Oh, now, where were we?
It's been a while, there's been Easter, A holiday and an extended period of internet issues but I think we're back on an even keel now and ready to get things up to date around here.
Right then, yes, lets synchronise calendars, and go back to:
Tuesday 26th March:
Yes, well it was still freeeeeeeeezing cold and horrible.  So much so that the Schools Cross Country competition was cancelled due to a few un-named schools crying off.  We were not happy about this, all our hard preparartion leading up to the big day to produce our peak results!  I still got to do rugby after school though, turns out it was our last session which is a shame.
I managed to acquire two more shells for good behaviour....I had a good day then!
Wednesday:
I managed another 4 shells today!  It was also our Easter assembly, Mum came along to watch.  Thing was, I was a few rows back behind some bigger kids and I wanted to make sure she could see me.  What was I to do?  Give them a shove and set off a chain reaction of kids toppling down a few little steps to give everyone a good clear view of ME of course!
Being wednesday of course it meant a good old rush around between ballet and team Kennet, which was to be our last indoor session of the season (after the weather was deemed too cold to venture outside I think).
Thursday:
Last day of term.....hooray!
You would have thought so wouldn't you?  But no, we still had to do literacy and numeracy.  Although we did have a really cool Easter Egg hunt.....resulting in my very own tub of mini-eggs!
No such nonsense for our class, we made easter baskets (to be filled with some very high quality confectionery later on) and then watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I celebrated this fantastic day by dancing home, performing the loser dance towards the general direction of school!
Friday:
Good Friday bank holiday, cool, we're all off together.
The great bedroom clear up started....in preparation for decorating.  The Scalextric came out from under the bed....it would have been rude not to take it downstairs and set it up.
We love the Scalextric.
We do indeed.  We even managed to make our own track, which was okay until Dad came down, declared it 'boring' and re-did it to his liking.
We went to Homebase to get the paint for Ned's bedroom.
This was a pretty long drawn out affair, I had to fight my corner pretty hard to get the colours I actually wanted and would not back down!
We spent the rest of the day playing Cluedo and Labyrinth.
And then I had to go and sleep in Mum and Das bedroom due to my room being full of stinky wet paint and having no furniture.....oh great!
Saturday:
We went to Legoloand...it was brilliant!
But very, very cold indeed.  No water rides today thats for sure but it was certainly good to be back after the winter lay off.
Easter Sunday:
It was pretty low key this year, if you can call the massive excitement of the annual easter egg hunt low key!
We really love Easter' like really.
We turned the house upside down, finding chocolate goodness in the most unlikely places.
Auntie Trish ended up coming round for lunch at the last minute.
At our request, she's always welcome!
There was also more decorating done by the grown ups, my bedroom was coming along nicely actually, even if Dad still wasn't sure about my colours.
Another bank holiday on Monday, i've just realised it isn't really like us to spend a whole four days at home is it?
We did have something up our sleeve though.  In the meantime it was more decorating and a trip to Costas for lunch...yum!
Tuesday:
Dragon club day, carefully arranged to coincide with their trip to Pizza Hut for lunch, good organisation skills Mum!
So in amongst all the usual Dragon Club shenanigans we also had the excitement of a mini bus trip and buffet pizza frenzy, bonus!
I got dropped off at Ali's in the afternoon for a sleepover, my first one!  We made ourselves pizza for tea (double pizza day, yay). Then we had ice cream and watched a film before turning in for the night......not that we went to sleep in a hurry of course.
I had a Ned free evening, which was sort of nice in a quiet way.
Wednesday:
I went swimming with Ali the next morning, it was cool, but they were pretty strict at Canons club where we went.  Never the less it was great fun. When when I got home, My bedroom had been finished. This meant I could move out of mum and dads bedroom at long last, And as for my room it looked rather good in my colours.
I went to auntie Christines, it was so cool, we had a proper girls shopping outing and I got some lovely stuff, thanks very much auntie Christine!
Thursday:
Dragon club again, this time to coincide with a trip to the discovery centre in Thatcham.
Another example of Mum's fine scheduling skills.
It was a great trip, we played on the playground, we made lovely dragonfly's.
We also had a session of den building in the woods too.  My management potential was noted, apparently i got everyone on board by using well reasoned arguments rather than shouting and hollering. My den building skills also raised questions as to whether i'd done any of this sort of thing before in the scouts or something!
When Dad came to pick us up, we were all sat around the table having a hot chocolate (topped with marshmallows) and a biscuit or two, or three.
How very civilised on such a cold day to have been outside.
Friday:
I had my shopping trip with Auntie Christine, obviously this was awesome.
I got to spend a few hours at Auntie Christines and then went round to my friend Lilly's for the afternoon.  We wound each other up a little bit truth be told, but it was nice to see her, and her doggie!
Yeah, her dog is cool, manic, but very cool and even cute.
We took the car for a wash in the afternoon at the car wash.
The appeal of the car wash never seems to diminish for us!
Andy came round in the evening with my birthday presents a little early.  Skylanders and swingball, good skills Andy, thanks.
Then we had to have an early night, there was an early start on the cards Saturday morning.....
Saturday:
Indeed, it was a 5am departure for the ferry terminal in Poole to take us to Jersey.
We were pretty awake and on it considering the time and we were soon driving onboard the boat.
Dad was seemingly far more excited about this than any of us kids it has to be said.
As soon as we set sail we sorted ourselves out with some breakfast from the cafe on board and had a bracing walk up on deck as we took to the open seas.

