Long time no see eh?
We've been rather busy so sorry we're all behind. We'll do our best to catch up and get everyone up to speed.
With the car in the garage for an extended stay I got plenty of bike time in with Dad before we went away, I wasn't complaining, but he most certainly was!
I broke up from scool...hooray! I proudly bought home the easter cards that I had made. they really were very good even if I do say so myself. We lounged about for the afternoon, before Alan kindly came to pick us up in the Gayo to go and collect our car which was finally fixed. I think he enjoyed his 20 minute drive accross town with it's rapid fire question and answer session mixed with a good old dollop of utterly inane nonsense....
Friday was a bank holiday, but Mum went to work. This turned out to be a good move on her part as were able to make her birthday cards and sneak into town to get her a birthday cake. We also managed to fit in baking several hundred cookies and getting me some nice new wellies in preparation for our holiday in Wales.
The journey was soon dealt with.
Although I did not like driving along some of the high up roads through the mountains one little bit, Mum told me to shut my eyes which did seem to help.
I loved it, we saw snow and mountains and waterfalls and people canoeing, bike riding and rock climbing as well as loads of farm animals, best of all being all the baby lambs out in the fields.
And here we are, living it up in Snowdonia:

We stayed in a Barn that had been made into a house, Ned and I had a lovely big room to sleep in.

Yeah the house was lovely and big, plenty of places to go and explore or even maybe hide. We especially liked the wet room and it was much better than having a bath. Apparently it's the cleanest we've ever been what with all the shower and hot tub action.

We made sure we went in the hot tub at least once a day, one evening we even stayed in until the stars came out!

Of course it also just happened to be easter on our first full day, the bunny had found us and the hunt was on!

Easter? Did someone say easter?

Once we had gorged ourselves silly on chocolate we headed out to Criccieth, our nearest village with it's beach:

Next stop on the whirlwind tour was Pwhelli, where they had a fair. The bumper cars were totally brilliant, so brilliant in fact that they were too much fun to get the camera out at all!

Next up was the fastest motorbike i'd ever been on. So fast infact that after two white knuckle laps I wanted off.

Once i'd sacked off that dead weight it went even faster.

And then it was time for a more sedate moment, ice cream, surrounded by spring Daffodils:

Then it was on to a place rather menacingly called Hells Mouth, it was much nicer than it sounded though:

It was just like being in Cornwall with all the surfers about.

I got to fly our new kite (thanks Andy), I was really good at it too, it was a proper two string one and I soon got the hang of steering it and dive bombing families out for a lovely walk on the beach.

So then, trains....there's loads of them in North Wales so we were obviously going to sample some.

First up was the Ffestiniog, I took the oppurtunity to send Uncle Slim a postcard while we were on board:

While I decided to find myself a fancy luxurious seat for myself and baby:

It was a really good journey, we raced cars, we crossed rivers, we saw waterfalls and animals in their fields.

We stopped off at one of the stations on the way back, there was a playground that we loved and a smart bridge where you could get covered in steams from the trains passing below:

And to top it all off they were doing footplate rides. Dad and I had never done this before so we were dead keen. I asked the driver loads of questions about what everything did and couldn't believe how hot the firebox was when he opened the door. It was all a bit smelly though.

I loved it too after being gently coaxed aboard:

Ned and I pretended to be a train when we got off:

Back at base camp we ate our meals in the kitchen so we could keep an eye on Dads cooking and monitor his wine consumption. The stools were really high and spinny which obviously went down well with us.

I also insisted that every meal be candle lit (including breakfast), so many thanks to Auntie Christine for the tea light set she found us at her shop the other day:

It was at about this point I decided i'd investigate my bedside lamp a little further. However I don't think stick my two sucky fingers directly on the bulb was the best idea in the world. A loud shriek, two blisters and a lot of crying later and Mum was soon on hand with a glass of iced water to pllunge my seared finger tips into. She was really lovely and sat by my bed for ages until I dropped off to sleep. I understand Dad sat downsatirs watching telly and stuffing easter eggs down his gullet while all this was going on.

Out and about again, this time Portmeirion, or Porkmeirion as I decided it should be renamed. Weird place but great fun for exploring.

With loads of weird places to get into:

We took the buggy for a trip out, I think it was feeling neglected as I didn't use it all week now i'm sooooo big:

I was the advance party, scouting out all the best places and points of interest for everyone else:

And best of all of course, ICE CREAM:

And then on Wednesday it was of course Mum's birthday! I was so excited I was ready to burst. We got the presents and cards (of our usual very high standard) out of the way early doors and then headed out to the Snowdon Mountain Railway.

We couldn't get on for two hours so we headed to a slate museum (great playground) to kill some time.
We posed for soem photo's and I tried to catch a sheep (didn't manage it):

By the time our train left the cloud had lefted and it was pretty much sunny. We borded the train and headed up and up and up some more until we finally reached the (very nearly) top!

We jumped out of the train and headed straight for the snow, before settling down for our picnic:

We could see for miles and even the helicopters flew below us:

We posed for some scenic photo's, frightening some onlookers half to death that we were about to fall off the side of the mountain in the process:

It was soon time to board the train again to head back down:

As it was Mum's birthday (have we mentioned yet that she was actually 40?) we took her out for meal in the evening to a nice little place called Abersoch.

I had my dancing shoes on and everything, but there was no dancing in the restaurant we went to. What a shame eh? Didn't put me off though, I had a little shimmy all on my own anyway.

After the meal we headed back to the car via the harbour wall:

And then it was back to the house for the cake (percy pig with a 4 and a 0 candle, smart eh?)

I think Mum had a nice birthday, even though I did decide to run into her bedroom at 4am and throw up on her floor.............oops. Sorry Mum.

