Blimey, seems like ages since we were on here doesn't it?

Easter holidays and all that, we had a games morning on Tuesday (Mum was off all week).  We had Kerplunk, Draughts and then stuffed mum totally at build a beetle.

Even though she spent most of her time making the window fitting men coffee.

I went to Alastairs for the afternoon which was great fun.

And I went into town with Mum and Dad for a bit, we helped Mum pick some new glasses and then went off to sneakily buy her a birthday card while she went throught the paperwork and what have you.  We got her some cool cards, one with a massive dog sat on a woman on the beach and one with someone with their bum out (that one was for Ned).  By the time we got back to the opticians, she'd chosen another pair of glasses that I hadn't even sanctioned!

Wednesday was a bit of a lazy morning again and then a trip to the cinema in the afternoon when Dad was home to see Pirates!

We were really excited about it.

We loved it of course, we always love the cinema.

Thursday and the Window men were finally finished.

We went to the holiday club at school for a little while as there was a two hour street dance session on.  We both went along and we really loved it.

Ellis really was very good and it was great to see some of my school friends for a bit.

We went to the park in the afternoon which was nice.

And then we had a family trip to Tesco, which wasn't....so much.

We spent the morning with Auntie Christine on good friday while Mum and Dad went out somewhere.

Well it was supposed to be the morning, but as Auntie Christine herself told Mum and Dad, we were having too much fun to come home until well into the afternoon!

Saturday then....Mum's birthday!

We got her up reasonably only to present her with her carefully selected cards and presents.

And then we went on holiday!  Heaeded East this time for a change, towards Kent.

It was all going really well as well, until Mum decided to consult the map even though we had the sat nav on.  The only trouble was that I had sort of removed a couple of pages from it, and it just so happened that it was the couple of pages we really needed at he time.  Oops.

Luckily we spotted the signs for Hever Castle from the motorway so we decided to follow those instead.

Yes indeed, Hever Castle, it was really rather good actually, even though it was all history and that.

There was an Easter egg trail as well, history and chocolate....me and Mum were in our element!

There were really good grounds to explore, with mazes.  Including this rather magnificent water maze that squirted you when you took the wrong direction:

It was great fun, until I took a bit of tumble and ended up with my foot in the pond.  It was very wet indeed.  Everyone seemed to see the funny side except me.  I blamed everyone else of course:

Once we had seen everything on offer (great park, easter chicks, inside the palace, more mazes and claimed our easter eggs) we headed off to our hotel in Ashford.  Due to the map malfunction we hadn't realised quite how far we still had to go.

But it didn't take that long and we were soon checked in and up to our room.

Our room was cool as well, I had a double sofa bed all to myself.

And I had my very own single bed, pushed up against the wall, just how I like it!

We got changed and headed out to the pub that Dad had booked for Mum's birthday meal.

Then it was back to the hotel for bed bouncing and take me out on the telly.

Sunday, easter egg hunt in the hotel room...brilliant!  I'm sure the video will emerge here soon enough. 

Then it was hotel breakfast and out to a place called Dungeness.  Apparently Dad used to go here as a kid, he must have had a deprived childhood or something, it was like the very end of the earth down there.

But the lighthouses were very cool.

Out of the fog and the mist emerged a really cool little steam train with loads and loads of coaches behind it.

I really took an interest in the trains:

We got out own little coach all to ourselves and chugged out of the mist and murk and headed up country.

It was a very comfortable arrangement, especially with a bag full of easter eggs to graze on:

We went all the way to the end of the line in Hythe before making our return.

Stopping off at Romney for a look around the model railway exhibition which we really loved.

We were soon back at Dungeness, It looked a little less grim than it did in the morning:

On the way back to the hotel we stopped off to see our Great Uncle Brian and Great Auntie Mary.

Last time we saw them I was apparently a baby?   

Yeah, it must have been nearly five years ago, unfortunately we didn't exactly give a great account of ourselves.

No, we were a bit naughty really.

Not that they minded, they were just pleased to see us and made a whole load of excuses for our questionable actions...you can tell they must have been Nannies family!

We heaed back to the hotel with a bit of a frosty atmosphere from Dad and especially Mum.  Oh dear.

She was soon over it though and we ventured out for a luxury tea in a near by McDonalds, where we had much fun and laughter defacing the 'Pirate of the Year' hats they were dishing out to read 'Prat of the Year' instead.

Next morning was out big trip to France.  So we were up and down for breakfast at the hotel before packing up our stuff and getting a Taxi to the railway station.

A taxi, we'd never been in a Taxi before so it was pretty exciting.

What was even more exciting was the speed the said Taxi drove off at as soon as we were sat down in the back...!

It was only a short ride to the station (not a surprise seeing the warp speeds we were travelling at), Mum was particularly pleased it was a short trip as I was really enjoying watching the trip meter ramping up and telling her all about it.

There were two really happy chaps on the passport and ticket control desk and we were soon through the metal detectors into the departures lounge.  It was a world away from the airport thats for sure.

We had a good time waiting, we read some Harry Potter,

Built some Lego.

Made friends with some other kids.