The open seas were a bit on the choppy side though.....I started to feel a bit iffy.  Dad and I headed  towards the outside deck.....we didn't quite make it that far, and sadly all my puke didn't quite make it into the sick bag either.  Oops, we had to use our best smiles as the cleaner appeared to do a little mopping up job.  We carried on outside for a bit of fresh air and to admire the frankly enormous wake the engines were making before heading back to our table to finish off the sweets. I was obviously feeling much better.

We had to stop at Guernsey first to let people off and let some on before we set sail again for the short final leg to Jersey.

We pulled into the harbour and in no time at all we had to go back to the car deck to get ready to drive off the boat.

After a short drive (through a really cool tunnel under a navy base) we were at our hotel.  We checked in but our room wasn't quite ready. 

This wasn't a problem though as we'd been given a pass for the swimmng pool complex and Dad had packed a small bag with the swimming stuff in it easily to hand.

What a result, we had a lovely meal in the pool cafe area (garlic bread and chips of course).

The pool itself looked brilliant and we couldn't wait to get lunch finished and get in there.

There were slides and hot tubs and rapids, but best of all there was also a massive outside area....and unlike the Coral Reef, the doors to it were open!

So within a few hours of leaving the freezing cold mainland we were swimming around in an outdoor swimming pool under sunny blue cloudless skies.  I couldn't have been happier!

I was when I saw just how lovely our room was.  In fact it was more than a room, apparently it was a suite, looked like a flat to me, a very nice one at that.  We were up on the fourth floor which meant we had lovely views out to sea and everything.

Of course, the cool stuff couldn't last all day, we had to go food shopping.

Yeah but the good news on that front was that there was a choice between Waitrose and Marks and Spencer, posh or what?  Our two favoured bread suppliers as well, I was made up!  The roads were pretty tiny on the way, much like Cornwall actually.

We had a spot of tea and then turned in after what had been quite a long day.

Sunday:

We had a lovely sleep in our bunk beds:

But we were pretty excited to get up as it was Mum's birthday. 

We'd been bursting with secrets for what felt like a lifetime!

Yes, we'd sorted out her cards, presents and cake way before we left.

We got he an Iphone.

Which we will want to play on, even though it won't have any cool games like our Ipods.

Some posh moisturiser that doesn't smell like cake.

And a new top.

Not bad considering we were away.

She seemed pretty pleased with it anyway.

We had a quick game session after breakfast:

Once that was done and dusted we headed off out for an explore. 

We started out at Corbiere.

There were loads of gun bunkers left over from the German occupation, I loved exploring them:

Then we headed off towards the lighthouse, this meant an oppurtunity for loads of climbing as it was accross a rocky causeway, only accesible at low tide:

The lighthouse was pretty cool really I suppose:



But I spent the entire walk asking questions about the war.  I think Mum and Dad were pretty exhausted by my endless questions really, where's Uncle Alan when you need him?

All this sea air had made us pretty hungry so we set off for lunch overlooking St Ouens bay, the main surfing beach:

We had a walk on the beach aftewards, the waves weren't big enough for any surfing so we did loads of skimmers instead. 

And I got a welly-full of cold sea water after wading out a bit too far. It has to be said, this took the edge of it a bit for me and I got in a right tizzy.  I wanted to go back to the car...the other three wanted to keep walking....

