After school sports club was cool on Tuesday, but it might be my last one!  I've been on the waiting list for gymnastics club for ages and a place has just became available.  I've got my trial lesson next week so i'll see how it goes.

Hopefully better than rugby did this week.  There was a lot of silly behaviour and we spent most of our time waiting for people to stop messing about and pay attention. It's mostly the year threes and I decided I was going to have a word with our teachers the next day to see if we could get something done about it as the rest of us really want to learn and get our team together for some competitions.

But today's main event was going round to see Millie, the new arrival.  She was so tiny and lovely.

She was, we were really rather taken with her it has to be said.

I was a bit jealous though, we got her a blanket like mine as a present.  First off it was pink, and secondly the back of it was lovely snuggly soft fleecy material.

Miss Langdon beat me to it regarding the rugby, she called us all together and pretty much read the riot act and promised that anyone not taking it seriously wouldn't be allowed to come in the future.  I hope it works out.

I get no such issues at ballet on Wednesdays thank goodness.  I'm really rather enjoying it at the moment actually.

I'm still enjoying school swimming.

And i'm still getting the hump as I can't go yet!

In light of the cold weather and that we decided to have school dinners on thursday...pizza day!

Yeah, they're lovely too.

I had to have a mega rush around friday night as it was team kennet and then film night at school.  I made it just in time to get to the food stall before picking the best seats in the house for the film, Paranorman.  

I got to have a quiet night with Mum and Dad all to myself!

I got to go swimming on Saturday morning...well, that was the plan anyway.  But when we got to the Coral Reef it looked suspiciously quiet in the car park.....

Yeah, it's closed until March for refurbishment!

So it was back on the motorway to Basingstoke pool instead.

I can't really remember going here before so it was all new to me.

I was a lot bigger than last time we went so I was well up for it.  The slides here are brilliant, two of them you use a tube to ride in, one of those you can go two at a time in as well!

I didn't much like the two man version, it had uphill sections in it, they were a bit noisy.

And as well as that they had the space bowl too.  I went off up the stairs for a go.  By the time i'd plopped out of the bottom, Mum had been watching everyone else coming down and after one actual rescue that the lifegaurd had to make from the splash pool she'd convinced herself i'd hate it and was rather on edge.  It was pretty clear by the momentary glimpse of my beaming face before I plunged into the pool however that I loved it!

Mum and I preferred to sit in the jacuzzi!

Next to the fun pool there was also a proper normal pool too.  

We had a go in there as well and really enjoyed doing handstands and doing actual proper swimming.

And I got to show off just how far i've come with my school lessons.  Dad has now declared me a better swimmer than him (easy) and also Mum (not so easy).

When we got home had some of Dad's speciality, luxury hot chocolates.

Topped off with squirty cream, Marsh Mallows and grated dark chocolate.

Max and Leo came round for tea.

And even more importantly they bought pudding with them too:

The finest selection of ice creams, cornets, flakes, sprinkles and sauces we'd ever seen!

We played on the Wii (which is in my room now..Skylanders ahoy) and the Ipods.

And Leo and I got the Lego out amongst other things:

And we stayed up so late you wouldn't believe us if we told you what the time was when we went to bed.

Or if you did, you'd probably tell us off.

So we were in no hurry to get up on Sunday morning.

But we did manage to get to Anne's in time for lunch on Sunday.

After lunch we went out on our scooters.

I'm loving my new one I got for Christmas.

And I want one just the same for my birthday, it's really cool.

We went for a walk round the estate and found some really good hills to bomb down on them too!

We both had really good days at school on Monday, Finished off with dancing for me.

And cross country for me.  I came home impossibly muddy.....

