Water play

As it's actually summer we went to play in the fountain in City Park in the centre of Bradford.  The kids had a lovely time and we had time for a cup of tea while we watched.  Not quite the same ambience as the last city water park play we had but a fun trip nonetheless!

A weekend in Settle

All week Marisca has been telling people that she's going camping.  And she's going to have a better time than last time, when she was poorly and had a sore ear and a sore throat.  And it's true, she did have a better time and consequently we all did!

We stayed at Langcliffe Park just outside Settle, the site of Tom's first camping.  I'm struck by how cold it was last time we were up there, as well as by how much more time I seemed to have to take photos. There are fewer this year but still enough to get the flavour of the weekend.

We stayed in a different part of the campsite which was really nice - secluded, tree lined, and with plenty of space.  The weather was good enough for shorts and an open tent to 'play' Uno.  Tom'#s first attempt and he can match colours and numbers, if not really remember that this is how you play the game.  The cards proved fun for the weekend though.

On Saturday we went for a walk at Ribblehead.  I think the book said 2.6 miles and it took us 3.5 hours.  This may be the slowest walk we've ever done but it was lots of fun.  We have a 'Little Adventurers Book of the Yorkshire Dales' (or similar title) which is great: lots of things to find/do/tick off on the journey which keeps Marisca occupied.  As do signs en route (like mother like daughter...).

Risky enjoyed the really big viaduct, and counted all of the arches.  Most impressive (and I've just remembered this), when I asked her whether she noticed anything about the walls in between the 6th and 7th arch (every 6 arches in fact) she said they were bigger because they had to be strong because trains were really heavy.  Not bad engineering knowledge.

Tom also got in on the sign reading act...

One of the things to look out for was this number as we went under the viaduct.  Marisca took this photo and I look forward to showing her it on the blog.  

A picture of Tom with his tickle stick...

And then for some reason I didn't take any photos of the rather nice picnic spot we had, the hopping over little stones in the stream, or the (lots of) clambering over limestone outcrops (Tom: I'm clambering!  I'm clambering!).  Or Tom walking/running most of the last mile back to the car, making good use of pretend red and green lights to take a breather, and then haring off again.  

Being a sunny summer saturday on the three peaks route there were a *lot* of walkers variously striding and trudging out, meaning that there was a long queue for ice cream once we found the van (ticking off the last thing on our list), but that just gave chance for a few more photos.

And, well, it wouldn't be camping without a picture of a child bathing in the washing bowl. Seems I like taking photos like this. And this.

James & Daniel's Wedding

We had a Saturday out in York at James & Daniel's wedding - barely even far enough to be a day trip making it easy to take Marisca & Tom, for them to have very late nights and us to be home and in bed by midnight.

It was really nice to be at the wedding with the guys over from Colorado and old university friends from the south west - not quite so far but still a long way from us.

A few photos below.  Starting with a pair of poses reminiscent of a couple of flag based photos of my youth.  

First camping of the year in the Lakes

We're back from a long weekend camping outside Keswick.  Both children get very excited about camping so we were looking forward to it a great deal.  The weather was mostly lovely, the scenery was lovely, the campsite was lovely (if crowded).  However, Marisca wasn't.  She was poorly - ended up being an ear infection, which made her very drowsy and very grumpy.  It was probably a better weekend for all of us to be out camping rather than at home - Marisca did get fresh air and Tom had lots of running around and playing while Marisca slept.  Although we only managed one aborted walk, I did get a run in, up the little hill of Latrigg, and Tom and I got out and about to Castlerigg stone circle for some climbing, running, photographing fun.  A good weekend, but we're looking forward to kickstarting camping and walking again at the end of June!

10 years

We don't normally write anything these days that's not about our children.  But earlier this month we had a whole weekend away without them, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary.  We spent the weekend in The Pigsty up at Robin Hoods Bay, enjoying lie ins, moorland walks, and pottering around shops, all just the two of us.  Of course by the time we got home we were very ready to see Marisca and Tom again, but it was nice to have time together. 

Rainbows

One of those coming of age posts.  Being 5 Marisca is now Rainbow-eligible, and so here she is ready for her first visit.  Rainbows is at church with her favourite church friends who run it (they are older than me but they're still my friends Daddy), and so we're sure she'll continue to have a lovely time, as she did today.  She's already got a stall to run at their Spring Fayre next week.

Happy 5th birthday

Our girl is 5.  So we had a party.  And being a 5 year old girl, that party was a Frozen party.  It turns out that there are a lot of Frozen birthday cards with '5' badges on them.  But they're all the same and are now all in our house!

In a somewhat random order here are some highlights:

Party tea, I clearly managed to achieve what is almost photographically impossible: a shutter speed fast enough to capture a picture of party rings actually on the plate.

The birthday girl.  Just a nice picture really.

We watched Frozen while waiting for 2:30 to tick around.  This gave Marisca the opportunity to show off her very pretty very frozen very twirly dress that Elspeth had sewn.  Check out the twirl!

My favourite game was pin the nose on Olaf.  Particularly as, unlike some parties I have known, there was clearly no seeing through this particular scarf.  At least 4 of them managed to locate the poster, which was a good start.

Pretending to be Elsa.  Awww.

Playing pass the parcel with the girls (and Tom).  Maia, Erica, Poppy, Emily, and Kinza.

And although she wasn't expecting to win any prizes, her being the birthday girl, Marisca excelled at musical bumps, and there's not much judgement to be had in that game, so she had to win.  And was very excited, as you can see.

Birthdays are tiring but a lot of fun.