Yeah, I did, it was really cool, there were loads of bunkers and towers and what have you all along the bay, I wanted to see them all!

I didn't, I wanted a nice warm pair of feet!

We struck a compromise, Dad took me back to the car...

While Mum and I carried on walking in the opposite direction with the arrangement that Dad drove the car up to pick us up...perfect!  We could investigate more military leftovers:

We made our way back to the hotel and presented Mum with her birthday cake:

Which we decide we would eat out on the balcony:

What else was there to do? Go for a swim of course.

Well, the pool was there and we didn't have to pay, would have been rude not to make the most of it!

Monday:

Hmmm, we had to go shopping....urrggghhh!

Yeah yeah Ned, I got some lovely new clobber though.

I suppose we did get a decent lunch out of it, here is a significant portion of my milkshake stuck to my nose:

And liberation square was pretty cool too:

Once we'd had lunch and wandered around town for a bit we decided that it was time to hire a four wheeler bike and go for a family spin up the prom.

Once Mum had worked out how to pay for parking with 'scratchcards' anyway.

The bike itself was dead cool, even if the steering was a little twitchy.

It was all going very well really, the sun was out, we'd made great progress up the path and had turned round to head back when Mum suggested ud two have a go on our own.

We didn't need asking twice!

Trouble was, we were having such a great time, we kind of forgot all about Mum and Dad and sort of left them behind, way behind.

We took the bike back to the hire depot and waited for them to catch up.

But it was quite a way and there was sign of them.  I decided we best head back towards them on foot.  We met them after about 20 minutes....

and they didn't look happy!

There was a fairly quiet drive back to the hotel it has to be said.

Ooops, never mind, it soon blew over......and we went swimming again!

And that evening we went to the main hotel bar to see what was going on, Kids Zone Live!

Oh yes, this was more like it, a bit of a disco and then an entertainer for somne fun and games.

I loved it, the bloke doing it was well cool too.

Tonights game was a boys versus girls dance off.

There wasn't enough boys so  couple of Dad's had to join in, fortunatley not our Dad though, the ones we actually got were pretty good dancers and really went for it ensuring a win for the boys!

Being such show offs though, we loved getting up on the stage and throwing down a few moves (video evidence to follow).

Tuesday:

With war question reaching almost saturation point it was a good job we visited the Jersey War tunnels I reckon.  It's an undergorund tunnel that the Germans built to use as a hospital during the war but now it houses exhibitions about the occupation of Jersey and what it was like for the people, it really was quite thought provoking.

And dark, and a bit cold.

And very, very noisy, with mocked up air raid shelters with sirens blaring and the sound of bombs dropping.  I didn't like it at all.

No, neither did I.

We were very relieved to get to the more upbeat section about the liberation of the island it has to be said.

We did have a lovely picnic out in the gardens though:

After lunch and a long nap in the car we made our way to Plemont beach.

This place was pretty cool, loads of rocks tro climb down...

Or you could just use the steps Ellis!

There was a really cool waterfall at the back:

You could get round behind it and everything, there were caves as well, we loved it.

We had to make the most of the beach though, the tide was coming in:

It was my turn to get a welly full of water today:

But I didn't have a massive whinge like Ellis.

Whatever Ned:

As the tide came closer and closer to the steps up, Ned got more and more worried so we had to take him back up.

I wasn't worried about the tide, I just wanted an ice cream from the cafe up the top!

Wednesday:

The weather was a bit grim today, we had a lazy morning and played some games.

But we couldn't hide indoors all day could we?

No, of course not, swimming pool it was then!

Yes indeed, swimming pool and the Flowrider for me and Dad.

I spent the whole afternoon pottering about in the pool, I loved it: 

Meanwhile Dad and I were outside having a Flowrider session.  Our instructor Mark was really cool and we got the hang of it pretty quickly:

He got us doing tricks and all sorts.  We only had to share it with another two boys so we got plenty of goes over the 4 and a bit hours!  It did get a bit cold while waiting though, but that was soon remedied by jumping in the nice warm pool for a bit.

In the evening we made another visit to the bar for the kids disco thingy again.  It was custard pie night! 

But I suddenly needed the toilet and so Mum had to come with me and missed the bloke getting the pie in the face...she wasn't happy she missed it.

Thursday:

We went to the Amaizin Adventure Park.  We'd been warned that it may not actually be that amazing which led to a lot of silly jokes on the way and indeed in the car park when we pulled up.