Mum checked us in on the Disney Desk, which gave us all our park tickets and hotel vouchers before we'd even left Ashford, cool or what?

We even got a little bag each with a jigsaw, a cool multicoloured pencil and an activity book to tide us over for a little while until the train arrived.

We walked down to the platform just before the train arrived, got on, actually had a seat to sit in (which is a novelty for us on our usual trips to London) and set off for France.

We were very excited at the prospect of going through a tunnel under the sea to France.

We were, even it if it turned out to be a pretty boring black tunnel that only lasted just over 20 minutes or so.

And we popped up in France, it looked much like England really, except all the cars were on the other side of the road.  In just about two hours and a couple of earlier stops we arrived at the station for Disneyland.

How cool, all we had to do was check our luggage in at the Station (to be sent of to the hotel for later) and then we were free to go into Disneyland, and it was only just after lunchtime. 

The full set of pictures can be seen here:

Kent/Disneyland Paris/London photo album

But here's a few highlights as well.  The first ride we headed for was Mum's favourite, Autopia:

It was brilliant, especially when all the traffic came to a halt and we smashed into the back of Ned and Dad's car. He was whineing about putting in a whiplash claim or something or other...ha ha!

After that it was a whirlwind of rides and character meetings until we headed back to our hotel for dinner.

We picked up our bags and our room keys and headed up to our room....in the lift.

Our room had just been decorated and was really rather nice.

then we headed down for our dinner....the restaurant was a help yourself buffet, brilliant, all the cucumber and sweetcorn I could eat.

And all the pizza and chips I could manage, don't even start me on the pudding selections, yum yum!

All the excitement soon caught up with us and we decided it was time for bed.

After an early morning and hotel brekfast (again, help yourself, but no pizza or chips sadly) folowed by the days meet and great with a character in the lobby (Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse on the first day) we headed back out to the park. 

The castle was pretty good too actually, it actually had some stuff inside to explore as well as a bit out the back:

We had a hit list of stuff we wanted to do including the Runaway Mine Train (which was a bit noisy for me truth be told) and it's a small world (much more like it in my opinion).

We went on loads of other stuff too, so much in fact that I can't really remember it all.

By mid afternoon the weather was closing in and it started to rain...really rain.

By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked right through.  So it was a good idea to head to the pool for a swim.  This was probably my highlight of the whole trip really, I love swimming.  The pool was realy good with loads of intertesting nooks and crannies and a really smart slide.

You could even go down it on the provided swimming floats, some of which were the size of bodyboards.  They zoomed accross the water really well at the bottom of the slide.

The other highlight was the hot tub...it sure was hot....we didn't want to get out.

Dad and I found another heat source in the changing room though and had a relaxing session in first the steam bath and then in the sauna.

Yeah, while Mum and I had to wait for them both outside the changing rooms.

A hot chocolate and a game of cards in the hotel before dinner was definatley called for:

Before we turned in for the night.  Which wasn't entirely without incident.....I fell out of bed with quite a thump and woke everyone up.

Except me of course.  Wednesday and we went to the Studios park, which is still Disney, but another park right next door.  This is the one I was most excited about as it had the Tower of Terror and Rock N Rollercoaster. 

Tower of terror sounded great to me, I was well up for it too.  I made the height restriction easily enough but the spooky bits and bobs on the last bit before we got on the ride were enough to put me off.  I cleverly disguised this as a sudden and irresistable urge to go to the toilet.

Tower of terror was brilliant again of course, I love it.

It wasn't all scary stuff though, we loved the Cars ride:

We completely loved Stitch Live, a live interactive video screen show.  Stitch actually talked to me, he asked me my name and age and whether I had a girlfriend!  I was soooo pleased, Stitch is my favourite.

There was a new Toy Story area too, we loved this.  There was a slinky dog ride but slinky got dizzy when we got on him and we had to come back later with a special ticket that meant we could jump the queue.

I loved jumping queues, either with this ticket or the Fast Pass tickets we sorted out.  Also brilliant was getting into the parks themselves earlier than everyone waiting at the gate because we were hotel residents.

Anyway, back to Toy Story, there was a parachute drop ride that I loved.

And an RC racer ride that I went on with Mum.  Mistake.  She screamed like a total lunatic for some reason.  I had another go with Dad, he was much more dignified.

Then my main event of the day...Rock N Rollercoaster.  I was pretty excited about this one, even if I was a little bit scared.  Well, only a little bit...but it did go upside down three times.  I went on with dad and unlike normal rollercoasters it didn't go up a great big hill to start off with, it fired you out of the station at warp speed.  It was amazing, all in the dark, loud music, flashing lights and lots and lots of speed.  By the time we'd finished the first loop my hands were in the air making devil horns.  Mum came on with me next as we used Ellis' for a 'baby swap' (even though she isn't really a baby anymore).  Here we are getting off:

I was quite happy with Rex while all this was going on. I was also showing my Tigger all around the place, his old home infact, we bought him here last time we came:

I still had my pen and activity book from the train with me, so I took the time to do a little writing and what have you as well.

Having already had a full day in the studios park we headed back over to Disneyland to watch the parade.

