Pooh Corner

One of the things we did last week when my parents were visiting was visit part of the "100 Acre Wood", where Winnie-the-Pooh and Christopher Robin and all their friends were known to live. The author A.A. Milne lived nearby and part of the Ashdown Forest is actually the real 100 Acre Wood! So we made a very short pilgrimage (its very close to our house!) to see part of it. Here is the memorial plaque to A.A. Milne.And this is the spot where the Heffalump trap is!
another view of the Heffalump trap, with Dad in there for scale.
The view from the Heffalump Trap, looking sort of north (i think). And actually we could see the North Pole from the Enchanted Place (near the Heffalump trap), and that was exciting too.
We have yet to visit Pooh Sticks Bridge or the sandy pit where Roo played, but these places are nearby too.

The way it should be

This weekend was warm, sunny and relaxing. On Saturday we went to neighboring village of Nutley for their village fair. We saw our friends Sarah and Patrick and their 3 kids, and so we made plans for later that day. Here are Sarah and I:Our plans involved us coming over to swim in their pool and BBQ dinner together. Yay!
Kids, dogs, and lots of splashing!
Rhiannon and Tryfan are not very comfortable with the water just yet and clung to Rhodri and I like little limpets. Hopefully we will be able to spend more time here in the neighbor's pool and get them more comfortable.
Yes, this is the way weekends should be - spontaneous gathering with friends, enjoying the summer together.

Father's Day

Today we had a wonderful celebratory Father's Day for the two fathers in the house. We had waffles for breakfast and then after a leisurely start, we went to fly kites nearby. It was a cool and windy day, so perfect conditions for flying kites!
We had a picnic in the middle of the heather, bracken and even a bit of gorse (which we tried to avoid) and had a gorgeous view out to the South Downs across the Ashdown Forest (which is not all purely forest, as you can see in the photo).
It was very relaxing and comfortable for all of us, and Rhiannon was happy to curl up in Grandpa's lap while he kept her kite in the air.
.In the late afternoon, we invited our friends and neighbors Sarah, Patrick, Patrick's mother who was visiting, and the kids Charlie, Hattie and Joe. We had a great Sunday dinner (I can say that because it was a team effort) and it was a lovely afternoon.
Here is the kids table (l to r): Hattie, Tryfan, Joe, Charlie and Rhiannon.. as they were waiting patiently for dessert to be served.
After dinner we sat around outside in the back garden, adults talking and drinking wine while the kids played.
Rhiannon has always adored Charlie (9 yrs), but this was the first time that we noticed that Tryfan and Hattie (7 yrs) really hit it off. They were so cute together. He really seems to love Hattie, getting her to play Fireman Sam & Penny with him and following her everywhere. It was only Joe (4yrs) who was a bit left out, although the girls did a good job of making sure he felt included in the fun.
Anyway, today was truly a great Father's Day.

Beachy Head

Today we went first to Blackberry Farm, http://www.blackberry-farm.co.uk/, which is a little farm down the road where there are lots of different animals to feed and touch, tractor rides, pony rides, so on and so on. There are loads of similar such farms in this part of the country. After this, we went for a drive down to the coast at Eastbourne and looked for a place to have tea and cake. We kept going until we found ourselves at Beachy Head. Here is Tryfan with Rhiannon in the background.
There is a big pub/ restaurant/ hotel at Beachy Head which has an awesome view of the chalf cliffs and the spectacular southern English coast. http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thebeachyheadeastbourne/
We called into this place and had tea and cakes and a bit of a wander around before driving back home. Here is a a photo of the whole family.
Tonight Rhodri and I are going to the 2nd Annual Desert Island Disc party at our friends Tracy & Caroline's house. Grandpa and Grandma will stay home and babysit for us - yay! Thank you!

Romeo and Juliet

Tonight we went to an outdoor performance of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. This was held at the National Cat Centre, which is just a short walk from our house. Here is the description of what we went to see: http://www.cats.org.uk/news/shakespeares-star-crossed-lovers/. And here is the stage with audience. We sat on picnic blankets which are just center-left in this photo (Tryfan is wearing a gray and white striped top and my Dad is wearing a blue jacket).
We brought a picnic dinner and enjoyed it while we were waiting for the show to start. Unfortunately Rhodri had to cancel at the last minute and stay home to attend to work-related issues, but the rest of us had a grand time.
It was just a small stage and there were only 5 actors (2 female and 3 male), and it was absolutely amazing! The acting troop is called Illyria and they are fantastic. Here is a wider view of the scene.. not a huge audience but it did fill out as we got closer to show time. We showed up about an hour before so that we could (a) get a good spot to sit, and (b) have plenty of time to run around in the grass and trees before sitting quietly.

