We had a day off school on Wednesday, which was good.

But it was for Grandads funeral, so that was bad.

We gave him a very fitting send off though, we had a sing song, heard some of his favourite music and heard some really funny stories about what he used to get up to as a little boy.

We've got a long way to go before we can live up to his level of mischief thats for sure.

But most of all we had a great big get together, there were so many people there there wasn't even enough seats for everyone inside the crematorium.

Seems like he was a really popular and well loved man, we sort of knew that anyway of course!

We went to the pub afterwards, there was food and drink.

And our cool cousins who even let us have a game of pool with them.

And I got to sit at the bar and have a lovely chat with Uncle Trevor.

It was also a bit of a novelty to have Mum with us on  a Wednesday to take me to dancing afterwards.

So, some of you may have heard that they've finally caught up with Dad and got him to work a bit longer during the day as of last week.  I think he was quite emotional about it all actually as it really hit home that we're growing up fast and don't really need him so much anymore.  Anyway, the upshot is he doesn't have time to go to Tesco on his own in the afternoons anymore.

No, he has to wait until we finish school so we can go with him.

It was our first trip on Thursday and it went suprisingly well actually.

We got everything on the list, and a few things that weren't (Moshi Monsters, ha ha)

I got my school report on Friday, it was a really good one too.  I appear to be doing really well at my reading, writing, Maths and creative stuff, i've made loads of new friends and apparently i'm a pleasure to have in class!

Our bike ride in the evening was rained off.  Not surprising at the moment of course, it has been raining rather a lot hasn't it?

So instead we all sat and watched the Little Mermaid together.

We had a quick trip into town on saturday morning, the Spider Man demo running on a 3D telly in John Lewis was pretty brilliant!

Then in the afternoon it was my school fete!  I was so excited and couldn't wait to go.

I was pretty up for it too, especially with the Olympic theme as well.

It's a shame it was quite so wet, but we still made the best of it and had a brilliant time.

Even if we didn't win any more jars of sweets on the childrens tombola.

Mum did a stint as a helper on that stall, we loved helping her out, giving out prizes and re-stocking the table.

But it was so popular we soon ran out of prizes and had to help her pack up.

Dad on the other hand had plenty to do on the bbq stall, flipping burgers for all he was worth!

He obviously developed a taste for it as he fired our barbecue up when he got home, even in the pouring rain!

We had a trip out on sunday, well, it had been a while!

Yeah, we went to Milestones in Basingstoke, I just about managed to get there without spewing up.

It was really cool inside, all streets and that made to look like the olden days.

There were loads of lorries and things as well:

Here I am during a uncharacteristicly late lunch stop, shortly after stuffing a whole chocolate chip muffin into my mouth after being egged on by Dad:

And here I am in a weird bit tucked away in a corner that looks more like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory:

The queue for the war rationed sweet shop was pretty long, authentic no doubt!

The service inside was good though:

But we didn't think much of the things on offer in the toy shop:

And much preferred the musical offerings:

We came home and had a game of junior Monopoly.

It went well, until I started getting well beaten....I had a minor meltdown.

Minor???  Are you sure Ned?

That takes us right up to Monday, todays exciting news was the arrival of our Olympic tickets!

Now all we have to do is work out how to get to London early enough....

Right i'll kick off with a warning this week, if you buy a big gooey chocolate pudding from Tesco, you know sort of like a trifle in a big plastic tub type of thing...those white curls on top of it are not, I repeat not parmesan shavings.  Very disappointing for a cheese lover like me!

Yes Ellis, if you say so.

Well this weeks big news at school is that our class is getting mixed up with the other class before we go into year 1 after the summer holidays.  Only one of my proper girl friends seems to be in my class for next term.  I'm not too bothered about that, after all, i'll still have Charlie!  We've also found out that my teacher next year will be Miss Srickland!

And i've found out that i'll be getting Miss Walsh in place of my beloved Mrs Douglas.

In further massive news I went on my first sleep over on friday night at Abi and Faye's.

And while Ellis was away, Dad and I headed off out for a bike ride.

Poor old Mum was left on her own for the evening!