We love the parade, and unlike yesterday the sun was blazing so we set up camp on the pavement with a lovely ice lolly (For all the ice cream spotters out there we all had a Twister.  It was much like our version in England but longer and without the creamy bit.  It was also on a much smarter stick).

We also did a little bit of souvenir shopping, I plumped for a cuddly stitch toy which I have snuggled at bedtime without fail every night since.

And after a few near misses found the most Ellis' present anyone had ever seen.  A pink, light up, spinning dress princess, wow:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's our massive hotel, around the lake:

It had the waftiest key system of all time and very often took at least 8 tries before it would actually let you in:

And here is my bedtime snuggle up Stitch, holding my muzzy all ready for me:

Later on in the evening we were pretty worn out, but there was the evening laser and firework show on.....I wanted to go.

And I could barely keep my eyes open. We decided in the end that it would be best if I went to bed....

....and Mum and I went to the show. She did a brilliant job of giving me a piggy back so I could see even if she was pretty much crippled the next day from the effort.

So our last day, booo. It wasn't as rubbish as normal last days though, we had until 5 pm to enjoy it.

We headed off to the studios for Crush's Coaster, Mum and Dad's absoloute favourite. I love Nemo, how scary could it be?

I had my reservations actually, I didn't like it last time I went on it and I wasn't sure now. Still, I had to look brave in front of Ellis.

I got the jitters and tried the toilet trick but it didn't work this time.

And I had to get on the backwards facing seats for Ellis' benefit.....

We were off, and almost straight away I didn't like it! It was too fast, too dark and went sideways, backways, all sorts of ways.

I wasn't too sure either although I put a brave face on.

So, kids, don't let your parents drag you on this ride. They might love it and all the adverts and posters for it in the park itself make it look so lovely, but don't be taken in!

After that we headed for the stunt show. I loved the stunt show.
Lets get that straight right away. I totally loved the stunt show. Especially the motorbike jumps and the man who fell off and set himself on fire.

Dad and I particularly liked the appearance of the real Lightning McQueen!

After that we had a chance to meet Ariel:

But  Mary Poppins had to leg it before we got to her as it started to rain a little...she had a lot of make up and a very white outfit after all.

Dad got another four fast passes for Rock N Rollercoaster....brilliant I got another two goes!

And while Ned was on that a cool game of hoop/jump/basketball was set up in the street which I loved:

There was another parade in the Studios park, this time with the characters in cars:

Then we managed to track down a couple of the main players for out autograph book, Minnie Mouse (Uncle Alan, are you reading?):

And then Mickey:

I think that just about covered everything.  We'd had a great four days.

If a bit tiring!

We headed back for a bite to eat in the Disney Village before collecting our bags and settling down in the wrong seats for a the train ride home.

We eventually found our actual seats and settled down again for the train ride home.  Where Dad actually saw the Eifell tower out of the window, thus validating my claim on the outward journey that was scoffed at!

The train was pretty comfy actually, but tired as we were we jibber jabbered and mucked about all the way home. 

Well, nearly all the way, of course we dropped off about 10 minutes before the train arrived back in Ashford.

So after a fun packed week of excitment and culture you'd have thought hwe'd have come home and taken it easy yeah?

Oh no, it was my birthday!  I didn't get up that early though, I am quite considerate.  I had some seriously cool presents to open, the main one being my very own TV/DVD player for my bedroom.  Wow, how cool is that?

Pretty cool Ned, especially if you let me come and watch it with you.

Once that was all done and dusted and Dad got it working it was off to the station for another day out to London.

It has to be said I wasn't that keen.  I'd been a bit under the weather for a couple of days at Disnelyland and was pretty much tired out.  Still, seeing as it was Ned's birthday and Mum and Dad promised me lots of shoulder carries I decided i'd soldier on.

We had lunch booked at the Rainforest Cafe, it was sooooo cool inside.  Moving animals, rain, thunder, a starry sky......

Another character to meet and greet:

And a special birthday Sundae with a rousing chorus of happy birthday sung by everyone in the vicinity, I loved this bit in particular:

Once we'd finally been prized out of the shop upstairs we made our way towards the London Eye.

It was a right old scenic route too, we went past Leicester square, the head office of the MOD,

Trafalgar square, the Cenotaph and the other end of Downing Street.  Oh and a brilliant statue of Queen Boudicca, one of our favourites from Horrible Histories.

We then turned the corner to see Big Ben, the houses of Parliament and on the other side of the river (I thought it was the deep sea) the London Eye.  It was very high indeed.

We couldn't wait to go on it.  It was so cool, it didn't even stop for you to get on or off as it moved sooooo slowly.

We soon started to climb up, the people below looked like ants in no time:

You could so much from up there, mum was a brilliant tour guide, pointing out all sorts of interesting stuff for us.

After that we headed for home in plenty of time for me to go to Tom's party at Eddie Katz (I know on my actual birthday!).

Wow, what a week!

Some excitement for me on Saturday when I got to go round to my frined Lillies for the day.  We had a lovely time, Pizza Hut for lunch (don't tell Ned and a trip to the park in the afternoon.