Yeah, first impressions maybe weren't that great, but I soon changed my mind when I saw this beast of a slide:

It was fantastic, I stayed on it for ages!

I was seduced by the pedal karts:

I did lap after lap after lap.  Ended up making a friend to race, we had a right old mega endurance race.  I reckon I did him....and it turned out his name was Ned too!

The jumping pillow was ace:

There were various carts dotted about the place:

And whoever would have though that chucking tennis balls at tin cans would be so much fun?

The tobbogan run was great fun:

It was borderline scary fast when you got to the bottom though:

It didn't stop me having loads of goes though!

We had the best tracctor and trailer ride we've ever had, doughnuts in a muddy field, high speed sprints and some really cool up and down mud mounds.  It was like a roller coaster.

A bit more pedal car action:

Some mini golf (I won of course):

And some weird bike contraptions:

As well as all this there were playgrounds, bunnies, ponies and of course an ice cream.

We had a great day out.

But we were soooooo tired there was no swimming or evening disco action....

Friday:

We took a trip out to the East coast, first stop, Gorey castle.  Mum loved the name of this one!

We had a good old explore and discussed the pro's and con's of attacking it or defending it before getting back in the car and heading onward up the coast to St Catherine's breakwater.

Which was just like a massive path out into the sea....it was really long!

We had to go right to the end of it of course:

There were some well smart disco podiums as well:

And the sand sculptures were really rather impressive:

We headed back to the refuge of the cafe for lunch, it was pretty windy out there!

After lunch we continued along the coast road to see what else we could find, but all we really wanted was to get back in the pool.

So we headed back to the hotel and had another dip!

We to the bar agin in the evening to enter the quiz night.....sadly we were the only ones in there except the barmen!  The quiz didn't happen.....we sat in the lobby playing sevens having a drink until the kids disco kicked off.

Afterwards there was a band on, but to be honest they were too loud for me.

Which was a shame as Me, Mum and Dad were quite enjoying it.

Saturday:

The big one, my birthday! Another consignment of smuggled presents to be taken care of.  I got some awesome Skylanders:

And a totally brilliant carry case for them all:

 I had my breakfast order granted (sausages/baps/tomato sauce) so things were going very well indeed. I also had the promise of another present waiting for me when I got home....this lead to quite a lot of speculation on my part.  It must have been too big to bring with us.....

So, there you go, i'm 9 years old!!!!!!

We had a bit of a cosy up while deciding our plan of action for the day:

A trip to the swimming pool was first on the agenda.

Great Idea Ned.

Then on to the cinema (with an air hockey/pool/pinball session thrown in) to see the Croods (which we all loved) and then, Pizza Hut!

We came back, suitably full, but not too full for some of Bob the Dog birthday cake:

And then it was all on the sofa for Britains Got Talent.  What a brilliant birthday.

Sunday:

Our last day....we were so sad.

We were indeed, there may even have been a few tears as well.

We softened the blow by checking out and then going for a swim....ha, another swim!  We were seriously going to miss this pool thats for sure.

Then it was time to get in the car and head back to the ferry terminal (stopping off at the Pasty shop on the way).

The crossing on the way back was really rather pleasant.  We played cards, we ate and drank, we Ipoded.

I wasn't sick!

We drove home in time for Ned to open his other present....

Yes, it was a big one too:

A stand up surf board no less.  I was over the moon.  I really wnated one for Christmas but i's much better now as it won't be long before I get to use it!

So thats the holiday update, it was brilliant, we had such a good time.

Yeah, we really did, we really appreciated this one, we're very lucky.

We have some video to follow of course,

and the rest of the catch up to do, but that will have to do for now....

