Fun on a Friday

Today was a wonderful and varied day, which started with the milk truck arriving to deliver the day's milk. Big excitement!
Then our long lost friend Auntie Jane came over to visit. Tryfan was proudly showing her the animal puzzle he had already completed several times, and she was asking if he knew the names of the various animals in Welsh (which he did, for the most part).
After getting dressed out of jammies, the troops made cupcakes with their Nain. First they made 'Toy Story' cupcakes and then they made chocolate rice crispy cakes.
In the late afternoon, Taid took the troops for a walk up the hill to feed the neighborhood donkeys. I let them get a big head start and then Bentley and I joined them. I was surprised to see Tryfan's choice of head wear... he was wearing underpants which were hopefully from the 'clean' pile... Anyway, I talked them all into coming with Bentley and I up to my favorite spot on the Vardre. Normally dogs aren't allowed up there because they tend to 'worry' the sheep that usually hang out on that hill. But since it is lambing season right now, there were no sheep on the fields and so Bentley could run free. I took this photo after we had returned home and were about to hose all the mud and other sticky brown stuff off our boots and paws.
There were a few hours later in the day when I didn't have possession of my camera, and then i found this photo of a certain person looking very much like she is in mid air jumping on our bed...
All in all, a good day.

Llyn Crafnant

Today was supposed to be wonderful sunny weather so we planned an outing to a lake in the foothills of Snowdonia (Llyn Crafnant). It was not such a sunny day at Llyn Crafnant, but thats ok. We were dressed for cold and windy conditions so it was fine.
Bentley had a really good time playing in the water
And we had a little picnic on the beach where we were playing.
On the drive home, we went past Tryfan the mountain. Here it is on the left coming into view as the clouds clear...
The view of Tryfan from the south side.

Uncle John's farm

Today while I was at work, everyone else was up in north Wales and went to visit Uncle John's farm (Taid Trefor's brother). Here are Taid Trefor, Auntie Nia with baby Valentin, Tryfan, Rhiannon and Gabriel and their light sabres.
John has sheep and dairy cows on his farm, and while they were visiting, some new lambs were born! Here is John showing Rhiannon where the baby lambs were staying.
One of the ewes had triplets and so Rhiannon got to feed the smallest lamb some milk from a bottle.
Here's the troublesome three: Tryfan, Rhiannon and Gabs. Wherever these kids go there is sure to be a lot of running, wrestling, and general noisiness.
Auntie Nia with the gang

Half term start

Its the half term holiday this week, so Rhodri drove the kids and Bentley up to north Wales for the week this morning. Here they are all buckled in (except Rhodri) and ready for a road trip!
I plan to stay home and work for the first part of the week, then take the train up from London to Llandudno on Wednesday night.

Outing to Bedgebury

Today we went to the Bedgebury National Pinetum which was about 45 minutes drive away. We had read about it in a local magazine and decided to give it a try. It is a huge place with lots of trails and forest. We spent the whole time exploring the Play Area portion of the grounds, and this was a big enough space to keep us busy exploring for our whole afternoon here! Found a big fallen tree which was great for climbing on..
And then there were about 7 different wooden play structure areas that one had to just stumble upon in order to find. That is, there weren't any signs or arrows to guide us but that was part of the fun. Bentley was with us too and he had a good time running and exploring the woods as well.
Finally we had ice cream cones before getting in the car to drive home.

Victorian Day

Today was "Victorian Day" at Rhiannon's school after a term of studying all about Victorian times in England and how people dressed, what games they played, what happened in schools, so on and so forth. Everyone had to come dressed in Victorian-style outfits (which parents had to dream up) and they spent the day that way. I'm afraid Rhiannon was a bit more colorful than I think she was supposed to be, but I figured they probably wouldn't kick her out because of it. She is wearing her Santa Lucia/ Christmas Angel dress with a 50's style "vintage" apron and a sad but velveteeny hat I made for the occasion.

In talking with Rhiannon after the day was over, it sounded like it wasn't all that much fun after all because the teachers acted like Victorian-time teachers rather than the kind, gentle and encouraging type they normally are.

