Easter Holiday begins

Yay!! The kids are off for 2 weeks now, and we decided to spend this day with our friends Sofie and Oscar and their mama Emma. Rhiannon and Sofie are the only 2 girls in their Reception class (aka Kindergarten in the US), and Oscar and Tryfan are the same age and go to Nursery school together. First Sofie and Oscar came over to our house to play for a few hours, then we all went to visit Blackberry Farm, which is a fun place to visit down the road (about 20 min drive away).
We didn't spend too long in the farm animal section. But we did get straight onto the tractor ride which gave us a tour of the farm. We spent most of the day in the play area part, which had a huge bouncy mountain in the middle of a sand pit. No photos of this, sorry. The other popular area, especially for Tryfan, was this soft ball room that had a vacuum system which allowed balls to be sent flying through tunnels and out of cannons. Tryfan spent a lot of time going up and down the stairs carrying as many balls as he could to transfer into one part or another of the room.
Finally it was time to go, and everyone conked out in the cars on the way home. Here they are getting ready to go home...
Oscar is such a cheeky little guy!

Totally spring

Its nearly too good to be true, but I think that spring is definitely here! Its warm, its sunny, and it is the start of the Easter Holiday, which lasts for 2 weeks plus a little bit afterwards.
But the big news is that we finally got Tryfan a big boy's bike! It's called the "Stinger". Here he is testing it out ...
We had our first dinner outside too, which was great excitement. We celebrated by having a bottle of "Le Maison de Michel" wine, which we got to celebrate vicariously with our friend Michel, who is presently wandering around Patagonia. We took this photo in order to send a hello to him. Hi Michel!

Grand National

Today was exciting because it was the Grand National horse race!
I didn't realize, but in Rhodri's family everyone chooses a horse and places a real bet for this one race. So this was the first year that we participated too.
In case you didn't know, the Grand National is a crazy 4.5 mile steeplechase with 30 jumps and 40 horses competing. The fences are so high and all the horses run so close to each other - at nearly every obstacle a horse and/or rider go down. So this year, 19 horses finished out of the original 40. And sadly, 2 of them went up to horse heaven during the race. But I think this is a fairly normal result for this particular race!
Anyway, the kids bet on "Majestic Concorde" who was in the top 3 for the first 2/3 of the race and then the rider fell off. I bet on "Bluesea Cracker" who was the only mare running in the race (so i had to bet on her, really). And Rhodri bet on "Oscar Time" and he ended up coming in 2nd place! So we won the bet! woohoo!
Here is the link for all of the results:
http://www.grandnational.org.uk/grand-national-runners.php

Easter Bonnet Parade

Ever since Wednesday of this week, we have had the most beautiful weather!
Sunny, warm and wonderful. When the weather is not this way every day, and its been a long winter, there is just no way of describing how wonderful it feels to have a string of days of sunny warm loveliness. All of the dead looking trees which have been slowly coming back to life -- little buds starting to poke out -- have suddenly exploded into blossom and leaf. On top of all this, the school term ended on Friday and now we have 2 weeks of Easter holiday. Woohoo!!!!
There is an annual Easter Bonnet parade and competition at the school, and here is a little video showing the kids parading around the playground.
See if you can spot Rhiannon...

Did you find her? She was right in front of the girl wearing the most enormous hat you've ever seen. We had a pretty good time decorating the hat, even if she didn't win the competition. There were big bright tissue paper flowers, feathers, ribbon, sparkly thingies and googley eyes scattered around the sunhat in a Rhiannon-style distribution. See below (although the googley eyes are sadly not visible)...