So left over from last week, here's a picture of our snowman 'Twiggy'

Pretty cool to as well i'm sure you'll agree.
So after all the excitement of the snow we had even more on Tuesday when the school was evacuated due to a suspected gas leak.
Yeah, the gas board came round to check everything out but couldn't find a problem.
Turns out the problem came from France!  They had a leak at a factory or something and a gas cloud floated over to our area.
I reckon it wasn't a factory at all, and it was just everyone in France going to the sea side and blowing off in the direction of England.  
This of course played havoc once again with after school clubs.
Rugby was cancelled (even though it would probably been quite hard to play on a snowy pitch covered in the remnants of snowmen any way).
And our after school sports club also fell victim to the gas related nonsense.  
Still, never mind. It snowed again for a bit and we played outside for a while.
It was cool on Thursday when we went swimming as we had to walk past our house to get on the coach.  This gave me a perfect opportunity to show off our snowman, who everyone agreed was seriously cool.
He lasted very well after the snow stopped falling.  Until I decided to kick him in a bit anyway (in my fancy high heeled shoes.....oops).
I had Ben's party on Friday after school, so I gave Team Kennet a miss.  I had a pretty good workout anyway, they had a bouncy castle assault course sort of thing that we had a great time racing over.  The food was lovely too!
I got to have some quiet time with Mum and Dad which was rather nice actually.
After last weekends excitement a quiet one was on the cards this time round.
I got it off to a good start on Saturday morning by finally getting my other front wobbly tooth out.  I nearly lost it under the fridge actually when it pinged out.
We went and got out hair cut afterwards.  I still love haircuts so much!
And I had the same lady that did mine last time, she remembered me too.
We did our semi usual trip to Waitrose for lunch time provisions and then spent the rest of the day hanging about the house.
I tried to get Hugo or Alastair out to play to no avail and settled for a hefty session of computer games on the PC instead.
Mum had to go to work on Sunday so after we gave her a lift we went to the car wash at Sainsbury's.
We had to wait a while but as we had the top of the range wash option it was worth it and we were in there for ages.
When we got home I enjoyed a bit of sunshine out the front on my bike, Ned's scooter and even my camping chair.
I had another computer games session, stick man war is my current favourite.  Hugo finally came round in the afternoon and we had an awesome time playing Skylanders together.
Monday and no sign of any gas leaks or snow to mess things up.
Nope, plenty of rain though.  Made cross country very interesting....
At least dancing was indoors.  We got to finish off Kung Fu fighting.  It was brilliant fun.

Well, we're on a roll tonight!

Here are the somewhat belated Christmas time video's as well:

And a video, pretty quick with this one.....still need to clear the backlog though....

We got my Knitting Dolly out on Tuesday, one of my Christmas presents.  I expected Mum to be able to knit and get me started pretty pronto. I was a little wide of the mark.  It took her ages to decipher the instructions and get herself 'cast on' or something?  Anyway, once she had that sorted out I demanded she make me a top for said dolly straight away.  I'm still waiting....

I had my first session of rugby this week at our new after school club.  We've got a man from Newbury rugby club coming down to give us some coaching and we're hoping to get a team together to play against some other schools.  I really enjoyed it and hope I make the team!

And while Ned was doing that I also had after school sports club.  We played the toilet game!  Not as unpleasant as it might sound really, more of a variation on a game of tag.

I'm obviously pretty busy after school these days so on Wednesday I had a bit of a melt down and said I didn't want to go to ballet.  Dad took it really well...NOT!  Anyway, I decided to go in the end and I think we're going to have a real think about what i'm going to do.

Had a much better time at dancing this week on Thursday after school. Really enjoyed it this week.

Friday then, snow forecast and our weekend trip hanging in the balance!

Yeah, it was a weird one as on one hand we love the snow and wanted to get stuck in with the snow men and sledging.

And on the other hand we'd been really looking forward to our weekend in Scotland to see the Panda's. 

It's been booked for ages and I really wanted to go.

But it was looking pretty unlikely that we'd be going anywhere as it snowed pretty hard for ages.

We toughed it out at school for the day, came home and decided to load the car up and give it a go.

We checked on the internet and it looked like our flight hadn't been cancelled so it was on!

We waited form Mum to trudge home through the snow and then headed for Bristol.

The motorway was pretty good actually, well, the two lanes without snow in them were anyway.  The snow-ploughs were doing the business, sending the snow they scraped up in a massive arc through the air.

We got to the airport okay, so far, so good.

