Newick Bonfire night

There is a curious tradition in this part of England which is that most villages and towns in Sussex have a Bonfire Society, and then for one night a year there is a big Bonfire Celebration sometime around Guy Fawkes night which is Nov 5th. We still haven't completely figured it out, but anyway our friends Lee and Cat with their son Bruno live in the village of Newick which is fairly close to here (though not walking distance) and they happen to live directly on the procession route for the annual Newick Bonfire night. They invited us and another couple of families over for an evening of food and fireworks last night.
Here is the parade going by with a crazy Clown lady shouting and running towards us! Oh no!
It turned out to be our dear friend Danni who was marching in the parade along with her whole family. Weren't we surprised! There were a lot of fire torches, fire crackers, drumming and singing and even wheelbarrows full of fire being pushed along the route. It was the kind of thing that would *never* be allowed in the US for safety reasons but because this is such an old event (originally dating to 1606 and centering in the town of Lewes, but later expanding to surrounding towns and villages throughout Sussex). Here is a link that sort of explains .. http://www.fireworks.co.uk/bonfiresocieties.html
Anyway, it was a good evening and we all enjoyed being there, even my Mom who volunteered to mainly chaparone the whole herd of under-7's that were there going wild while the rest of us adults chatted and so forth.

The Golden Bin

Today we went to Sheffield Park Gardens and my Mom signed us up for a year's family membership to the National Trust. Yay! On the way back home in the afternoon, we stopped for a late lunch at the Sloop Inn pub which is fairly near us.
It was pretty quiet in there and we had a great meal. We were sitting fairly close to the Ladies toilet, which made it quite handy for some of us. Rhiannon and I went in there together - there were 2 stalls - and so we had a pleasant enough visit. When we got back to the table, she exclaimed that her stall had a Golden Bin in it that Tryfan would probably love to see. I didn't remember any Golden Bin in my stall... So Tryfan and I ventured in and sure enough! There was a Golden Bin. Oh my it was sooo beautiful, said Tryfan. So I had to take a photo of the Golden Bin with big T smiling next to it.

Sheffield Park Gardens

We went to Sheffield Park Gardens today and it was gorgeous! We were surprised to see just how many people were there and apparently it was all to see the autumn colors. Here is Grandma Debi with the troops:
view across one of the lakes
Climbing climbing on every tree they could find. We didn't get shouted at, so I guess it's allowed? We are new to the whole National Trust scene...

Up to North Wales

We hatched a plan over the weekend to take a family trip up to North Wales for at least some of the Half Term holiday. Rhodri and Bentley drove up there on Monday (because Rhodri had to go to Leeds in the morning to meet a client who he is sponsoring to go on the Jubilee South Pole expedition!) and I went to work as usual in Gatwick. But then my Mom and the kids got a lift to the East Grinstead train station and took the train to London-Victoria where I met them (having taken the train from Gatwick), and we all traveled on the Underground to get to Euston where we got on another train which took us straight to Llandudno! Here is the scene for about 5 minutes of the 3 hour journey:
Today we all went to Betws-y-Coed to wander around the shops and have lunch. The trees, the river and all of us together was great.
Here is Snowdon with her summit under cloud (as usual) on our drive back.
We had a really nice dinner at the Queen's Head pub in Glanwydden.
Tomorrow Rhodri and I are going to walk up Nantlle ridge so he can do some more "kit testing" of all his Brynje clothing. Here is his kit testing website for those who are curious...
http://therightkit.blogspot.com/

Family from all over the place

We had a really great rest-of-the-weekend with a selection of family members: my Mom, my cousin Annie, and Rhodri's sister Nia + family all came to spend the weekend. Here are the Three Amigos in true form..
Sophie came over to join the fun on Saturday morning and Rhiannon put her new face painting kit to good use.
We went for a walk in the forest with the whole herd of us (including Bentley, of course!). It was a gorgeous autumn day and everyone had a grand time.
Playing in the rhododendren bushes..
It was tough going pushing the stroller on some parts of it but we made it through anyway.
We called in to the Red Lion pub and had a round of drinks and some snacks outside in the sunshine.
There was a black cat prowling around the place that was absolutely tormenting poor ol' Bents who had to stay on his leash!
We came back to the house for more face painting and playing outside over the course of the weekend. Good times!
Here is Cris with all the kids
Tryfan looking particularly creepy with his "Darth Maul" facepaint on (courtesy of Rhiannon).