Back to rugby on tuesday night after school this week. Every week it goes on my boots get better and better value.
And every week it goes on I don't have to listen to Ned's whingeing about having to hang around waiting for one of my activities.
We had to make our own chocolate bar at school on Wednesday, I went prepared with a bottle of peppermint esscence.  I should have been a little more generous with it though, there was only the faintest hint of mint in the finished product.  Not that any one at home got to try any of course as the pieces i'd pledged to bring home for Mum, Dad and Ellis had mysteriously failed to materialise......
We had to have school dinners on Wednesday to ease the run around after school to get me back from ballet,  mum from work and then Ned to team Kennet.
I was not happy about this at all, it was even pizza day! Mum pointed out that I should be grateful as there are plenty of children in the world who wouldn't be getting a meal at all at lunchtime!
I was quite happy with the arrangement, vegetable bolognese very agreeable indeed.
It worked out okay in the end I suppose, we all got to where we were supposed to be with time for a swift sandwich and a pepperami as well.  We've merged the wednesday and friday night sessions at Team Kennet now, there was loads there! It was cool to see Maxim as well as Alexandria's older brother.
We had our sponsored bounce on Thursday, I think I managed around 62, I could have done more if i'd taken Ned's advice on board and kept my bounces low and quick, but I was enjoying my bounces far too much for that.
When I got home from school I made a series of self shot videos, starting of with me dancing to gangnam style and finishing with a few episodes of my very own TV show.
Then after tea it was time for my parents evening! I was sure I had nothing to worry about.....
I was.  Bit wide of the mark it would seem and it didn't perhaps go quite as well as i'd hoped.  They got to see my customised work book (staples removed and triangles snipped out around the edges of most of the pages).  They also got told about my general way of working which is to do lagely nothing throughout the lesson and then produce a beautifully written piece in a few minutes before i'm let out for break.  Oh dear.
I forgot to mention my parents evening last week didn't I?  Well i'll fill you in.....i'm doing really well!  I've already met my agreed targets for the year (which was to meet the standards for my age) and now i'm working beyond them!
Spurred on by being found out at parents evening, I managed to aquire 3 reward shells at school on Friday.
We had a visit from the sports leaders for golden time on Friday (kids from big school).  They did basketball with us, I really loved it and played really well.
And then it waas time for me to return to swimming lessons.  Green hat, level 4!  Eva was there too, how brilliant!  We wven got my favourite teracher too.
We went round auntie christines in the evening, in aid of her birthday I think?
Whatever the excuse it was a lovely get together.
We had a bit of a lazy morning on saturday.
Before going to pizza hut for lunch as a reward for my excellent parents evening. We even got to sit at one of the round tables as well.
We came home, had a bit more lazy time and the went to Kimi and Marney for a bit in the evening.
We had Anne round for lunch on sunday as a belated birthday gathering.
Alan and Hayley came too, Alan was forced to play Skylanders of course.
We rounded the weekend out with a few games of 7's.
I made quite a splash in assembly today having my feet washed by Mr Armstrong as part of the jesus story, mum was very pleased that she'd given my toe nails a trim last night!
Cross country training went well after school as well, I even took On Ella's twenty press up forfeit as well.
It was a good job it finished a bit earlier than normal too, as it meant that both Ned and Dad got to join in with our end of term dance routine (involving a big fish, a little fish and a cardboard box).

I got a day away from school on Tuesday, some of us were picked for 'Geek Jam' at Park House school.  It was a day of computer related stuff.  We got to do all sorts of cool stuff including making our own game.  There were loads of other schools there too and I knew quite a few other kids from my various out of school activities which was nice.  Mum walked us up to Park House in the morning, Hugo came along with us too so the walk up there was certainly fun.
Now Ned has no rugby practice on Tuesdays he had to come with me to Gymnastics for the full duration.  He was a very unhappy boy about that.
Yeah, I seem to spend an increasing amount of time sat about in cars waiting for Ellis these days.  My request to got to Sainsbury's and look for Skylanders while Ellis was doing her gymnastics thing fell on deaf ears, instead we went to the post office, then Halfords and then the Specialized bike shop.  The bike shop was pretty cool though I have to admit.  Especially the Carbon Demo Troy Lee frame they had hanging up.
I had a rare non-early night as I managed to perform my morning duties in a timely fashion so that was quite a novelty.
We made my cupcakes for the school comic relief competition on Thursday.  They went very well it has to be said....
I made Ned sit in the car again on Wednesday for my ballet lesson, which I really love at the moment!
And while we sat in the car reading it was really quite nice and sunny....but it was also snowing at the same time!  How does that work?
Once tea was done and dusted it was time to ice and decorate my cakes.  I decided that I wanted to do a really nice low level stipple effect icing in bright red.  I was then going to add a silly face and a joke on a flag.  Sounded perfect, what could go wrong?
Too much red food colouring.
Yes, although the colour was fantastic, it tasted truly awful!
But they did look really good and the joke flags were funny.
So we decided we'd enter them anyway and just warn everyone not to eat them.