Day of double happiness

Today was Mother's Day here in the UK, and it was also Rhodri and my 12th wedding anniversary! So a day of double happiness.
After a leisurely morning, we packed a picnic and went to Pooh Sticks Bridge. Here are the troops in front of Pooh's house (well, not really since he lives under the name of Saunders).
And on Pooh Stick Bridge looking downstream, watching sticks to come under the bridge.
We walked for awhile beyond the Bridge and found a spot to lunch. This is our picnic spot on the outskirts of the village of Hartfield. We found a great tree to sit on while we were eating. Bentley would have loved to chase the sheep in the field but it is lambing season and dogs are not allowed to "worry" the sheep in these times.
It was also a great tree to climb in so we all did a bit of exploring in the branches. Today was mostly overcast but not too cold at all.
On the way home we stopped at the local pub for a 'swiftie' and spent a chunk of time to just hang out in the playground part of the beer garden.

All in all, a really good day!

Pevensey outing

On Sunday we went to visit the town of Pevensey, which is about 40 minutes drive from us on the south coast. We visited Pevensey Castle, which is from the Norman times. Bentley was allowed to come with us too, which is always fun.
Then we had a picnic at the beach near Norman Bay. It was not a sandy beach, but there were lots and lots of rocks to throw into the water. Good times!
There is also a sort of skeleton wall with wide enough beams for little people to crawl on.
It was warm in the sheltered sun but pretty cool out in the wind. Here is our picnic spot.
Bentley loved running on the beach and in the water, of course!

Bike Race!

Rhodri was in his first bike race today - 53 miles long - and so of course the troops and I went out to cheer him on. The bike race is called the Burgess Hill Cyclosportive and was a big loop through mid-Sussex county where we live.
Our friend Huw came down from Bristol on Saturday night so that he could be in the race too. Here we are in Horsted Keynes waiting for Rhodri and Huw to come past.
I think we were actually the only supporters for the whole race! We shouted "Good morning" and "WOO-HOO" and "Good Job!" to everyone who rode past us and the troops were just starting to get a bit fed up with doing this when their Daddy whooped at us.
Here they come!
And there they go....Huw is the one in focus on his blue bike, Rhodri is in front nearly out of the photo. They were going so fast it was hard to capture!
After they zoomed past us, we played at the Horsted Keynes village playground for a bit and then drove around to Forest Row where we knew they would be riding past around 11:00- 11:30am. There is a good playground in Forest Row too, so we played there while waiting for the cyclists to go past and then we met them at a rest stop. Huw's friend Chris was riding with them as well. Here are Huw, Chris and Rhodri with the troops and their flags below:
They all finished the race in good time without any injuries and so it was a huge success!
We had a nice celebratory Sunday dinner and Huw got to stay the night as well (last time he came through he had to leave after dinner). Good times!

Norway winter trip Part 3

On Friday morning Mar 11 (we were totally oblivious to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that had just happened that morning), the kids and I went to visit the barnehage utegruppe out in the skogen (forest). They were happy to see us and we were happy to see them too! There was loads of delicious snow and a perfect steep slope for sledding on the little bum sleds.
Rhiannon understood most of what her friends were saying to her, but it seemed like she didn't remember very much Norwegian at all to speak. Anyway, none of this seemed to be a problem because smiles, fun and laughter are universal! Here she is with her old homies on the rope swing.
And helping to prepare the lunch which was being cooked over the bonfire.
Finally it was time to say goodbye to her teacher Kamilla and her best bud Sofie.
We collected our bags and took the train from Asker to the airport with plenty of time to play and relax before our flight left at 6:30pm.
By the time we got home to Chelwood Gate, it was around 9:30pm on the Friday night and we had the whole weekend to recover, unpack, and get ready for business-as-usual on Monday.

