Halloween 2016

We had a pretty straightforward Halloween tonight, but it was good.
For the past two years we have not gone trick or treating, so we pretty much had to this year. We mobilized at Sophie and Oscar's house and set out on foot from there to cover Danehill.

Here are Sophie, Blythe, Rhiannon, then Oscar, Joe, Sam and Tryfan... a fearsome lot! Kids here dress up really scary instead of random and funny as in the US. But whatever. We ended up splitting into two groups - boys and girls - and this was way better actually.

Rugby season

Today was the normal Sunday sports where Tryfan goes to rugby and Rhiannon goes to hockey, but hockey finished before rugby, so Rhi and I went to watch Tryfan play.

Tryfan gesturing "Seriously, Ref?!" (T is #11)

Tryfan about to tackle a guy

T on the ground after tackling someone

It was a gorgeous day, and although I didn't stay the whole time I did get to see him do some good rugby playing. Rhiannon stayed, though, and came home with the boys afterwards.

The Bentley Scare

This summer when we were up in Stehekin and Sioned was housesitting for us, we had a really nasty scare with Bentley. Actually, it was Sioned who had the really nasty scare with him since she was the one with him at the time. It was a Sunday afternoon (August 7th) and she had taken him out of a normal walk out in the forest across the road. The weather was warm - in the high 80s - but not crazy hot. Anyway, he collapsed in the middle of the forest and poor Sioned was in a remote section and couldn't carry him herself, so needed to try and find someone to help which turned out to be really difficult. To make a very long and tense story short, Bentley very nearly died that day. In the end, she was able to get a family to help her carry Bents back to the house where she put him in the car and drove to the emergency vet (who ended up being Bentley's normal vet). Our neighbor Charles kindly dropped what he was doing that afternoon and went with her in the car too. The vet was able to stabilise him and he slowly came back to life. It turns out that his larynx spazzed out and he couldn't breathe, but they never figured out what triggered it.

Since we were 8 hours time difference behind and in such a remote part of the world, it was actually really crazy that Sioned and I were able to communicate at all. It was quite a coincidence that led me to even check my email that morning, since I had vowed to not do any computer work while up in Stehekin. But as it turns out, I had to turn on my computer to try and pay a toll from a few days previous, and as I waited for this toll thingy to register, I downloaded my email and saw that there was an urgent email from my friend Emma, who is also Charles' sister-in-law, asking me to call Sioned.

Of course I couldn't call Sions because there are no phones in Stehekin, but since we both have iPhones, I realised that we could use the WiFi to text back and forth, and then when I got to a different WiFi area, I was actually able to call her using FaceTime Audio. Wow, technology!  Rhodri, meanwhile, was on a boys fishing trip all day so he was blissfully unaware of all this drama.

There was a 30 minute period in there between conversations with Sioned when the vet was going to remove the tube in his larynx and see if Bentley remained stable or went downhill again. If he had gone downhill, that was going to be goodbye. I made my peace with that scenario during that period, but I'm awfully glad that he remained stable and eventually improved. But poor Sioned was very deeply traumatised by the whole episode and spent the next several days by Bentley's side, not willing to leave him for longer than a few minutes.

We are incredibly grateful to Sioned for the care and love she gave to Bentley during this time.
Here she is reunited with him this week.

Auntie Sions in town

Auntie Sions came to visit for a few days, and it was so nice to have her here. I was mostly working this week, but I was able to sneak away for a bit every day and of course in the evenings we all got to hang out together.
Today we all went to play laser tag in Crawley, just the five of us. It was really fun!

Love these photos - thanks Auntie Sions

More from the Gower

Rhiannon took some photos of our camping trip as well, so I thought I'd share them here:

Car packed to the gills with Rhi and Aggie

Honor, Rhi, Sophie and Aggie with me mid-photo bomb

 
 We all worked together to set up the wood stove and it went pretty well

What it looked like inside the lavvo!

Girls in the Gower

We went on a Girls Camping trip the past 4 days with just me and Leigh and our daughters. We drove most of the day on Saturday to get to Slade in the Gower peninsula of Wales, and that didn't leave much daylight to get the tent set up and dinner cooked, but we managed somehow!

This is the campsite we stayed at: http://www.easternsladecampsite.freeservers.com/
and as you can see from the photo of our pitch, it was soooo gorgeous. There were a couple other parties camping in this field, but it was pretty small and primitive, and it is late October so not too many people choose to go camping this time of year!

Agnes, Rhiannon, Sophie, Honor, me and Leigh on Our Beach (aka Sands Bay)

 And here is our location over two maps...

On Sunday we met up with Nia, Gabi and Val for the afternoon, and we all went for a walk at Rhossili which was so beautiful and wonderful!