I was pretty pleased on Thursday then to get second place for my cakes.  In fact, everyone else seemed to think they tasted okay.
I rode Ned's race BMX to go and pick him up from after school dancing.  I loved it and made sure I told everyone who would listen that it was my borthers BMX and I was going to go racing on it!
We wore red to school on Friday for red nose day and in the afternoon we had an open afternoon to go through our learning logs with any parents who fancied coming in for a look.  We also had cakes that we made at school on sale, this was a pretty decent bribe as it turned out as there were loads of grown ups in our classroom.  Best of all we got to leave a whole ten minutes early.  
Which was a bit of a result as we had to get packed up and head off to Cornwall as soon as Mum was finished working.
We picked Andy up and hit the road.
With a picnic in the car and a lot of chatting to do.
This time we were staying with John and Sarah, and Tiger, their new cat.  
I was so excited.
We got there at about 9, so even though it was sort of past our bedtime we still managed to get stuck in to a full on Skylanders session, comparing our characters and getting some valuable tips from John, with his Yoda like wisdom on the subject.
Sarah wasted no time in getting me aquainted with Tiger, he was sooooo cute.  I got to sleep in Sarahs room with her too, this was brilliant, as not only did she have a lovely little camp bed for me and a brilliant cieling covered in glow in the dark stars that made it feel like you were outside but she also likes a chat!  Brilliant, she reckons the last time she looked at her clock was 1:20 am......
On saturday we played some more Skylanders and some Blur on the Xbox.
And I got to give tiger his breakfast and play some football with him.
Then we went to the races, Point to Point at Wadebridge showground:

I loved it of course, well, it was horses after all.  We stood in the middle of the track to watch the races themselves and you could see the whole track.  The ground was really soft and the hills in the course were really steep:

We had £5 each for betting purposes, I won on the second race and decided to stop while I was winning and kept my winnings and what was left of my original £5.
I also had a winner but kept on betting on all the races.
The weather was pretty wet, Mum took me back to the car before the last race.
I stuck it out until the bitter (cold) end.
We went back to warm up, have some tea and then get stuck in to some Just Dance action on the Wii and play some cards.
Interspersed with Tiger loving,
and Skylanders/Blur.
We had a bit of a lie in on Sunday morning.
Before heading over to the caravan so Andy could do a couple of odd jobs before the season starts.
And of course, because it was Cornwall, and indeed Treyarnon Bay, the sunshine came out:

It was so good to be back and be outside.  The site was actually quite busy with people getting things ready, the buzz of lawnmowers meant it even sounded like summer.

Andy and Mark ended up with a bit of a jaunt to Homebase to get some bits they needed, after a bit of a conflab it was decided that the best course of action for the rest of us would be to head off to the pub for lunch.
How cool, we got to get the seats in  the boot out and drive to the Harlyn Inn with a full complement of seven of us in the car!
They met us there and we had a bit of lunch and a lot of pudding before heading back to the caravan to finish off the jobs and then heading down to the beach.
Yes, we had to take Andy for his swim of course.
I decided to join him:

Yeah, I suppose it was a little bit cold, but I love it!
I decided to remain clothed:

I had to climb some rocks of course:

And there was also the matter of a game of Danish Longball:

It was pretty much like a full on holiday compressed into one day.
We headed back to John and Sarah's house to gather up our things and set off for home.
Andy called his Mum as we left, she said it had been chucking it down with snow all day in Newbury!
We couldn't believe it until we arrived home and could see it still lying about on the ground, how weird!
So we must say a massive thanks to John and Sarah for showing us such a good time (and Mark and Amy too).
Yes, thanks everyone, and you as well Tiger!
We were pretty tired specimens on Monday it has to be said.
Yep, we were indeed.
Not as much as Dad though who managed to sleep through bathtime rather convieniently.
We did get involved in some energetic stuff during the day though, we did a rather cool Bollywood inspired dance routine after school.
And I did cross country, putting in another strong performance!

