A short holiday

We're back tonight from a long weekend/short holiday up by the North York Moors. We really had a lovely time; all of us enjoyed Marisca deciding she wanted to spend most of the time with daddy.

We had a trip to Scarborough where risky was enchanted by the creatures at the sea life centre, particularly the sharks in the underwater tunnel (pictured). She enjoyed the castle too and the little train. Yesterday was spent with a variety of playgrounds, and today we had a walk on the moors. The top was a disused railway line so easy walking for her. At one point she turned round and said "my happy, my laughing" which made us both very happy too.

Going shopping

Shopping is one of Marisca's best and favourite things. She's actually quite good at it, checking the quality of each item before putting it in the trolley. Saturdays aren't great though as it's busy at the supermarket so today most of the time was spent in the trolley, rigorously checking the quality of the grapes.

It's a fun thing to do together.

Playing with my cousin

One of the most fun things about our holiday was Marisca enjoying playing with Elliot, her 3-week-older cousin.  Of course, being 2 year olds, there were also disagreements and tantrums but when they were getting on it was lovely.



Usefully, when it came to playing with the ride-on tractor, Marisca's favourite thing was riding and Elliot's was pushing.

Probably the favourite game, reprised many times, was hiding behind the curtain together and then rushing out and over to whichever people happened to be hanging around.  On this occasion they both decided to crawl instead!

A round up of the week wouldn't be complete without a picture of the ball.  Number one favourite toy I think, which became much more fun when a second ball appered so they could have one each (thank you Grandma).

The Mosedale et al family

I'm not sure I'd not miss somebody's surname out, so I'll stick with Mosedale in the title of this post, since we were celebrating the 40th anniversary of the two Mosedales at the bottom of the frame.

We spent a great week with the family in Devon, and particularly enjoyed the weekend with the ruby wedding celebrations.  I think I got a photo of everyone here with my papparazzi lens: if you managed to escape, congratulations.  I think that's Dad, Sarah, and me but we're all in the main shot!

Olympic torch

A little bit chronologically suspect, but for posterity I'm recording our trip to Lister Park in Bradford to see the Olympic torch.  It was a lovely day, we walked all the way to the park, hung around for a bit, had quite a grumpy girl when the torch actually went past, and had ice cream.  And the best bit is that we can tell Marisca that she saw it.

A day out with butterflies, a maze, and mini golf

We had a lovely day out at Symond's Yat exploring a tropical butterfly house (butterflies!  butterflies! butterflies!), experiencing a hedge maze, and even playing mini golf.  A great day.

Playing football on the campsite

One of the especial pleasures I get from camping is being outside so much, and having all of the time in between other things just being out.  The weather was good enough mostly to do this - I think we were only conifned to our tent twice due to rain.  With Marisca, it's no longer about sitting with the radio burbling quietly while we read books and sip tea, but it is about playing chase, running about, and learning new skills.  Football, in this case, is something we discovered that she really likes at the moment.  She absolutely adored the big inflatable we bought her (best £1 spent for a long time) and I loved playing with her, too.