Out of bed

Tryfan has been getting out of bed with one excuse or another as soon as he and Rhiannon are put to bed. Usually Rhiannon goes straight to sleep but Tryfan has been keeping her awake as long as he can, then after she has drifted off he takes things into his own hands.
On Friday night, Rhodri and I watched a DVD together thinking the kids were asleep upstairs, and then when we turned in and started up the stairs to our bedroom, we found big T asleep ON the stairs!

Call for support

Stehekin, the home of my ancestors as well as some members of my very much alive family and friends, is under threat!
If you can spare a few minutes, please read the information about the "NPS Draft Plans" on the Stehekin Heritage website, write a letter and email it to the designated NPS representative, Superintendent Chip Jenkins. The links which contain background and other information are just to the right of the nice pictures here.

I apologize about the campaigning but this is such a big part of my heart and my family, I can't not ask for support. The deadline is tomorrow, Feb 11th, so please help if you can.

Westward to Wales for the weekend

We drove to Cardiff on Friday afternoon so that Rhodri could get there in plenty of time to enjoy the pre-match festivities for the Six Nations Wales vs. England match! He actually got a ticket to the game at the last minute so there was great excitement on the drive over. Unfortunately the game didn't go so well for Wales (lost 19-26) but it couldn't have been from lack of support from the Welsh crowd in the Millenium stadium! We saw Auntie Sioned when we first arrived at Auntie Nia and Uncle Cris' house. See any family resemblance?
Saturday was a very cold, windy and rainy day so we went to Nia's favorite place, St. Fagans Museum of Welsh Life. Dogs are allowed in the grounds so Bentley came too. I thought the scene of us mobilizing as we got out of the cars and got everyone bundled up with Bentley sniffing the wind was a bit funny. Rhiannon was getting a talking-to in the background...
I bought them all wooden daggers (mostly because they looked really cool and of good quality, and it seemed a better alternative to them fighting each other with branches that had fallen from the trees) and the troops proceeded to chase each other around the grounds having fights. Surprisingly, nobody got hurt or cried!
Both Tryfan and Gabriel love Buzz Lightyear and they happened to be wearing matching shirts so we had to take a photo!
Rhiannon especially loved looking after baby Valentin, who just turned 1 year old. He is so cute!
It was a really fun weekend and we were sad to leave. Thanks Nia and Cris!

The rest of Uncle Wow's visit

It was a short weekend with Uncle Wow - too short! But it was better than nothing. Here he is playing cars with Rhiannon while Tryfan works on a jigsaw puzzle in the background:
And reading Pippi Longstocking to the troops before bedtime:
And then on Tuesday morning he took Bentley for a walk and visited our Forest School session
But then he had to say goodbye and go to the airport to fly home :-(
Thanks for coming to see us, Will!

Uncle Wow visits and we go to Brighton

Uncle Will (formerly known as 'Uncle Woo' by Rhiannon, now pronounced by Tryfan as 'Uncle Wow') came to visit this weekend! Great excitement! He arrived on Friday night and so then today we decided to go into Brighton for the better part of the day.
None of us had ever really been to Brighton (the Dept of Motoring office doesn't count) and it was a spectacular day of light and contrasts at the beach. We could have happily stayed at this spot next to the pier throwing rocks in the water all day but eventually we did move on.
We walked along the Brighton pier all the way to the end and back. There are all sorts of distractions throughout - rollercoasters, candy shops, arcade games and much more. We 'had' to play a car racing game and we also let the kids choose one ride to go on. They chose the bouncy slide which they got to spend 4 minutes on racing up and sliding down.
By the time we were done on the pier, we were really DONE on the pier. Tryfan was thirsty and started to really melt down. We bought them a bottle of water to share (which Tryfan interpreted as actually meaning it was HIS bottle) and a stick lollipop each. Here they are in front of the pier - Tryfan's scowl is only just starting to be visible but was about to evolve into a proper screaming, crying, stomping around experience.
From here we wandered into the heart of Brighton and discovered these narrow little lanes with neat shops and all sorts of places that looked fun to explore! But we didnt have much time left on the parking meter and T was in a bad way so we headed back. Along the way, Tryfan and Rhiannon finished the water bottle and I didnt want to buy another one because we had loads in the car. I found a blue recycling bin and took the opportunity to properly dispose of the plastic bottle. This turned out to be a Major Problem because it didn't look like the plastic recycling bin we have at home AND the bottle which formerly held water in it was put into this bin. Tryfan turned into a real little banshee, angrily catastrophically screaming "THAT'S NOT A RECYCLING BIN" (and me trying to comfort him without laughing and also without appearing to 'give in' to his tantrum). In the end, Tryfan and I sat at a bus stop together and waited for Rhodri, Uncle Wow and Rhiannon to come pick us up in the car. Good times.
We rounded off the day with a stop at a pub on the way home and discovered a new board game called "Shut the Box!" which is excellent fun and can even be played with little people just learning their numbers.