My tooth is finally out! It certainly didn't put up much of a fight as it was barely attached.  I used a smart little official tooth fairy envelope that Ned got from the dentist years ago to keep it safe.
I got to wear a proper leotard to gymnastics on Tuesday, I was proper pleased about that.
While this was going on I had my last rugby practice before the tournament.  I also got to christen my new boots in the mud for real.  I even managed to do up the laces almost unaided.
So Wednesday was the day of the tournament at the rugby club.  We played 3 games in our pool and won them all, but got knocked put in the quarter final.  Not bad for a new team, we were all very pleased with ourselves anyway.  Well, we'd had to have lunch early and then got the whole afternoon off.
Sadly by the time Dad had picked me up from school and we got up the rugby club they'd finished their matches and were just having a muddy bundle on the field instead.
It wasn't just a bundle Ellis, we did use a rugby ball to kick it off.
We saw Max on our way home, he was walking home from school.
His bags looked so heavy we had to give him a lift home.
Turned to be a good idea, we stopped to have a bit of a play on their trampoline and have a bit of a catch up.
I'm not looking forward to big school if I have to lug a bag like that about though.
Friday then, seemed to come around quick this week.
I got to go up to the infants in golden time, i really enjoyed that.
When we got home we got busy with the art and craft supplies making mothers day cards (even though i'd already made one at school along with some rather spectacular flowers made from straws and tissue paper).
I had my last Friday night team Kennet session on a Friday night as we're merging with the Wednesday night group.  I had a very proud moment when we got asked who had entered the cross country race last week and I was the only one who could put up their hand!
I got packed off to bed early for another day of not getting dressed for school.  I'm genuinely not bothered about this as a punishment though.
I then finally got to play The Ticket to Ride grown ups board game with mum and dad.  I'm really into board games at the moment so I was loving this.  I loved it even more when I won the game, not bad on my first attempt.
We went to he Oasis on saturday morning.
We did, I didn't even whinge about going either.
The wave machine had been fixed.....
.....really fixed as well.  It was really pumping the waves out.
I made friends with a boy called Max, we had a great time going on the slides together and having a competition   to see who could pull off the silliest jumps into the pool.
I was a bit under par, so I rather uncharacteristically got out earlier than Ned.
I stayed in for ages until my friend had to go home.
We had a quiet afternoon before it was time to go to the school quiz night with Andy, Ben, Rach, Kimi and Marney.
It was a good night out actually.
I loved it, I got to contribute a few answers to the quiz and almost started a riot when I helped myself to a history text book from the nearby library to help with some of the trickier questions.  I hasten to add I didn't get any answers from it, it was only supposed to be a laugh.
We came third, which was pretty good I reckon.
We went home and had a play even though it was rather late....
Hence our lie in on Sunday morning.
We even forgot that it was mothers day, good job dad reminded us.
Of course we didn't really forget at all, it just slipped our minds for a bit.
We gave mum her presents which she seemed to like.
We finally got ready to leave the house for a late lunch at Costas in town, we know how to give her a treat.
We visited a few shops and then came home again to do some baking with Mum.
We made maltesers cup cakes, and despite a few frayed tempers we made a good job of them.
Dad reckons they are among his favourite cakes of all time.
I thought they were far too sweet.

I also got rather interested in watching England play Italy at rugby as well.....
How cold was it on Monday?
Too cold.  Much too cold.  But not too cold to put me off cross country after school.  
As usual I came home from dancing in my shorts, Ned's mate Ella thinks i'm hard as nails!