Birthday Party for Tryfs

We had a Star Wars themed birthday party for Tryfan on Friday 21 October. He decided that he only wanted to invite a select few people to his party: Oscar, Leonie, Harrison, Rhiannon, Sophie, Rhodri, Grandma and me. So there were 4 little kids, 2 big sisters and 3 grown-ups. Perfect! We picked up all the kids straight from school/ nursery on Friday afternoon and came back to the house. After the troops changed outfits and played a little bit, we sat down to make Star Wars cookies.
Video footage of the cookie making activity:

Once we finished a batch of the Star Wars cookies and Grandma had put them in the oven to bake, we headed to the "Galaxy far, far away" with our light-sabers. In fact, the kids used their light sabers to bat balloons all the way from the house to the middle part of the garden where we had set up tarps, ribbons and the Death Star pinata. Here is the scene:

We had (actually I should say Grandma had) made light sabers out of pool noodles which were cut in half and decorated with duct tape. This way they could really pound each other without hurting anyone or anything.
We blindfolded kids one-by-one and gave them a chance to break the pinata using their light sabers.
Once it fell to the ground, troops piled into the massive stash of loot.
Then we went inside to take a break by watching Tryfan's favorite Star Wars scene. It is the part in Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo says to Chewie, "Laugh it up, Fuzzball".
Then we had some pizza followed by Jello (aka Jelly) and gluten-free cake which a magic fairy made into the shape of a TIE fighter (Star Wars spaceship which the bad Stormtroopers fly).
Here are the partiers as they were enjoying their food: Leonie, Sophie, Rhiannon, Oscar, Tryfan and Harrison.
It was a good party - hugely successful - but it would have been really hard to pull off if there were less than 3 grown-ups on the scene! Thanks to Grandma for helping so much.

Rhodri's website is live!!!

Hey everybody - Rhodri's new website is alive and ready for business!
Here it is:
www.nordiclife.co.uk

Have a look and feel free to give him feedback on what you think of it!

Tryfan turns 4

Today was Tryfan's birthday and we celebrated it by opening a couple of presents in the morning after breakfast, then having a Death Star cake and more presents in the evening after dinner. Here is the Birthday Boy with his chocolate Death Star cake which was made by Grandma Debi. It is so wonderful that my Mom could be here for his birthday, and since she was with us on the day he was born it was just extra special.
Rhiannon staged this picture and went a little crazy on the number of candles on the cake. Somehow Tryfan managed to blow them all out without anyone getting hurt.
Grandma Debi brought him a LEGO Star Wars X-Wing fighter, which is what he has been wishing for these past few months. We told him that it was only for children ages 8-14 (since that is what it says on the box), so he had mostly given up on the hope of getting one for his birthday. He was soooo excited. Here he is trying to put it together with the help of Daddy.
And so, at 4 years old, Tryfan is showing himself to be:
- a sensitive little guy
- very considerate of others (e.g. refilling another person's glass of water when it is empty)
- someone who needs a good dose of alone time each day in order to get immersed in something imaginative (usually involving LEGO)
- someone who trots rather than walks everywhere
- a very good hugger and snuggler
- very high energy, requiring lots of space to run and do crazy "moves"
He loves salted nuts, peanut butter or cream cheese on crackers, cucumber, broccoli,pizza sweets/ candy of all varieties and most other stuff too...he isn't a very picky eater.
He sleeps with "Kitty" and "Blanks" (his baby blanket) every night and sometimes carries them around on wobbly days too.
He adores Rhiannon and all of her friends, constantly trying to tell them about things he is excited about (usually involving Star Wars scenes).
He also loves animals, especially Bentley.
His favorite thing lately is to have pizza and a movie on a Friday night.
We love our precious Tryfan :-)

Perfect autumn weekend

We had such a lovely weekend! Rhodri was away on Friday so we started the weekend without him by putting on a film and getting ready to have pizza for dinner. But just as we started this, our friends Danni, Neve and Blythe called by followed shortly by their dad Bryn. So they joined us for the pizza and a showing of "Kung Fu Panda" -- kids watching the film while us adults chatted and enjoyed some gin & tonics. But then the movie finished and it was still early so we put on "Annie" and all heaped onto the couch to watch together. A lasting memory of this Friday night is of all 7 of us snuggled together singing "Tomorrow" at literally the tops of our voices.

Then on Saturday we tidied the house while half-watching the Wales v France rugby semi-final. Sadly, Wales lost by 1 point. Rhodri came home in the early afternoon and by then our friend Felicity was over to play with Rhiannon. It was clear, warmish and very autumny all day so we mostly just pottered around in the back garden. At some point our friends Emma, Rob, Sophie and Oscar dropped by asking if we wanted to walk down to the pub. So we rounded everyone up and ambled down to the Coach & Horses.
On our walk down to the pub, we saw Angus on his bike. So then he ended up gathering his family and joining us there as well. Here is the scene - kids playing and adults chatting.
Good times!