I'm sure she was okay, we went to a new place on the mountain bikes, Croft Woods in Swindon.  It was a proper bike trail, all around the woods.  There were rocks, berms, bridges and all sorts of stuff to ride.  We did two laps of the 5km loop and then tried the easy blue loop to finish the night off.  That turned out to be a mistake as I took a bad tumble and hurt my leg.  It was a long way back to the car and Dad didn't have a clue where to go. Good job I have a great sense of direction and got us back via the most direct route.  I also gave him a lesson on how to behave around the deer we spotted, by telling him not to kneel down as the knees produce the most scent on the human body which can scare mothers away from their young permanently.  Anyway, it was a great trip and i can't wait to go again.

I had no such dramas with Abi, we had a lovely time and I wasn't even that late asleep....really.

I was, we didn't get home until 10pm!

So it was lay in time on Saturday morning.

Yeah, we finally got going after lunch though.  Due to our late start we went swimming....to Northcroft!

Yeah, no usual trip to one of the exciting pools of Swindon or Bracknell this time.  Having said that, it was pretty good fun.

Yeah, we actually played with each other rather than just bombing down slides on our own.

On sunday we had a very civilised mid morning bacon sarnie brunch.

In readiness for the school fete that started at 12!

We were soooo excited about it, this level of excitment increased several fold when both Aunti Trish and Auntie Christine turned up (especially Auntie Trish with her bag full of 10p's she bought for each of us...thanks!)

It was really good, I won loads on the kids tombola, Dad won a coconut on the coconut shy and when we left Mum was heading up the leader board of the adults netball competition.

And what did I win?  Nothing.  I stil enjoyed myself though!

Here's our haul of winnings:

We managed to convince Auntie Trish to stay for tea as well, brilliant!

Yeah, we had a good afternoon out in the garden, I decided Poppy might need some snuggling material though as she is getting a bit old these days:

There were a few trampoline related injuries, but I think tiredness was the major contributor in all honesty:

Back to school on Monday of course and it was all change. 

The whole school seemed to go up a year for the day.

So I had a visit to year one.

And I had a visit to year 4!

We both rather enjoyed as well.

This weeks biggest news was my first school sports day.  It was brilliant.  I'd been practicing by running home from school as fast as I could evryday for weeks so I was ready for action.  It was ovely to see Mum and Dad sat out on the field to watch too.

My first race of the day was the hat race, which was pretty much a running race, with a stop mid way up the track to put on a hat.  I was super excited before we set off:

And I made a goood start:

I didn't do quite so well at stopping to put the hat on though and pretty much trailed in last.  I didn't care though, I was just happy to be outside on the field on such a nice day with my friends and family.

We watched the other classes race and cheered them on before it was time for my second outing in the hoop race.  Again, based on a running race but with two hoops to pass through along the way up the track.  I was dead fast:

And managed the technical hoop negotiating aspect of the race a whole lot better than i'd managed the hat in my earlier outing.  I crossed the line first I think, it was pretty close but i'm going to claim it:

Dad sloped off after the proper races but I managed to get Mum to stay for the other games and even the picnic.  I got a bit boo-ey....seemd to do the trick.  Having said that I haven't really been myself lately so it was nice to have some extra time with Mum.

I also did really well at dancing this week, after a bit of a clingy start on Dads lap I got well into it.  In fact at the end, our teacher said it was some of the best dancing she'd seen in ages and awarded me a gold star sticker...I was pretty chuffed about that!

I got to do loads of reading of course, deep joy.  In fact, I decided to carry on reading during the drive back home afterwards as well, anything to get the book finished, it just won't go away on it's own I suppose.

I had my school trip on Thursday, to Richard Benyon's house, Englefield Estate.  It was a good day out actually, I loved wearing my cool wellies all day and looked like a proper farmer in my jeans/shirt/jumper combo.  There was all sorts to see, but of course i'm not letting on what I saw or got up to.  One thing I did do though was talk to one of the gardeners over there who gave me plenty of tips on how to get the best out of the pear tree in the garden.

Auntie Trish babysat for us on Friday night.  We discussed many deep issues like love, life and death.

We ate some sweets and denied we were tired as long as we could.