Another day, another outing. This time to Shell Island. So called because of the abundant shells apparently. I found a great rusty piece of metal that I reckoned looked like a crab claw, better than shells or what eh?

You stick to your rusty metal Ellis, I was all over the shells, there were millions:

There was of course a picnic, but this time in glorious sunshine with mountains in the background, Dad was really loving it all:

And then a kick about:

I put a rather harsh challenge in on Mum, she wasn't too happy with it at all. She reckoned she was going to get the biggest bruise in history on her leg, I think she was rather disappointed when it failed to materialise..........

Then it was off to explore the sand dunes:

Rolling down them was fun:

Unless you're as tiny as I am and you can easily get lost:

We obviously had to do some digging:

And some drawing:

And then it was our last proper day, off to Greenwood forest park for the day.

I finally got to have a go at some real archery, I loved it:

We drove tractors, I loved that too:

We rode sledges, I loved that:

But I loved it even more on the bigger faster version next door with Ned:

We had a boat ride, there was only one oar and I dropped it in the water:

Good job Mum managed to retrieve it.

It was okay Ned, there were ropes hanging down that Dad and I were pulling us along with anyway, you were wasting your time with the oar anyway!

There was loads of climbing of course:

And some brilliant pedal car things that Ned was really fast at pedalling, even if we did have a bit of a crash on the first lap:

And then there was the barefoot trail, I hated it, I have delicate little trotters you know.

I on the other hand loved it, so much so that me and my hobbit feet had two laps around it:

It was a rather good last day as it goes:

Oh yeah, they also did tattoo's, here's my piece (on my arm) in my best Emo picture:

So that was our holiday done and dusted. Despite Dad's scaremongering about the weather we had a lovely mostly sunny week, and hopefully Mum had a good birthday! The countdown has started for the next one, which just so happens to be on my birthday.

Birthday? Did someone say birthday? We'll be back with an update very soon on the subject of birthdays................

Had a big disappointment at trampoling club this week, I was the only one that turned up, so it didn't run. There were tears, there was a long search for a toilet and there was a trip to the park instead. So not all bad then, it was a nice warm, sunny day as well so it was actually quite nice to be outside!

Baking club certainly wasn't cancelled:

Jam centred cookies this week, Mum reckons they were the best things we've done yet!!!

Onto the weekend then, we had to go to a few shops on saturday morning as it was party time Saturday night, Charlotte's 18th no less! We were super excited and well up for a disco.

Especially as I had some nice new shoes to wear.

But sadly after making several thousand sets of duck lips using pringles, washed down with coke I had to have a lie down, and promptly fell asleep, oh dear.

I had a brief power nap before taking to the floor with Laura and Mum, we loved it, but not as much as Uncle Slim seemed to!

Happy birthday Charlotte!

So after a bit of a lie in on Sunday we headed out for some fresh air in the afternoon to the woods. It was brilliant, there was so much to see, a load of trees had been cut down so you could count their rings, here's my photo of a tree that was the same age as mum:

There was a great big puddle with frog spawn in it. I loved it so much I took a picture of it:

I gave it a gentle prod and it felt really wobbly and all gooey. Best of all though were three deer running through the undergrowth, they're really fast!

I wasn't so bothered with all the nature stuff, but I did love the squashy squelchy mud.

Much like Mum's childhood is somewhat intertwined with visits to steam railways, ours seem to be featuring rather a lot of bike riding venues. having said that, we loved running down the track, we even saw some people in funny outfits digging and riding their bikes.

The trip back up was a little more tricky however:

And involved a group rescue attempt, which I loved as it demonstrated some real teamwork:

We got to the top again unscathed in the end of course:

First up, shock news! We were doing measuring at school. We got on to head measuring...and I won! I've even got a bigger head than my teacher!
Well summer was nealy upon us last week, we made the most of it and headed for the castle with the Halford boys.
Max and I had a great time playing with another ladies Dog, Doris, or was it Boris? Either way the dog had more energy than us and loved fetching the ball:

Leo and I made ourselves comfortable on various stone sofa's, well we thought we were comfortable anyway. I also got haunted by the green puffa coat ghost, scary stuff eh?

Max struck a few poses for his modelling portfolio, here he can be seen modelling schoolwear:

And in this one underwear:

My new trainers got delivered on friday. I was almost as excited about them as Dad was, the sad act. Proper grippy, proper fast, no laces...perfect!
Friday night was proper exciting with Alan, Hayley and Andy coming round for tea!
Until I decided to try and remove two toe nails on the carpet edge thing in the doorway. Much screaming later and I finally calmed down, everyone was relieved there was any glass left unshattered.
My campaigning finally paid off and we went to Starbucks on Saturday morning for a hot chocolate. Hmmm, lovely, but not quite as nice as Dads as far as Mum and I are concerned. We pretty much used up the whole shops supply of sugar between us too!
In the afternoon, Abi came round to play:

I had to fend them off!
But I gave up at tea time:

I had a reading extravaganza on Sunday mornign with Mum, she got me to read three whole books from school in one sitting. A record, probably never to be beaten.
Then it was a trip to Grandad's, and in a rather bizarre turn of events, football was on the agenda!!!!

Yeah, it was, well Ned's rules football anyway:

Last week of Swimming lessons this week, it was play week. I was utterly brilliant at standing up on the floating mats, best surf pose and everything. The instructors thought otherwise and told me to get down pretty sharpish, but I could see that Dad was impressed in the viewing gallery. So next week I move up to level 3, with yellow hats. Sadly they had run out of yellow hats by the time I was signed up, what a shame, I love swimming hats and the amount of hair I lose every time it gets taken off...........