Under the sea day

Today was Dressing-Up Day at school, and the theme was "Under the Sea". Rhiannon wanted to go as Ariel (the Little Mermaid), but after I explained that I didn't have any good materials to put together a mermaid costume, she changed her mind and decided to be an Angelfish. Here is our sweet little Angelfish getting ready to leave for school with her fins out.
And here she is sitting with her teacher and the rest of her class, which seemed to be mostly pirates.
We walked Sophie home from school, and their friend Jed and his older brother walked with us. Actually, I was the only one walking. The 4 of them were running ahead and having pirate brawls which ended with 1 or more of them laying on the pavement pretending to be dead. Then Sophie came home with us anyway
When we got home, we were treated with a visit by Sam and his older brother Ollie and their Mum who has recently started a dog grooming business! She had been working on Bentley all day so she was bringing him back but was able to stay for a cup of tea. The 5 kids were truly wild. The ones who were not in dressing up costumes got changed into dressing up costumes and then just went mental. They were racing up and down the stairs, jumping off the beds, dancing and tickling and chanting "Children Rule! Children Rule!", while Sue and I tried to have a civilized conversation. Here is a little snapshot of the scene...

Pirate ship homework

Now that Rhiannon is in Year 1, she has a weekly homework assignment. Last week her homework was to build a pirate ship out of previously used materials. So we started with a milk carton and carved it up, then put in wine bottle corks for the cannons and she painted the hull lots of pretty colors. Rhiannon started out intending it to be a Wedding Pirate Ship but I don't know if it ended that way.
In the end she had a really great looking pirate ship which incorporated plenty of gold spraypaint and a real little pirate figure -- "Pelle" from our Kaptain Sabeltann days in Norway. I don't have a photo of the final product and now it is in the pirate ship fleet in Rhiannon's classroom. I think she enjoyed building it though.

Autumn Show 2011

Today we went to the South of England Autumn Show. We went to it last year too, except that on that particular day it was raining whereas today was hot and sunny, feeling nothing like autumn! Here are the troops posing in front of some winning onions.
Rhiannon with her personal favorite onion entry:
And of course posing with the Giant Marrow (Zucchini).
We visited all the booths and stands which were selling hunting/ outdoor clothes (lots of tweed coats) and we also walked through the Food Fair (cheese, cider, savory pies, local meats and game) and the Animal barn. When we walked past all the competition chickens, I couldn't help but think of how much my Dad would have loved to see the great variety and character of these chickens! This is a really crappy photo because you can't see how beautiful some of the feathers were on some of these girls...
We took a break in the shade and had snacks while Rhodri talked to a Dog Rescue outfit - we have been thinking of getting a companion for Bentley but we don't want a puppy.
Then we watched the Dog Agility competition before heading home. Most of the dogs were border collies, but there was also a yellow lab, a german shepherd, and a dalmatian. The dalmatian was hilarious because he had to explore the whole arena first, sniffing around the fences and seeing who all was there before finally listening to his handler and starting the race. Here is the scene (another crappy photo taken with my camera since the normal camera is lost).
Everyone was tired by the time we left, so when we got home we all had a rest and it was lovely. Then we talked to my family in California and had dinner, then bath and bed. Good weekend!

Week of lovely summertime

We have had the most amazing weather the past week or so - highs around 85 deg F and bold sunshine. Wow. On Saturday, Nain and Taid took Tryfan and Rhiannon on an outing to the Bluebell Railway. It was a hot day so I think they had plenty of water to drink and ice cream to enjoy!
Its been wonderful to have Rhodri's parents stay a whole week with us. While they were all at the Railway, Rhodri and I went into Brighton and just explored for a few hours by ourselves. So nice to have a chance to do this!

And before the weekend, we went out to dinner at the Red Lion pub just down the road from us on Wednesday night (26 Sept). Rhiannon took this photo using my phone (our normal camera has been lost for a few days).
And then on Friday the kids went over to play at our friend Lou's house. She has a massive property and 6 kids, so they really know how to play well at this house! Here are Rhi and Tryfs, Sophie and Oscar jumping off the scaffolding onto the trampoline (with Lou and Fliss in the foreground).
It is still sunny and warm now that it is Monday, but the prediction is for clouds and rain to come back in the next few days. Thats ok though - it was great while it lasted.