The bank holidays

A very busy few weeks, I took time off to visit family and rest, managed to visit family still trying for the rest...

Stayed for a week with my mother, and got to spend time with Helen and Joel and see Sue and Leroy, mixing in lots of Paccitos ice-cream and of course parmasan nom nom

Got a chance to go and see my father's allotment, now that he's been retired a year he has really got to grips with it and we went and picked rhubarb and then made crumble  to go with it, love home made rhubarb crumble.

One of the lads at the allotment keeps pigeons and races them, he is not sure how many he has but there did seem to be lots of the little buggers 'flying rats' as far as I'm concerned, but Connor liked them and even held some of the babies, a few that were 3 days old, they didn't even look cute to me.

Joel is now three months old and changing a great deal, I cannot believe how big he is, Helen is a great mum bless her and seems to be taking it all in her stride, too many people putting their two pennith in though, she needs to trust her own instincts more.

Both Connor and Joel aren't christened and Helen is Connor's Godmother, she has asked Connor to be Joel's Godfather, he is very moved by this and taking it very seriously.

We went to the Owl Sanctuary again, love that place the birds are amazing and they have a few Mere Cats too.

Did a few photos of William and Stokes

A trip home isn't complete without a walk on the beach, brrrr

When we got back we met up with Brett who was our Best man and him and his daughter Gaby are extended members of our family, no matter how long we go without seeing each other we seem to be able to fall straight back into things.  Brett is getting married in August, his future wife is called Claire and we met her about a year ago and she is lovely, we spent a great day in Thorpe Park, the kids and the boys went on most rides, Claire got dragged on one other than that we sat in the sun whilst they queued.  They then came back and stayed the night.

Next morning we had to pack the car up to head into London, well Essex to go to Gregg's Birthday Lunch, which was held in a restaurant called The Dockyard, which was an award winning nouveau cuisine!  always looks pretty but a tiny amount of food on a large plate does not do it for me.  It was nice to see everyone though and although we did get stuck in traffic, it being Bank Holiday Friday and all, it was nice.  We went back to Gregg's afterwards and we must of realized that we would still be hungry as we had curry in the car, and of course we all had curry and rice, I mean who doesn't drive somewhere for the night with a Tupperware box of curry in the car?  We stayed the night at Sue's, lovely house.

Back on the road the next day as I had the Camp Easter Egg hunt to organize, 53 kids OMG why do I do this.  Laminated maps and clues as it was too hot to hid the eggs this year, approx 2,500 mini eggs and then big eggs donated by the REA.  The Egg hunt went really well, most of the kids turned up and although one team was totally useless at reading the map and finding the clues, they all seemed go enjoy themselves and at least this year I didn't lose a group of kids..

So at least a week and a half has gone and I still haven't relaxed or done any scrapping......  School went back for three days!! why on earth send them back for three days!!!

I did a lovely photo shoot with Kellie's gorgeous kids, we did an outside shoot with the swans, wasn't as warm as it has been but the kids were great as usual.

Connor wasn't happy to go back to school, but it wasn't a major issue, and although when I picked him up he had had a bad day he was still OK on the next day.

We hadn't been to the cinema for a while so we decided to go and see two films the first was Thor, we saw this in 3D and to be honest I wouldn't bother seeing it in 3D I really didn't notice any jump from the screen 3D effects, but the film was good, the eye candy Chris Hemsworth was definitely worth the look, and the effects and story were good not sure I liked the ending but without spoiling it hopefully there will be another.

This is what he looked like in the film

and this is from a photo shoot, now would love to have him in front of my camera

The second film was Arthur, with Russell Brand and the part was made for him, he was brilliant in it thoroughly enjoyed this one and laughed out loud several times.

We all decided to go to Stonehenge, kept Connor off school and did a historical trip, I hadn't been to Stonehenge since I was a child and back then you were allowed to climb on the stones, apparently we had a picnic on them.  Of course now they are roped off and you are not allowed anywhere near them.  We were still awed at the size and the history, we were given audio machines which told you about the history and the myths that surround the stones, there was a lot of things that we did not know, it was really interesting.

There was a street party organized for the Friday, I am not a royal fan so was not planning to watch the wedding but it was nice that the streets were having a get together.  I was given a side dish to make for this, and people who know me know I don't cook, the dish I was given was '3 bean salad'  my next door neighbour got garlic bread!!!!!!   I asked around and apparently it was available in a can, well the beans were anyway, after nearly puking when I opened the tins I heated them up, this didn't quite go as planned as for the past three days my face has been swollen and my eyes nearly closed due to hay fever, wow is me!!!!  anyway couldn't find glass, no way I am getting my eyes open wide enough to put contacts in so I couldn't read the instructions, and drained the contents, only to then be told by Tye that I had to cook them in the contents for 5 Min's, see I knew cooking was involved!!!!  We then looked it up on the Internet as we thought it can't be that easy and no it wasn't, we had to put in celery, onions and chives, I did warn everyone that I came in contact with to stay away from it so hopefully the food poisoning was kept to a minimum.  It was a good party, and I did managed to avoid all neighbours that I didn't want to talk too lol  Not sure what time Tye came back but he was slightly ill for the whole of the next day lol

We have been tidying the house and planning to do a car boot sale with all the stuff that we are always hording, have never done a car boot sale so should be interest.

The next couple of months are extremely busy, with functions, photo shoots, scrapping getaways, Army/Navy games etc.

Not sure whether I have put this pic up already, but am going back to my original colour, actually not sure what it is but I know its not blonde.