I had a trip out with Mum and Dad to tesco...wow I know, you envy me.  I did have a bit of a spend of my birthday money in the DVD section getting the Lion King and Cars 2 (on a buy one get one free offfer no less, I love a deal).  I Retreated to my room to watch the Lion King and left them downstairs watching the Grand National build up.

I was home in time for the big race but sadly even though we'd all picked a horse and placed a bet, none of us won anything.

Alan and Hayley came round for a birthday related visit in the afternoon, we loved showing them our disney Autograph book that Dad had actually got proper printed photographs done for already.

Printed photographs?  You can print them can you?  I thought you could only see them on computer screens?

I also had my belated birthday cake:

We went out for Chrissy's 40th birthday on Sunday.

Yeah for lunch, very nice.

And a great meet up for the grown ups and all us kids.  We had  agreat time hiding under the tables, firing off party poppers and blowing bubbles.

Monday, last day of the school holidays. What could be better than a lazy day with Auntie Christine?

A lazy day with Auntie Christine and Darcey perhaps? Oh yes.

We had a great time trying to get her to crawl...she's nearly there I reckon!

It was back to school on Tuesday, quite honestly I was about ready to go back.  I'd missed my friends really.

I'm still keeping up that I don't like school.  Although I do really.  I think.

Dancing started again on Wednesday as well.  I'm loving it at the moment, especially after they changed the classes and times. There's a lot fewer of us now it's little ones only and we get a lot more done.

And because Mum was off sick, I didn't have to go with Dad and read in the car.  Result for me, but obviously bad for Mum.

No multiskills on Thursday yet either, that doesn't start until next week so it was cuddle up time with sick bay Mum with the telly. Easily as good as running round a muddy field with Mr Gilham I reckon.

We've started learning subtraction this week, so feel free to shoot me some quick fire sums...I love it!

We've both started a new topic about growing this term.

Yeah, and we've both been out digging and weeding and getting very muddy indeed.

But we do love it.

As if that wasn't enough gardening, we actually did some at home on Saturday morning too.

Yeah, after years of lobbying from me, we might finally have some lovely flowers to look at in the summer!

With Mum still being ill, uncle Alan and Auntie Hayleys babysitting session was cancelled, Dad went out alone (well Uncle Slim popped round for a birthday visit and took Dad with him).

This left Mum to watch Saturday night telly with us which was lovely. 

Even if you've been framed was missing something without Dad howling with hysteria in the room.

Sunday and there was even more gardening (I know!!!) before the main event.....MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Yes, even I was lookng forward to this one.

Bowling and Laser Tag no less.  Here we all are getting our bowling shoes on:

We all played very well actually:

Except me, I didn't do very well realy, well, I certainly didn't win!

Ha ha, I did okay, in fact I was the only one to get a strike!  I loved hanging out with Ned's friends:



Then it was off upstairs for a game of Laser Tag.  It was so exciting, I was one team captain and I made Ellis the other.  We had to pick teams and then we were off (Tegan my first pick of course).  The lights were turned off, the music was turned up and we engaged in combat.

Ned's team looked a little bit more competitive on paper so I enlisted Dad to help us out for a bit. He didn't need much encouragement I can tell you.

We loved it, we had the whole of Krazy Klub to ourselves and had the best time ever.  It was just so awesome.  I think everyone else thought so too.  My team won in the end apparently, not that anyone really cared as they'd enjoyed it so much.  It was then time for food, cake, party bags and going home.

With very, very pink faces!!!

I'd  like to say a massive thank you to all my friends who came (for reference, Dylan, Maxim, Liam, Louise, Ella, Ali, Rebecca, Tegan, Hugo and Robert).  They were all great fun, great company and all of them got me a great present.  I'm a lucky boy.

It was certainly the talk of school on Monday.

And when we got home, mum was still off sick.  She's been to the doctors and been signed off for a week so we can get used to some cosy afternoons with the telly this week......

Thats about it then, back up to date, all except the videos, which should appear shortly.  I'd also like to add a massive thank you to all my other friends and family for the very kind birthday cards and presents and indeed visits.  Can't wait until next year!!!!

Well last week eh, what beautiful weather! 

We certainly loved it and certainly got used to it very quickly.

It was certainly a lovely day for the Schools Cross country championships, here's the John Rankin Team:

It was quite a big event, we had a lovely team picnic area out on the grass and team spirit was high.  Year 3 & 4 girls were off first.  We gave them loads of support, Dad reckons we were the loudest school by miles.  We secured a great vantage point right on the finish line and made sure we cheered every team mymber home as loud as we could.

It was year 3 & 4 boys next, being year 3, that included me!  We had a quick team huddle before the off for our 1.2 mile race (which included a section up the actual horse racing track, how cool?):

I ran  a good race according to Dad (yeah, because he's an expert), I kept the same good pace going throughout and had a little sprint finish as well.  I finished 104th, which I wasn't very pleased with.  That was until I found out that there were somewhere in the region of 260 people competing.  I was also the second of the John Rankin team home:

Once the race was done, we could get on with enjoying ourselves watching the year 5 & 6's race, safe in the knowledge that we were having an afternoon off from lessons:

Did I mention that there were a lot of people there:

We kept our support levels up for the remaining two races:

And I got to hang out with the girls:

We hung around for the presentation which paid off as we won an award for most improved team.  We all had to go up and collect our trophy, how exciting!