We had a trip to Toys R Us on saturday morning to buy some presents, I decided to have a good old spew up on the way.  I'm fine with 3 hour trips to Wales or Cornwall but 20 minutes of Dads country road driving to Basingstoke and it's face in the bag time!  It wouyldn't have been so bad but we were all out of wet wipes and sick bags.  A bit of quick ruslting in the back of the car found a Romney Hythe & Dymchurch railway carrier bag and a bottle of water in the glove box...we got by!

We headed home, I was off to a party for Louise's birthday.  It was a Harry Potter themed party so I got my cape, school uniform and wand out, messed up my hair and got Mum to draw me a lightning bolt scar.  I was good to go!

While he was there Mum and watched Tangled on DVD, Dad tried to ruin it by snoring all the way through it but it didn't put us off.

I had a great time at the party and came home with loads of cool stuff, thousands of sweets and my own owl as well as a new sparkly wand which was quite an improvement over my chopstick from the chinese takeaway.

We went to pay Anne a visit on Sunday, we all helped give her hedge a trim in exchange for lunch.  A good deal I thought?

Back to school on Monday, but we were both really excited.

Yes, I was going to Neave's after school.

And I was having Tegan round!  Finally.

Neave's Mum tried to wind me up saying it was green cabbage for tea, but I would have been quite happy with that!

Tegan and I spent about an hour thrashing out potential deals for swapping our Moshi Monsters before we got on the PC for some more Moshi Monsters action, then we wathced a little TV before having a sword fight, giving the cat some loving and then having tea out in the garden.  After tea we had a good old bounce on the trampoline.

All I have to say is that even though I though my bed was super cool, Neave's is even better, it has a slide!!!!!

Well it's sure been a while hasn't it?

Yeah, sorry about that, there's been various things going on over the last few weeks, some good and some not so good.

So we'll try and give you a round up of the last couple of weeks.

First of all I suppose the biggest event of the year so far was the Queens Jubilee.  We'd been preparing for days at school.

Yeah, for our massive family picnic on the field.

It was a great afternoon, Dad came along, so did Darcey, she bought Laura and Auntie Trish along too!

I managed to buy back one of the cakes that i'd made:

And I reckon Darcey looked pretty cool in my crown too!

I spent a lot of the afternoon with my friends, it was a great afternoon and we loved it!

Once we were all done at school we helped Dad make the final preparations for our camping trip.

Yep, we'd checked the weather forecast religiously and still decided that Wales would be a good idea!

We sent our advance party of Andy and Owen down earlier than us with the tent.

So while we were sat in the services, enjoying a lovely happy meal they were busy putting the tent up, ready for our arrival.

They'd done a good job too, all we had to do when we got there was run arond the tent tripping over the guy ropes and make our beds.  Mum was particulalrly impressed with this arrangment it has to be said.

When you say make our beds, we left that to Mum while we went for a walk to the beach with Andy and Owen.

So here's our setup for the weekend (note union flags on the doorway):

Saturday morning the sun was out so it was time to hit the beach:

And then it was back to camp for fun and games.  Mum and Dad's airbed had gone down overnight, it made an excellent wrestling prop:

And proved to be a great place for a little al fresco snoozing:

We then settled in for the night, the weather had turned pretty bad.  Not quite as bad as our ill advised camping trip to Croyde last year, but pretty bad none the less.

It was raining, a lot.

And it was pretty windy too.

But it didn't keep us awake for long....all that fresh air sure makes us tired.

And the boys must have done a good job putting the tent up as we were warm and dry all night!

Sunday was my actual proper birthday, how cool, my birthday in a tent (even if there does seem to be a general decline in the quality of my birthday locations over the last few years, Florida when I was 3, Barcelona when I was 4 and now Wales for 5.  It doesn't bode well for next year does it?):

It was really cool to have presents in the tent, i can't believe there was even room for them in the car, what with all of Dad's camping parephenalia and booze.

I did some Lego with Owen:

And then we headed out for a bit of trip.  We went to the Mumbles in Swansea to visit an ice cream parlour for a bit of a birthday treat (and to get some shelter from the rain which was still coming down quite heavily:

We left the camera behind, so I came to the rescue with my Ipod.  Speaking of the Ipod, I was glad we had a trip out in the car as it gave me a chance to top up it's charge.  I love camping, don't get me wrong, but I do enjoy a little break from the great outdoors with my Ipod.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to like rotating pictures very much, so you'll have to tip your head on one side for this one:

And this one, but to make it interesting it's the other way around this time:

When we got back to the tent we had a brilliant cap gun fight.