The flight was delayed by an hour and twenty minutes so we had plenty of time for something to eat and drink:

We sat and waited, played on our I-pods and listened to the groans of people who's flights were being cancelled. I was really worried ours would be too.....

But it wasn't!  We must have been really lucky and we were soon trudging through the snow across the runway to our aeroplane.

It was the smallest one we'd ever been on I reckon.

It still looked pretty big to me.

After some awesome 'pinned to the back of your seat' style acceleration we were soon up in the air, through the clouds and up in the stars.

And pretty soon after that we were making our way back down to land again, it was a very short flight.

By this time it was getting pretty late at night really.  We caught a bus into Edinburgh City Centre and made our way to our hotel.

With the help of a very cheerful and drunk English man, who helped us locate the Castle (it was right in front of us).

And then two rather bemused looking Policemen, who were no doubt wondering why a 5 and an 8 year old were being walked through the city after midnight.  Once they'd heard the story they offered us some advice on our route (avoiding a rowdy nightclub) and an endorsement that the hotel was very nice. 

We were soon enough at the hotel and checking in.

Phew, what a journey, but we'd made it!

There was one last drama for the night though, I decided I wanted to take the stairs rather than the lift...it backfired horribly when I got totally lost and realised I didn't even know what room number we were staying in.  Oops.  Dad found me wandering back to reception in tears.  Well, it was late.

After a monster well earned sleep, we drew back the curtains to be greeted by this sight:

Edinburgh Castle, a light dusting of snow and clear blue skies.

Quite different to what we'd left behind down south.

We headed off for breakfast, down to the lobby, only to find out it was actually served on floor 5!

Which had even better views of the castle, we loved it.

Then we packed up, wrapped up and headed off to find a bus to the zoo.

Which proved to be more difficult than it sounded, maybe because we aren't seasoned bus users? Anyway, we decided a taxi was a better option.

A taxi!  We love Taxi's....NOT!

This one didn't seem to lurch off at quite the warp speed that they usually do and the driver told us we needn't rush as the Panda's didn't get up until lunch time anyway.

I'm still traumatised watching the money racking up on the trip meter it has to be said.

We entered the zoo, gave in our tickets and headed for the Panda enclosure:

We were so excited and couldn't wait to see them.

No, and they were every bit as cute and lovely as we thought they'd be:

Yes indeed they were.  There was a male and a female apparently, I think the zoo are hoping that they will have some baby Pandas!

Which would be brilliant seeing how endangered they are.  Anyway, there wasn't mush sign of baby making while we were there.  In fact, there wasn't much sign of anything really, except sleeping:

With the occasional stir to reassure everyone that they were in fact real and not just massive cuddly teddy bears!

As the zoo wasn't that busy we got to stay in with them as long as we liked and got to ask the keeper some questions too.  We found out that they sleep such a lot as the only food that they like (bamboo) only provides them with about 20% of the energy and animal of their size actually needs.  Mad creatures, why not have a spaghetti bolognese or something?  I could have stayed there all day I think, I was really quite taken with them.

I'd seen enough and wanted to explore what else we could see!

Well, as if the pandas weren't enough the rest of the zoo was brilliant, and the other animals seemed to know they had to compete.  

The lions were brilliant and seemed to be really enjoying themselves in the snow:

I got right into my photography and caught this one:

As we left we dropped by their indoor enclosure to take a look. Just as we did they both came in and the lioness had a game with a load of old christmas trees.  She buried herself underneath them and then rolled over, attacking them with her back legs just like Poppy used to.

There were some really fluffy and noisy baboons next door:

The zoo itself was on a bit of a hill, Mum needed a hand up some of it as her boots were pretty slippery:

I took another shot of these Zebras, they must have been really feeling the cold i'd have thought:

I don't think the tiger did, he was quite happy to lay his belly down on the snow for a feed:

These chaps must have been loving it though, the singing penguins:

These were my favourite animals of the day probably.  The looked so funny shuffling about, but I really wanted them to go for a swim.  Fortunately one of them duly obliged after a bit of wait.  I was over the moon.