Boys

Rhiannon really likes boys. She invited Jed over the other afternoon and he stayed through dinner (all of this was pre-agreed and so forth between us parents). Jed would have come to her birthday party back in December except that he 'felt poorly' at the time.
Most of the kids Rhiannon talks about are boys actually, especially one in particular who is in Year 6 (i.e. 6th Grade)! She had invited him to her birthday party too but fortunately he didn't come. Anyway, we are trying not to worry too much about this sort of thing. In this area there seems to be vastly more boys than girls so maybe its just an artifact of statistics...

Baby JJ comes to town

Our old friends Gareth (Gaz) and Rachel came to spend the weekend with us and they brought their 18-month old son Joshua. The last time we saw him, he was only 1 month old and Rhiannon called him "Baby JJ". So she was really excited that he was coming to stay with us but didn't quite realize that he wasn't a baby anymore. Anyway, she was still happy to see him again.
We went for a walk on Sunday along the South Downs. It was a VERY windy and cold day, better known in these parts as "refreshing". We walked down the leeside of the hills.
Actually some of us ran down the leeside of the hills! Rhiannon was already in the clump of trees halfway to the bottom in this picture that shows Tryfan running to catch up.
Rachel, JJ and Gaz
One of the consequences of running down down down all the way to the bottom of the South Downs is that then it can be slightly less fun going back up. Good thing I brought a bag of sweets to provide encouragement along the hike back to the top. Here are the troops with mouthfuls of jellybeans.

Disco season

Lately we've been having 'discos' in our house.
This usually involves turning off all the lights, closing the curtains, cranking the music up and everyone dancing. Good times!
For some reason, "Dead Skunk" by Loudon Wainwright III has been the favorite song at the moment. Notice how Tryfan even knows some of the words and is singing along while dancing.

Big up to Grandpa Carl who introduced this song to the household! Come onnnn, STINK!

Walking weekend

We went on a couple of nice walks this weekend. On Saturday we went to a different part of the Ashdown Forest and walked 3.5 km roundtrip to visit a windmill.
Actually just as we set off for the windmill (which is on the horizon not very visible in the below picture), Tryfan just took off at a trot. I guess he just figured he would head straight for the windmill! He ended up in a clump of gorse and heather and so Rhodri rescued him. Tryfs is the tiny blue speck ahead and to the right of Rhodri below!
We found that we had to sort of jump across a little waterfall, and that was pretty exciting.
Rhiannon was fascinated by the smooth clay mud patches. She kept wanting to stop and draw with her fingers in the light colored mud -- a welcome distraction on an uphill slog.
Finally at the windmill, and it started raining just as we got here. We had a quick snack and started our way back to the car.
Sunday was the most beautiful January day - cold, clear, low angle light, frozen puddles even at noontime! Tryfan insisted on wearing his Superman outfit although I did get him to wear a couple of layers underneath. Here he is mid-frozen-puddle-stomp:
And back on the bike for the short ride home. We only went a little ways into the forest across the road from us, and mostly so that Bentley could have a scamper.
Then later that night Bentley started licking his paw which must have stood on something sharp. Tryfan and Rhiannon felt sorry for Bentley's pain and so Tryfan offered Bentley to borrow his special blanket for a little bit. So sweet :-)

The New Year begins

Yeeehaw! We're off to a good start this year. We got home from Antigua at 7:00am on New Year's Day and all of us went to sleep until noon. Then we got up and started the year by opening presents from family members. Sleep + opening presents + 3-day weekend just starting = excellent way to kick off 2011. The troops got cowboy/cowgirl outfits during Dec and they sure do love wearing them.
We went for a walk when we got Bentley back on the Monday holiday (3 Jan). It was a good feeling to be back in the Ashdown Forest sploshing through mud and exploring the heathland.
We went back to the laying-down tree and Tryfan did some good climbing up the roots.