After the easter holidays we're stopping doing cross country and starting Quadkids practice...a four event competition....sounds exciting!

Due to the boys spending the afternoon sunning themselves Mum left work early to pick me up from after school sports club which made a nice change.  When they finally got home we'd already decided to go down the park for a bit.

And after all that activity, a McDonalds was called for!

It was my last dancing class of the term on Wednesday, Ned managed to push me just a little too far while I was getting my tap shoes on and I burst into tears.  The upside was that Mrs Groves got the easter eggs out a bit earlier than she would have done!

I managed to still not quite finish my Antartic book.....much to everyones displeasure.

I didn't have multi sports on Thursday so it was down the park instead!

Everyone was there, enjoying the sunshine.  I make sure Dad pushes me as hard as he can in the basket swing so I can show off in front of my wussy friends!

We had to have a ruddy walk after tea, I whinged before we went.

And I whinged during the event, even though it was my idea...oh dear.

Then it was friday...last day of term and an early finish!

We bought home various easter goodies, some 'nest' cakes and card from me!

And a little bag of eggs from our teacher and a card from me.

Once they were eaten (except one nest cake saved for Mum) it was back off down the park again!

The whole school seemed to be there.  I spent the afternoon with Alastair and a load of others from my year.  We mostly played Army and did a lot of climbing and bike riding.

I spent most of the afternoon with Evelyn and her little doggie.

We stayed until about half past four, making about three hours worth I reckon?  No bad at all.

So after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on saturday morning we finally settled on Bucklebury pump track.

And I made my first full lap unaided.  Dad reckoned he'd never seen anyone so smiley on a bike track before:

I worked on my cornering:

And a bit of jump squashing:

And a bit more cornering....pretty low eh?

We went home via Waitrose for posh bread and then settled in for the afternoon to watch an old war film.

Yeah, Battle of Britain, I loved it.

Auntie Christine came round to babysit in the evening, we got to hear all about Darceys holiday in the shed.

It sounded cool to us!

We were both pretty tired, Ned moreso than me, falling asleep in his clothes and failing to wake up to get into his pj's!

Sunday afternoon and the sun was still shining, time for a trip to Lepe!

We had a little play on the park and then it was time for Ice cream:

Before we headed on down to the sea, I almost got over to the Isle of Wight:

I stayed in slightly shallower water as my wellies aren't as high as Ned's:

We had a sneaky cuddle:

We sat up on the sea wall, it was so warm and lovely we really didn't want to get up again:

But we did and had a walk further along to the sandy beach bit.

Which turned out to be a bad idea.  With my shoes and socks off I got Mum to come and pick me up to get me back over the stoney bit. As she bent down, I jumped up and BANG!  I smacked my head into her mouth.  One smack in the tooth for Mum, one cut head for me.  Nobody realised it was cut though, until there was blood running down my back.  Dad put me on his shoulders and marched us all back to the car.  Mum dabbed at my wound with a wipe and I commented that it was a good job we'd had our ice creams already!

Monday then, and mum was off with us.  That of course means one thing....lazy snuggle time!

Yay, we loved it, board games, computer games and the blokes fitting our new windows.

Yeah, they got a right grilling from me!

Of course once Dad was home we had to go out.

To the Discovery Centre in Thatcham, turns out it wasn't a bad idea.  We fed the ducks and did loads of playing.

The icing on the cake being bumping into Tegan and Lola in the playground...brilliant!  I was starting to miss her already!

I had a great time at Mr Gilhams after school sports club again in Tuesday.  We played a game where you had to sit on a mat and throw bean nags at the other teams to get them out.

I went out for a bike ride with Dad, we went to the little jumps and then out accross the fields, up to Wash Common park and then back down through the fields.  I loved it.  When we got back to school to pick Ellis up, Jess' brother and I had our very own bean-bag throwing competition, it was great fun...even Mr Gilham thought so.

We had our Easter Assembly on Wednesday morning, Mum came along which was lovely:

She said that I sang and did my actions really well during the songs but she could have done without all the nose picking and eating it.

I decided I could manage dancing this week, so it was my first week in our new time slot, and it was just us littler ones.  I loved the new arrangements as now we get to pick Mum up from work rather than making her walk.

I had my parents evening on Wednesday, while Mum and Dad went in to see my teacher Ellis and I played computer games in the ICT room.  It went very well by the sounds of it too, i'm doing well with my reading and writing and very well with my maths.  I'm doing a bit of extra spelling at home at he moment and that seems to be working out well too.  On top of that Mrs Douglas said that I was lovely and she'd gladly take me home for the weekend to do her gardening.  I hope this hasn't given Dad any ideas.

We've been getting a bit tardy again in the mornings.

Yeah, we like to take our time having breakfast and getting dressed.  Mum usually issues a warning that she's coming downstairs and expects us to be ready by the time she comes down. 

Invariably we're not of course.

So the other day when she came downstairs to find us still slumped in our pj's watching some telly I suggested that our house didn't really have enough stairs.....