The park was all but deserted for some reason:

You've got to feel a little bit sorry for these lads haven't you?  They would easily have won Cutest animal award in the absence of the panda's:

The chimpanzees weren't doing a lot:

But the Capuchins and squirrel monkeys were totally brilliant.

We had a great day out, well worth the late night!

We headed back to the hotel, I was still in a state of post Panda excitement:

We watched some You've been framed and then headed out across the road to a Pizza Restaurant Mum and Dad went to about 300 years ago before we were born.

It was pretty cool in there too!

When we'd finished the waitress told us there was a special treasure chest for well behaved children who used all their please and thank you's (and gave her advice on visiting Panda's as she hadn't even been).

We were allowed to take our pick of one toy each.  I went with a smart hopping frog game.

And after about three hours of solid rummaging I came across one of my all time favourite items, a sticky rubber lizard!

We returned once again to the hotel and settled down to watch take me out and eat minstrels.

Standard Saturday night hotel activity for us by now!

The funniest thing we saw on telly though had to be an advert for a film called 'Wee man'

Apparently 'wee' means small in Scotland?  Event though, we thought it sounded hilarious.

We had another monster sleep and just about woke up in time to catch some breakfast.

Which I made everyone bolt down as I wanted to go swimming!

The pool was right down on the ground floor, with a window out onto the street.

It was so cool watching everyone walk up and down while we splashed about.

We had the pool to ourselves for ages too, so there was plenty of jumping and diving.

After the swim we made ourselves nice and at home in the sauna too, it was lovely and warm in there.

Time was ticking on so we had to go back to our room to pack up the last few bits into our bags before checking out.

When we left the hotel we found that right next door there was a really cool traditional sweet shop!

Yeah, I know, it just keeps getting better!

We went in there and spent the money Ellis found in the ladies Swimming lockers...I didn't find any in the men's sadly.

We walked up the Royal Mile to the Castle at the top of the hill.  You could see our hotel from up there and over to the snow topped hillsides beyond.

It was almost worth the hike up there!

We promised ourselves that we'd come back to visit the castle and take the Horrible Histories open topped bus trip too.

But then we made our way back down the other side to Princes street for lunch before getting the bus back to the Airport.

It had been a short but very sweet trip.

And we decided we really liked Scotland.

We did, and everyone we met along the way seemed really lovely too.

We were almost hoping the flight home would be cancelled and we'd have to stay on a bit longer.

But after a game of air hockey and a bag of crisps it was time to board and head home.

It was daylight this time, the view was brilliant out of the window.

It was pretty much dark when we got back to Bristol, but you could still see just how much snow was still around when we came in to land.

I didn't, I fell asleep just before we touched down.  My timing is incredible.

As we hadn't checked any bags in we could just get off the plane and swan off to the car that we'd parked in the posh car park right outside the terminal and get off home.

It was so civilised!

We were home and in bed by half past seven.  We'd made it, all the way there and back, through so called travel chaos as well.

And back to school on Monday.....I took some waking up!

Class was very light on numbers again today for some reason?  A bit of snow?  Pah, what a bunch of lightweights.

I'm getting a bit humpy about it actually, we're having to do like writing and stuff while everyone else is probably out playing in the snow.  And cross country club was cancelled again this week, still, I didn't really fancy running round the field in the snow.

After school dance club was on for me though, yay!  There wasn't many of us either, but we really enjoyed dancing to Kung Fu fighting.

While this was going on, Dad and I were doing Snowball fighting!

And once I got home we finally made a snow man, only about three days later than everyone else!

He's a good one though, will get somne pictures for next week as it was pretty dark by the time we finished him.

My long running wobbly tooth finally fell out on Tuesday night.  It happened while I was in bed.  I woke up and placed it carefully under my pillow.  But in the morning it was gone and there was no money either!  What a nightmare.

I got over it pretty quickly on Wednesday though as it was our long awaited chocolate tasting day (as part of this terms subject matter, chocolate!).  It was lovely, we got to actually have a decent amount too.