Aggie, Rhiannon, Val and Gabi

Getting down to Our Beach the fun way

We camped for 3 nights and had the woodburning stove installed for the last 2 of them. What a game changer! So nice to be cozy in the tent in the evening and also to build a fire in the morning while everyone is still mostly asleep in their bags, and to brew the tea and hot chocolate on the stove. We played Cluedo and Blackjack, read the paper, sang, chatted, and laughed a lot. It was a great weekend although it is also very nice to be back home tonight!

Tryfan turns 9

Today is Tryfan's 9th birthday.
The big present that we got him, and which he had asked for several times was a .... wait for it.... a ... an electric blanket! He said he really wanted one to go on his bed so that his bed would be all cozy when he got into it at night. We thought it was hilarious that he wanted this, but because he kept talking about it of course we had to get it for him. But then today when he actually unwrapped this prize gift, he said that he had been joking and he didn't actually want it! So that was sad and weird, but anyway he got other lovely gifts like the board game Parcheesi, a couple of books he had been wanting, and most of all the Liverpool Football Club away kit. Here he is sporting the new lime green and grey uniform.

Anyway, at a full 9 years of age, Tryfan is:
- a very good listener, often a stealthy listener who we don't realize is actually there listening because he is so quiet.
- very chatty, sometimes annoyingly so! He seems to have a comment or opinion about everything these days
- quite literal and enjoys playing with words
- really into sports, especially football (soccer) and rugby
- always leaving at least one of his items whenever he goes somewhere. He has misplaced 5 school jumpers already this year, and its only October!
- really into reading (still), though now he has started reading the Sports section of the newspapers every chance he gets
- a stickler for abiding by rules. He gets really upset when people do illegal things (esp during sports) and can get quite emotional at the unfairness of a referee's call, for example. But he is working on that...
- still very cuddly, and sleeps with at least 20 cuddly animal toys, including Kitty, Baby Kitty, Mama Kitty, and Blanks (his baby blanket)
- very sensitive and caring towards other people. When someone is hurt or down, he can comfort that person in a genuinely caring way, which is lovely to see.

We are so grateful to have Tryfan in our lives!

Sports in our lives

Rhiannon's netball team at East Grinstead Sports Centre

Now that this academic year is underway, we are in full swing of a new regime that involves plenty of after school activities for the kids and also us parents!

• Mondays are free with nothing arranged except yoga for me in the evening;
• Tuesdays are football and taekwondo for Tryfan and netball in the afternoon followed by more netball in the evening for Rhiannon and then Rhodri plays squash around the time Rhiannon's netball finishes;
• Wednesdays are multi-skills for both T & R in the afternoon with me playing squash in the evening;
• Thursdays are swimming for both T&R in the early evening; 
• Fridays are football in the afternoon for T & R and hosted/ coached by Rhodri. 
• Saturday mornings Tryfan has football in the afternoon Rhiannon has horse riding lessons, and finally Sunday mornings Tryfan has rugby and Rhiannon has hockey!

It sounds like a lot, and sometimes it feels like that too, but we are grateful to have several options for sports clubs around us and we all seem to enjoy having sports in our daily life.

Birthday party in the woods

Today we had Tryfan's birthday party, although his actual birthday isn't until Wednesday. Fortunately, the weather was on our side and it was a gorgeous autumnal afternoon. There were 18 kids in total and we split them into two teams (red and blue) and gave everyone a colored bandana to wear and keep.

We played a couple of rounds of Capture the Flag, then we took a break for hot dogs and other snacks, then we played the game where you eat donuts hanging from a string with no hands.

Food central with the roundhouse in the background. 

Finally we had a pinata and some cake, and then called it a day because the time was up! It was a fun party and everyone was stoked with their bandanas.

Visitors from Norway

This week we had Petter and his family come stay with us for a couple of nights. We hadn't seen them for several years (though we saw Petter in Feb when we went to Storlien) and it was really fun to have them here. Ole and Mia are the Petter and Berg's teenage kids, and they were so kind and playful with Rhiannon and Tryfan.

We all ate together here at Chalfonts on Tuesday night, then on Wednesday night we walked down to the Coach and Horses and had dinner there. Such a treat! 

Mia, Tryfan and Ole

Rhodri and Petter

I really enjoyed talking with Berg. Because her English vocabulary isn't as extensive as the rest of her family, we had some interesting conversations that involved using more thought and deliberation for the vocabulary in it. Sounds weird, but it was really nice to be thoughtful and think carefully about different ways of expressing ideas. Anyway, we had a lovely time together and we are grateful that they came to be with us!

Found treasure

Aunt Judy found this photo in her archives and sent it to me today.
This is from Heidi and John's wedding in 2012, when Tryfan was 4 years old.
Isn't it precious?