Thursday then, another trip to the park after school while Ned was at multi skills.  I've really had the bit between my teeth with regards to my bike since I rode Ned's BMX on the track the other week.  I've just about learnt (micro) wheelies.  I'm very pleased with myself about it too.

We did rugby at multisports.  I really enjoyed it actually, although I would have preferred it if it was like on the telly, when you get to knock each other over properly.

We went out with the Halford boys on Friday night after school for a walk around the woods.

It wasn't as super muddy as last time went but I decided to wear my cool new wellies anyway.

There was however this really yucky muddy puddle:

It looked like the runniest poo ever and was most satisfying to throw stones into!

We were properly exhaisted by friday night so we missed out on an evening trip to Auntie Christines for a family gathering.

All Ellis' fault, falling asleep on the sofa and refusing to wake up.  I was not a happy boy.  Not even watching my new favourite programme 'Man vs Food' could really cheer me up.

So we were up early doors on a lovely sunny saturday morning, ready for a day of excitement.

What was on offer?  A shopping trip?  Are you pulling my leg?

Having said that, the day started well enough when Dad drove right to the very top of the (largely empty) multi storey carpark.

It was really very high indeed, great views!

We took the stairs down (Ned's idea), until we had to walk across a glass bridge over the busy road below.

This too was very cool indeed, I was starting to quite like this shopping lark to be honest.

Then it was straight into a department store toy section...brilliant!

We had a good old browse round before deciding it must be lunch time and finally I got a trip to the Pasty Shop.  I'd been asking for this for ages.

But seeing as we were in Kingston we took the baked goods and headed for the banks of the river Thames:

We had to explore the lower pontoon of course, got a bit close to knocking each other in at one point:

Then it was time for a new pair of trainers for me (with a cool pair of sunglasses thrown in free for Ned and I, Dad was most out out he didn't get any).

And finally, after much negotiation and deliberation....A baseball cap for me.  I'd wanted one for ages and haven't taken it off since i've got it.

We rounded things off witha lovely ice cream to cool ourselves down.

So on this one occasion, shopping was actually okay, as long as it doesn't happen regularly.

Sunday was another lovely sunny day, so we headed into the garden ans stayed there all day pretty much.

We planted some seeds in their trays to grow for a charity plant sale

I wanted them for our garden.

And the trampoline was opened for the summer season.

I bounced pretty much all morning on my own before Ned joined me.

Oh it was good to be back on it, we do love the trampoline and played really nicely on it together:

Even if it did do strange things to my hair:

We even had a barbecue for lunch.

We paid Auntie Cristine a special birthday visit.  She also had Darcey with her wchich made it even more brilliant.

We also arrived just in time to help her decorate her lovely strawberry cake..it looked amazing when we'd finished it.Then it was off to Lakeside to book my birthday party (Quasar and bowling no less, i'm seriously excited about it already).

Then it was home, bath and bed!

Cross country club was actually rounders club for this week as we've pretty much done all the running we need to prior to tomorrows big race!  I think i'm looking forward to it.....