The kids loved the fight scenes, especially Tryfan! He was laughing and sitting up on his knees just totally enthralled by the drama. The people sitting around us kept turning to look at Tryfan and smiling because he was just so into it.
At one point the actors invited some audience members up to take part in a dancing scene.
The performance went on until about 1030pm but at the 9pm intermission, we called Rhodri to come get the kids and take them home to bed. Sitting still and not talking is hard for small ones, but they did really great. Anyway, we figured we would quit while we were ahead and it was the right decision in this case. My parents and I walked home after the show in the dark starry night and it was just so lovely.
But the National Cat Centre deserves some words as well!! This place is amazing -- there are clearly some very very wealthy donors who must have dearly loved cats. There are a handful of enormous and stylish buildings on the 25-acre (ish) site, one of which is the Cat Adoption centre. This building has several wings: 2 wings for cats ready to adopt (each cat having its own little 2-bedroom space), a maternity and young family wing (!!) and of course an administration wing to keep track of the herds of people they have working there. This place has to be seen to be believed - its something else.

Sunday dinner at the pub

We went for Sunday Dinner at the Coach and Horses Pub which is walking distance from our house.
We met some neighbors that we had seen but not met before (all of us having kids the same age who go to nursery together), sat in the play area to enjoy our beverages and then had our delicious dinners served to us out here as well. This to me is one of the best parts of living in Britain: the country pub, with a friendly atmosphere and beautiful location created to simply enjoy good company, food and drink. We are so lucky to live walking distance from such a good one!

Grandma and Grandpa arrive

My parents Debi and Carl arrived on Thursday and were met with a very warm welcome by all of us. Tryfan and Rhiannon both wanted to sit on Grandma's lap before dinner on Thursday.
Grandpa Carl read bedtime stories to them both on the first night, and then on evenings since Grandma has been reading stories (since the evening World Cup matches are just starting around the same time as storytime!).
We went into the nearby town of Lewes on Saturday and explored the Lewes castle. It is such a lovely place!
One of the great things they have in the castle is a room inside a turret with a big chest of dress-up clothes and full length mirrors. Grandma didn't want to walk up the steep tiny spiral staircase up to the rooftop, so she dressed up and surprised us when we came back downstairs.
Here is another view of the outside part of the castle as we were walking back down.
After our Lewes outing, we came home and got ready to watch the big USA vs. England match in the World Cup from our living room. We are so glad that Grandma and Grandpa will be with us for another week yet!

4 and a half

Rhiannon turned exactly 4 and a half today.
At this age, she has been showing herself to be sometimes very very thoughtful, sweet and joyful and other times strong-willed and grouchy. She loves playing with her baby dolls -- pushing them around in strollers, putting them down to sleep and giving them rides on the tractor; coloring in coloring books; doing puzzles; riding her scooter or bike; playing tag (aka "It"); playing with water and mud; and especially wrestling in the grass with Tryfan and/or whoever else is around!

Rhiannon is very social and confident. We hadn't even been going to the local school (for her nursery class) for 2 weeks before big kids were saying hi to her by name! She will talk to anyone who at least appears to be listening and her 'best friends' these days are all boys. She is full of laughter and she is always looking after Tryfan... if she is offered a treat of some kind, she always asks if Tryfan can have one also.

Right now she is going to 2 different "settings" for nursery/ childcare/ barnehage and she is doing well in both of them even though they are very different... one is a [Rudolf] Steiner-inspired day nursery in our neighborhood with a headcount of 13, and the other is a very structured, organized day nursery closer to our office in Gatwick that has a total headcount of 105 kids, 26 of which are in Rhiannon's class.
Another milestone is that she has just finally stopped wearing nappies/ diapers at nighttime. Yay!

Saying goodbye to Nain and Taid

Nain and Taid left on Sunday 6 June and then we had a few days alone before Grandma and Grandpa were due to arrive on the 10 June. Here is Taid, Nain, Rhodri, Rhiannon and Tryfan out in the backyard when we were getting ready to say goodbye to them.
We had a little picnic later that day out in the back back part of the garden.

Week with Nain and Taid

This week has been busy in a lot of ways. Monday was a public holiday and the rest of this week was Half Term so schools and nurseries were closed for the most part. Nain and Taid spent 4 out of 5 days with the kids while Rhodri was away on business in Morocco and I was working. They had a grand time! It also happened to be a week of [mostly] warm gorgeous weather. Here they are at Tulley's Farm.
And at Sheffield Garden Park, which is just down the road from us.
Lots of time was spent just playing in the backyard too. The rope swing is on the other side of this big expanse of grass, and so it is pretty fun to run full speed across it in order to get to the swing. Sometimes Tryfan stops mid-stride to do a 'roly poly' (somersault).
Warm weather + sunshine + grandparents = lots of ice cream!
The favorite activity of late has been playing Fireman Sam and friends. What happens is Tryfan or Rhiannon shout that there is a fire somewhere and then run to the drying line so they can take turns sliding down the [fireman's] pole...
Then they jump onto their bikes and pedal across the patio to wherever the pretend fire is, spray their pretend hoses at the fire to put it out, and then pedal back to their pretend fire station so they can go straight to the next call. Yesterday they repeated this cycle 31 times, according to Taid Trefor who had to participate as well. Here is Rhiannon on her bike...
They take turns being the different characters in the Fireman Sam stories... Elvis, Penny, Helicopter Pilot Tom, and of course Sam himself. Its pretty funny but sort of exhausting to watch.
Anyway, thanks so much for looking after the troops this week, Beryl and Trefor! We really appreciated it.