I had my fist ballet class of the year as well on Wednesday.  I was sooooooooooo glad to be back, in fact i'd been prancing around the house for days beforehand.  Mrs Groves said I was brilliant this week too, the practice must have paid off.  We also got our certificates from last terms exams as well, must get Mum to go and get me a nice frame for it so it can go up in my bedroom.

When we got home we had a big hunt for my missing tooth.  Dad finally found it under my bed, in a Scalextric box!  Awesome hunting skills Dad, I placed it safely under my pillow for a second time....
Thursday morning, the tooth had gone and there was money in it's place...result!
I made a really cool board game at school with Adrija.  I promised Mum and Dad they can play it next time there's a parents evening as I can't bring it home.
I had my school swimming lessons start again.  The letter home said we had to have proper swimming attire and not board shorts.  I think this means 'Speedo's' I haven't got any of those so I got packed off with my knee length dragon emblazoned finest instead.  Mum said to get school to ring her if there was a problem.  There wasn't.  I'd gone up a group since last time we went and i'm now mid way down the big pool.
When we got home we had scooter time trials up and down the road outside the house.
Yeah, we decided my new one was the fastest, although not by much!
Friday then, cool.
I had a good day at school though and got a special hand stamp for good behaviour.  
I did cross country during Golden Time in the afternoon and really enjoyed it.
I also completely and utterly lost my lunchbag.  This meant I had to have a hot school dinner....a jacket potato with beans as I didn't like anything else on offer.  When Dad came to pick me up we pretty much turned the whole school upside down looking for it...all to no avail.  I got quite upset about it, Dad assured me it would turn up.
Pah, my swimming lessons have stopped, i'm not happy about it and apparently I have to wait like nine weeks until I can start again?  Rubbish. 
It's given us more time for tea though.  This weeks friday speciality was bacon in ciabatta rolls.
They were lovely.
They were, so lovely in fact, I ate three, yes three of them!
I decided that the new Olly Murs song is my new favourite.  I made Dad get it on my Ipod and danced around the house to it pretty much all night.
I'm glad I went to Team Kennet I think......
We had a pretty weird weekend really.
Yeah, Saturday we sat around most of the morning while Mum and Dad did jobs around the house.
We snuggled up on the sofa and watched telly:

Then we headed out to town, Mum had to have her hair cut.
We went to the Entertainer while she was there, but Dad cracked after about 30 minutes and we went and sat in the hairdressers watching Mum get her hair cut and playing rock, paper, scissors on the comfy sofa.
We went to Mum's shop afterwards to get some new luggage.
I performed a number of very stringent test before we decided on what to settle for, i'm sure my help was invaluable in making an informed decision.
We were on a roll and living in the fast lane so we decided a trip to Tesco was the only way to keep the momentum running.
Oh yeah, awesome.  
Actually it was, Dad bought Just Dance 4 with his vouchers he got from work for Christmas...
.....and a packet of lovely cookies.
The Skylanders selection was rubbish though...so we went to Sainsbury's too!  My word, what a lot of shops in one day.  It was worth it though, I love Skylanders in case you hadn't heard?
Sunday was another similarly slow start....until the new washing machine was delivered.
Mum and I were seriously excited and I couldn't wait to cut the plastic off and take away the polystyrene bits.  Once Dad had connected it up we stuffed it full of clothes and let it go!
I put in some serious hours getting my new Skylanders up a few levels.  Oh, and Dad found my missing lunchbag, it was hanging on th e handlebars of my scooter in the garage...oops.
We went out for a lovely muddy walk in the afternoon, as usual we didn't want to go...
...but loved it once we'd got out there in the cold.
We came home and I decided I really wanted to get involved in the whole tooth fairy thing, so after a really good wobble, twist and a little help from mum it was out!

There was a fair bit of blood which I did well to keep from my new white top I was wearing at the time.

So that was it, my first tooth out. I couldn't wait to go to school and show off about it!

Snow! On Monday morning!

Yes, how exciting.

We had a great snowball fight with the Desaume's before school even started which was cool as snow balls were banned in case there was a stone in any of them?

Pah, what a load of spoilsports.

Sadly it didn't last all that long.

But long enough to mean after school cross country club was cancelled this week......