Okay, due to one thing or another we don't actually have any photo's this week.
So you'll have to bear with us this week and just plough through it all i'm afraid.
We'll have some rather shocking news to start off with...I didn't go to dancing on Wednesday as 'my legs hurt'  Well, I said they did anyway.  It had nothing to do with me wanting to hang around in the playground after school with Jess or anything.  Dad explained that if we didn't go straight away we'd miss it for the week and I was quite happy with that.  Well, until about ten minutes after the time it would have finished when i'd decided i'd actually like to go after all.
I had hoped that we wouldn't have to do reading as Dad and I wouldn't have to sit in the car waiting for twinkle toes.  Sadly I had to read at home instead, for a while anyway.
Yeah, Dad decided it would be a good idea to make use of our now free afternoon and get the mothers day cards made!
We were a model of self-restraint and resisted the temptation to smear everything with massive dollops of never-drying PVA and glitter.
We even both did the writing inside all on our own, with no prompting at all from Dad.
I got a red card at school on Thursday, for scrapping with Alastair.  I think it made it worse that we were trying to hit and kick each other in the willy.  But you know how Alastair and I are, this is what we do.  Anyway, Mrs Douglas had to ring Dad and tell him, which I think was rather uncomfortable for both of them.  Oh dear.  Mum wasn't too pleased either, but we all got over it failry quickly and it has been forgotten about now I hope.
We had another trip to the park while Ned was at multi sports.  These are getting rather regular these days, I love it now the weathers getting better.  My classmates Liam and Aidan were there again but they weren't having such a good time as me.  They were crying, about everything, almost all the time.  I don't think it helped that their Mums seemd to find this hilarious.  In addition to this they gave them the advice to be a bit more like Ellis and get on with climbing/playing/swinging or whatever it was we were doing and their misery was pretty well compounded.
Mr Jones has been busy at school crafting a new putting green tucked away in a corner of the playing field.  Myself and Hugo got to be the first ones to test it out on Friday and it was really cool.  I'll hopefully be able to put some practice in before the crazy golf season kicks in for real in the summer.
Saturday was a momentous day of the year, Legoland was open again!
Despite concerns we had over the weather and the potential amount of people being there (due to it being the first weekend and their new hotel opening) we made the pilgrimage.
An emergency toilet stop helped keep both me and Mum dry.
While Dad and I rode the water boat slide ride thing, both of us getting totally soaked through (Dad whineing about it much more than me of course).
But after that it was ride after ride after ride.
And with no sign of the wet weather or massive crowds we pretty much went on whatever we wanted without any queueing up.
One highlight was certainly the underwater Atlantis ride, the sharks and massive rays were really good.
And after the ride the walkthrough aquarium was brilliant as well, we got to stroke a real live Sea Cucumber (For the record it was very slimy, rather unsurprisingly).
As usual we stayed until it closed, but instead of finishing our visit in the company of Larry on Rocket Racers we visited the new Star Wars miniland walkthorough (a load of Lego models of star wars scenes).  I loved it, but sensed the rest of the family were not quite so keen.  I had to agree that I preferred Larry though.
Mothers day on Sunday, and what do mums really want?  A nice early wake up visit from their excited son?  Of course they do....well it was just past 7am wasn't it?
Well you won't catch me up that early on a Sunday morning thats for sure, especially after me little legs have walked me all around Legoland the previous day (with no whingeing I hasten to add).
Ellis eventually got up and we showered Mum with gifts and cards!
We didn't do much in the morning, Mum read to us and we had a cuddle up, watched a bit of telly and what have you.
We had our usual weekend trip to Waitrose for bread rolls for lunch.
Then we put our tent out in the garden and kitted it out inside for maximum slouching comfort.
We had a little trip out on the bikes in the afternoon. 
We got as far as the park off Enbourne road when I got smacked full in the lip while dismounting the spring loaded motorbike.  It made a lot of blood....I was reluctant to use my blankie (which was tucked safely into my bike basket).  A quick think Mum used one of her socks instead to stem the flow.  Thanks Mum.
Oh it really wasn't very nice, poor Ellis, even I was sympathetic this time.
I rode back sat on Dads shoulders while Mum carried my bike.  By the time we'd got to Fifth Road park i'd made a remarkable recovery so we stopped off there for a play.  My friend Matilda from school was there.  We had a great time winding Ned up and calling him silly names.
God they were annoying.
We got home and watched Take Me Out from saturday night on the computer before having tea and heading for bed.
I've got two achievements to brag about this week.  First of all i've learned handstands.  I was sick of ALlastair lookign cool doing them at school so i've been practicing on and off for ages (Dads been grabbing my legs on occasion too).  But now i've got it down unaided.
Secondly i've been picked for the school cross country team (even if I had a hurty foot today and didn't perform quite as well as usual).  We've got a the schools cross country championships next week, I think i'm looking forward to it....

I had a great start to my after school sports club last Tuesday, I was made team captain and got a certificate for player of the week for my efforts at dodgeball! I really enjoyed and can't wait for
next week, especially as Jess will be going now that I am.
So while Ellis was doing her bit, I decided it was time for pre season BMX training. I haven't ridden it since my last race, last season, which is was about six monmths ago.  I made the best of the path outside with my jump and some cones:

I had a lovely time dancing on Wednesday.

I had a great big book all about penguins to read, as recommended by one my class mates Melissa who's Penguin mad. I probably wasn't so keen on the book as she was truth be told, but i'm still doing okay with my reading on the whole.

We had a right grumpy morning on Thursday, don't know why, we just did.

Poor old Mum having to deal with us when we're like that.

Things picked up at school though, we did music outside in the afternoon.  I wouldn't have mentioned it but Dad could hear me drumming from right up the street when he got home from work.  His eyesight isn't what it was but he must have been able to see me too as he did give a rather accurate description of my rather elaborate playing style!

My day didn't fare quite so well, I managed to lose a chunk of goldentime for reasons that still remain a secret known only to me.

Our multi sports session was blindfold football, with the ball having a bell in it.  It was great fun and quite a challenge.

I took Dad down the park again while Ned was chasing a dingling ball round the field.  A load of my friends were there again which was really good.

Friday was our class trip to the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford again.  This time we went to see the Egyptian exhibition which featured a real life (well, dead I suppose) Mummy!  It was cool, the toes were sticking out a bit as well.  Apparently it had been x-rayed and they knew it was a lady Mummy as well.  We loved it, learned loads and all got super excited about little model Scarab beetles in the gift shop.  I got a lovely blue one that almost said Ellis on the bottom.  In Egyptian times Scarab Beetles were a sign of new life apparently, so there you go, a nice fact for you.

He was a little bit late getting back so we very nearly missed our last swimming lesson of the term.

Or in fact the last one ever for me, Mum and Dad have finally seen sense (as well as noticed what a massive effort i've put in over the last god knows how many weeks) and decided that thats enough for me.  I can't tell you just how pleased I am about that.  The lesson itslef was great fun, after s hort warm up swim we had the mats out, the balls and lots of fun.

We had races and games of traffic lights as well as the mats and balls and what have.