We had an extra day tagged on the end of half term last monday.
What better way to spend it than to go to Autnie Christines for Darcey, baking and quality sofa time.
In a seriously shocking move I actually took my homework with me and did quite a lot of research for my Lion project as well as a full set of written notes to make things easier for me.
Back to school on Tuesday, but we didn't mind really, it was nice to see all our friends again after all.
Yeah, it was a pretty good day actually.  I wasn't allowed to wear my new trainers for rugby practice after school.  It didn't really impede my efforts though, this week we worked on dummy passes and I got complimented on my ability to find space on the field during play.
Gymnastics was really good again this week.  What was even better was seeing loads of my new gymnastics club friends in Sainsbury's after we'd finished, I thought that was really cool.
When we got home we were sort of pleased to find that we now had a full collection of working doors that were actually attached to their frames.
Yeah, thanks Chrissy, hopefully I won't try to close anymore doors that are only propped up against the wall, narrowly missing my head).
It's mad any chase around the house games a lot slower now though.
Dad challenged me to a few games of Skylanders in battle mode....I thrashed him 7-2.  He's rubbish.
Wednesday then, my second wobbly tooth was now seriously wobbly.  It's a miracle it's stayed in with all the fiddling I did at school.
I got picked to go to a special one off day of ICT (computer stuff) at Park House school in a week or so's time.  I'm so happy about it, not only do we get loads of time off from school we get to do computer stuff all day!.
And at ballet I must have been really giving it some as i've managed to dance a hole right through the bottom of my slipper!
I found out on Thursday that i've been picked for the rugby team.  We have a tournament to play in up at Newbury Rugby club, thats even more time off school, how cool.  It was swimming again, which went well and dancing after school that Ellis and Dad missed due to us finishing a bit earlier than usual...or them two being a bit later than usual.
I've been doing loads of junk modelling at school.  Todays effort was a rather splendid traffic light which I bought home to finish off and put in my bedroom as a secret storage place.
In light of the upcoming rugby tournament Dad and I went to the sports shop at the retail park to get me some football boots, with studs and everything.  I got some well cool ones, not the £100 versions I liked the look of though.....now all I have to do is learn to tie the laces unaided.....
And while Ned was shopping I was packed off to bed straight after tea as punishment for not getting dressed for school in the morning despite endless requests from Mum to do so.  I wasn't bothered, I was pretty tired anyway.
I got my Lion project marked on Friday, another house point for the cause.  I was really pleased though as this is pretty much the first piece of work i've done under my own steam with minimal help or guidance.
We had our class assembly in the morning and seeing as Mum or Dad couldn't be bothered to come it was lovely to see Auntie Christine there.  She loved it by all accounts, even if I thought my bit was a bit boring.  I did however thoroughly enjoy having her come back and visit my classroom afterwards where I got to show her my sketch book (that i'm most proud of) and  eat cake and biscuits!
I did cross country in golden time in the afternoon which was cool.
My wobbly tooth still hadn't come out.
Team Kennet in the evening.  They mentioned there was the last cross country race of the season on Sunday morning and that they'd like as many people as possible to enter....that sent the cogs whirring.
Within a few minutes of him coming home though we were squabbling like mad.
Which resulted in an instant trip to bed for both of us.  Rubbish.
We had a trip to Monkey World on Saturday.
We did, and Auntie Trish came along too.
Which we were very excited about.  Even before we knew she had a load of sweets on her bag for the journey.
We were on a mission to try and get her a monkey boyfriend too, which provided a lot of laughs throughout the day.

There's always one lot that always seem to put on a great show at Monkey World, this time it was the gibbons:

They were brilliant, climbing right to the top and swinging on the thinnest of branches.
And fighting with each other and falling off.
When we got home we had a slouch about and laughed at Dad laughing at You've been framed and then Ant & Dec's Saturday night Take Away before bed....perfect!
I decided to go through with the cross country race on Sunday, so we got in the car and headed to Harwell.
I rather fancied staying in bed really.

I found the Team Kennet tent, got myself signed in, stuck my number on my vest and went and did my warm up with my team mates.  Maxim from school was there too so it was nice to have an even more familiar face to give me some advice on what i'd let myself in for.  The race itself was 1300 metres long, which according to Maxim was about the same as 5 or 6 times around our school field. I was pretty happy about that and couldn't wait to get stuck in.

The starter fired his pistol and we were off!
I hadn't considered the use of a starting pistol, I didn't like it much.
I was really pleased not to get caught up with a few fallers at the start and also managed to steer clear of a few potholes that caught some of the others out.  I really enjoyed the race, it was over so quickly though.  I made sure I had enough left in the tank for a bit of a sprint finish:

It's fair to say I finished nearer the back than the front but I wasn't bothered at all as I hadn't come last which is what concerned me most before I started.  It was also an under 11's category so they had a good few years on me anyway.
He did very well, I loved cheering him on but I wanted to go home.....for some sofa time.
Well you didn't have to wait long Ellis, we were home again just after 11.  Very convenient this cross country racing you know!  Sadly it was the last one of the season so it'll be November before it starts again.  Well, except the schools competition next month that is.....
We really enjoyed the rest of our day doing homework and watching telly.
But best of all was a game of Catan after tea, I love that game.  Mum won, but I beat Dad by miles.
We both got dressed for school really nicely on Monday so no early night for me.
We had to go and do our class assembly again for the old people at the Argyles home.  I was pretty pleased as my part was much expanded with more facts than the version we did at school.
I took my cuddly monkey from Monkey World into school, and miraculously bought him home again unharmed.  He's lovely and i'm really enjoying showing him around.  He particularly enjoyed street dance after school I think.
And I enjoyed cross country as well after school.  I had a lot more confidence following my race on Sunday.  I think the team is going to be picked soon, there's 13 boys and only 12 places available...
I can also now claim to be able to actually tie shoe laces properly unaided.  This has been bought about entirely because of my new football boots.