard of them!!! I did get one too!! Yummy!!!

Yesterday, we spent most of it at home really although we had a family over for dinner in the late afternoon. Nathan and Emily have a little boy, Ethan who is 6 months old and they were rather amazed to see Silas who was up to his knees in puddles, hands covered with mud (and goose poo, at one point!). I pointed out that this would be Ethan in a years time, which rather scared them I think!!

The children were in bed a little later than normal but I wasn't too worried as today is Sunday. However, something has got into Naomi in the last 24hours  or so and she took over 2 hours to get to sleep. she kept on crying and saying that she was coughing and in the end coughed so much that she made herself sick. she got herself into a right old state and in the end I put her in our room and laid down with her until she was nearly asleep. We were concerned yesterday that perhaps she was sickening for something but she has been fine most of today, although she has had a couple of occasions where she has started to get worked up again. For some reason, she has got it into her head that if she coughs she is going to be sick and can't stop although when she is calm or like today, distracted from it she has been fine. Understandably, I haven't had much patience with her this evening when she started again 5 minutes after going to bed! hopefully though she will go to sleep soon and have a good sleep; she must be shattered.

Today after church we found a fun park to have quite a long play in, which was lovely. The structure is the same make as the park near Mum and Dad's and even has one of those funny shaped roundabouts that Dad fell off last year! The children all enjoyed themselves, although Silas was playing football and fell over and bit his lip! There was blood everywhere but actually isn't that bad! After we finished at the park, we called into see Chad and Melinda as they literally live only 3 minutes away, which was good as we haven't seen much of them lately.

Esther is fine and said to me today that she would like to be in the Bible! She goes through her day, singing along, much to her teacher's despair I think and is usually a happy child! She has been eating quite well recently although still would prefer to do anything other than eat half the time and will pick out tiny bits of 'meat' that she can spy! she is doing some wonderful drawings at present, which is good!

Silas is fine too! His favourite toy today has been my colander and a ball which he has spent all the time we were at home throwing into the air and running after it! He even went into church happily this morning although didn't stay in nursery on his own at all! At least he has stopped crying the moment we approach the building though!

Well, that is it for now, this is our last week of school which is great but I am really hoping that the weather will improve! The holiday will go much more smoothly if the children are able to get to a park each day!