Saturday mornining was time for haircuts.  I decided a change was on the cards and decided that although i'd previously said I wanted the longest hair I could possibly grow I decided I wanted a load of it cut off.

I didn't want any cut off, I wouldn't admit that it got in the way of my eyes during running, swimming or bike riding.

So anyway, here it is, as modelled at the park over at Grandads where we went for lunch:

And another one, just to give you a another look:

We had a lovely time, even if we didn't quite manage to get a cuddle from Whiskey, their new cat.

Maybe next time Ned.

Sunday was race day, I was very calm about it all.

I wasn't,I was well excited, I wanted to go and play in the park down at the track with all the boys!

We stopped off at Marks and Spencer to buy our picnic (I know, get us!) and headed south.

It was a lovely sunny day and there were loads of people there.

Practice went well:

The tuck shops sweets went down even better, here I am with Charlie, shortly before he tried to remove one of my teeth with the aforementioned sweets:

In the end the racing was something of an inconvenience to be honest. I wasn't on sparkling form, but two 4ths and a 2nd wasn't too bad in my heats.  The 5th in the final was nothing to write home about though.  Still, onwards and upwards, I didn't get wound up about it and had a great time with Charlie.

I wanted a go, I saw other little ones riding and I wanted a piece of the action.  I borrowed Neds gloves and helmet:

And then Dad and Ned took me on the track:

I was away!  And I loved it, although I wanted to make sure I didn't topple over so shouted at Dad to catch me a few times (i'm not good with the brakes really):

Pretty soon I was racing Charlie as well, I stuffed him:

I had a word with him first of course and told him to let my sister win.

Then I managed to get the kit back of Ellis for a few laps with Charlie myself:

I rode better than I had all day, just mucking about on the track in the late afternoon sunshine.

There was just time for me to steal another quick go before we got thrown out as they wanted to lock the car park gate up:
















And then it was Monday again, but we got up in a great mood and had a lovely jolly walk to school with Mum.
Which was more than Hugo could say, he was giving his mum a right hard time on the way to school and was in trouble by the looks of it...ha ha!
I had cross country club after school again, 6 laps round the field this week and a second place finish.  Maxim's Mum told Dad i'd done really well again.....although I did have a curously muddy bum and back for a runner?
Andy came round for tea.....we all know what that means...parents evening!  Mine this time.  It all sounds like it went well though, it sounds like i'm getting on really quite well and making loads of new friends.

There was a book signing session after school on Wednesday night, with the Icky Doo Dah chap.
We got a book each, signed by the author and then had a mad scramble to get Dad to read them to us before we went to dancing.
It was all very exciting, the whole school seemed to be really into it.
To go with all this book related business, we had a dressing up day at school on Thursday.
Yeah, to go in dressed as our favourite book character.
I went for Harry Potter, which didn't prove to be the most original idea of the day but was certainly a lot better than those who turned up dressed as Wayne Rooney.
And in another feat of not very impressive originality I dressed up as a Princess, take your pick what story I was from, there's plenty of famous book princess:

It was great fun though, even the teachers joined in, all dressing up as Wally from the Where's Wally books.  They even did some hiding later on as well!

While Ned stayed on at school doing multi sports (Hockey this week, brilliant) Dad collected me and we went down the park in the sunshine.  I took my bike, with my fluffy, cuddly sheep in the basket.  There were loads of kids from school there, including Liam, Sacha and Zachary from my class.  Wer had a great time and so did my cuddly sheep, he went down the slide, up the climbing frame and round and round on the roundabout.

We picked Mum up from work and nipped into Sainsbury's.  I took the oppurtunity to select myself a nice new t-shirt and shorts combo for the summer.

And I picked myself a nice new dress and some shorts.  A very productive trip all round.

The weekend was soon upon us, in view of the weather forecast we decided on some indoor based activities.

First up on saturday was the Intech Centre in Winchester.

We loved it, we really loved it.  There were loads of things to push, shove, twist, turn, lift and prod.

Here I am making a whirlpool:

Yeah, there was loads to get involved in:

What was probably even better though was the Planetarium, wow!

Yeah, it was amazing.  It was like a cinema except there wasn't really a screen and the seats were really laid back.

But when the lights went off and the starry night sky appeared in the dome over or heads it pretty much took our breath away.

After picking up a few well known star configurations we heaed off around the solar system to get a closer look at the all the other plantes.

They were beautiful!

The lady doing the commentary gave us some great little facts and figures as we zoomed around thousands of miles of space.  We really loved it.

Yeah, really!

We had a cosy evening in, watching telly.  Lovely.

We had to get up early-ish on Sunday as we had cinema tickets booked for the 10 am showing of Puss In Boots.

I LOVED IT!  Of course I did, there were loads of cats in it!

And fighting and adventure.  So pretty much the perfect film for all of us.

The weather was pretty horrible so when we got home we got our homework finished and out of the way.

The weather did seem to cheer up a bit so we got wrapped up and headed off out for a bike ride.

It was brilliant, so many puddles to zoom through!

Hmmm, I did get a bit wet and in turn cold so wanted to go home.  Hence another rather lengthy bike carry home for Mum and Dad while I whinged along on foot.