Cap guns...how brilliant are they exactly?  How have I got to 8 years old without ever having a cap gun?

They were rather good it has to be said.  Once all the caps had run out (as had the supplies of the campsite shop too) it was back to the tent for my birthday cake:

I was every bit as excited and thrilled as I look on the pictures.  A lovely day was topped off perfectly when the weather finally lifted and we got to go for a lovely long walk along the beach and dunes in the evening:

My favourite way to round off a day!

The next day was a much better prospect weather wise, it was even sunny.  Back to the beach then?

Skim board and boules for me.

Splashing about for me:

And a good old session on the Hello Kitty bodyboard.  Lovely.

Not as lovely as the cafe up the hill in the sunshine though:

And that was pretty much that, we packed up and came home.  It had been a great weekend away, even with the wind and rain!

So we were back home for the rest of half term.  The first day we used wisely playing with some of my new birthday toys in the morning with Mum:

And then we had a trip to Donnington castle in the afternoon with Dad:

We had a couple of days at holiday club at our school as well.

We did, it was brilliant.  We got to play Just Dance 3 on the Wii!

There was other cool stuff as well though Ned, we really enjoyed ourselves. So much so that when Dad came to pick us up after lunch we sent him away until later in the afternoon.

We also got to spend a little time with Auntie Christine, Laura and Darcey on and off for a few days as Mum and Dad were visiting Grandad in hospital a bit more often. 

Yeah, we'd been to see him the other week in hospital too.....

In other news, we went back to school for our last term of the year.  How time flies eh? 

My new bed arrived, finally.  It's been a long time coming but as you can see it was well worth the wait:

It really is lovely, especially with all the other trimmings that mum and Dad got me, I can't wait to show it off to any visitors!

It's proper nice in there now actually.  I decided I wanted a bed like that, but decide that i'd actually rather have the bigger bedroom really.  Mine's up for decoration next, don't hold your breath, you know how slowly things get done round here.

It was all go on friday, what with me at the school disco (complete with my new glow in the dark belt's to choose from).

And the rest of us going to Finlays place for a barbecue and to watch a football match.  Didn't pay much attention to the football really, but us kids had a great time in the garden playing.

I got there after the disco (which was great as always) just in time for the puddings to come out and the end of the match.

Just before I decided to have a very tearful and angry meltdown, which gave everyone something to watch as I was carted off home, well, it was getting pretty late!

Saturday was the day of my birthday party, only two weeks after my actual birthday so not too bad I suppose.  We had it at Eddie Katz and were shown to my party room, which just so happened to be the disco room, cool or what!  All my friends soon showed up, oh and Ned, and it was party time:

We had a great time running about, climbing, sliding, jumping and what have you.

Yeah, I even quite enjoyed myself actually!

After the food had been eaten, Eddie Kat himself bought in my cake (a chocolate hedgehog this time, remember, no jam cake for me!).

Sunday was off course fathers day, so we gave Dad his cards and presents early and then decided what he'd really like to do for a treat was take us to Legoland.

We are good to him aren't we.

In amongst all the usual goings on there were a few points of interest.

Firstly, I went on the big kids cars for the first time.  Dad told the man I was six (after we'd been practicing me saying how old I was).  It was brilliant, so much better than the little kids ones next door.

Yeah, she did really well too, especially the massive head on crash she had with me!

And I managed to finally remove a wobbly tooth i'd been trying to keep in my mouth for months!  It caused quite a stir in the Atlantis ride!

So that rounds up what we've been up to b ut we have to end on a sad note for this installment.
Yes, we mentioned earlier that Grandad was in hospital, sadly they couldn't make him better and he's no longer with us.
As Mum has said, at least he wasn't ill for long and he isn't poorly anymore.
Yeah, it all seems so quick from when we were last playing football down the park over at his house to this.
We'll certainly miss him thats for sure!
Yeah, especially the funny stuff, who else would hang teddies on the light fittings?