Norway winter trip Part 2

On Sunday afternoon (6 Mar), we drove from Asker to Beitostolen where we met our friends Fiona and Karl-John and their twin boys Finn and Magnus. We stayed in KJ's company's hytte (cabin) for the period 6-10 March, driving back to Asker on Thurs 10 March. Here is our one-and-only group photo with all 8 of us in it...
There was mega excitement when we reunited with them at the cabin. Lots of jumping around, running and happily shouting. All 4 kids got to sleep in the same room which had 2 sets of bunkbeds, and there was a lot of activity as the troops figured out how to remove the wooden supports from the top bunks and be able to jump down from the top. Here they are industriously relocating the wooden slats from the top bunk.
There is only so much activity one can have, followed by a scrumptious pasta dinner, before these little people are ready to watch some 'Barna TV' before getting ready for bed.
Monday morning was partly cloudy and windy, but none of that mattered because we were all going for a dual family cross-country ski expedition! here are Magnus, Tryfan and Rhiannon ready to get out the door.
We skiied up a long and in parts steep hill until we got to this rock which overlooked a big lake.
We decided to make this our lunching stop, and of course we had packed a delicious picnic of pita bread filled with stuff to be heated over our bonfire in the snow. Here is KJ manning the fire and cooking the lunch. The snow was really deep and it was a challenge to get the fire going, but we got there in the end!
Here is Magnus and Rhiannon after lunch, ready to ski back down the hill to the cabin. Beautiful frozen lake in the background.And this is more or less what we looked like as we were out skiing - Rhiannon, Finn and Magnus all took turns fighting to be in the lead and almost always Tryfan was in the back (wearing red in this photo) with either Rhodri or me.
Action shot of Tryfan - really concentrating in this picture as you can see from his tongue sticking out!
After a full day outside in the snow, everyone was ready to do puzzles, draw pictures and read stories inside while waiting for dinner to be ready.
Storytime in the kids room - each one of us took a turn reading the bedtime story to all the troops.
Sunrise on the mountains in the distance - the view from our kitchen window!
On Tuesday we went on another dual family ski expedition, this time we went the opposite direction and found a delightful place to stop for lunch. There were already couches built into the snow, and this little spot faced directly into the sunshine hidden from the wind. Perfect!
Back at the cabin, there was a GIANT mountain of snow that had been plowed into a big pile. I think all winter, the children who were coming through this neighborhood had been building and maintaining this snow fort which was hard packed by hands and knees. Kid-sized tunnels ran through this whole mountain, and it was so much fun to play on!
Here is Tryfan peeking through one of the tunnels
Here is "Daddy Troll" chasing and scaring the other trolls on the mountain
One of the huge advantages of going on holiday with Fiona and Karl-John is that we could take turns looking after the tribe of kids and have our own time to play in the snow. Rhodri and I went on a great little 1.5 hour ski tour up past the rock we stopped at the first day and looped back around. The dominant peak of Bitihorn is the local landmark - I love looking at the shape of it and under different light.
And then on our last morning, Fiona and I went for a early morning ski tour which was wonderful as well! As soon as we came back, Rhodri and Karl-John went out and we started packing the house and looking after the kids playing on the snow fort.
As we did the final tidying up and cleaning of the cabin, Rhodri told stories to all the kids in order to keep them quiet and out of mischief. He is truly gifted at making up stories which kids are happy to sit and listen to.
Once the cabin was clean, we piled into our respective cars and drove back to the Oslo area for our last night and day.

Norway winter trip part 1

We took a family holiday and flew to Norway for a week. We left Friday morning and got to Asker about 1pm on March 4th. Our first stop was the barnehage that R & T went to, and they were excited to see us all. There was plenty of snow still on the ground, though the day was clear and gorgeous.
It happened to be Carnival day, so everyone was dressed in costumes. Rhiannon was shy for about 5 minutes, then she was straight back into playing with her old friends. Although she didn't seem to remember any Norwegian to speak, I think she mostly understood what people were saying. Tryfan took a lot longer to come unglued from my leg, but he was soon playing happily too.
At 5pm we left barnehage and went to stay with our former neighbor and good friend Monica and her family. Kristoffer was really happy to see both Tryfan and Rhiannon, and we had a wonderful couple of days staying with them (Fri and Sat nights).
On Saturday morning we visited our friends Emily and Phil, who have a new baby called William! Rhiannon was especially thrilled to meet him, and she got to feed him some milk and hold him a little bit. It was so wonderful to see them again.
After doing a bit of shopping at Holmen, we called in with our old neighbors from our first residence, Beate and Ole and their youngest daughter Yasmin. It was wonderful to see them and the three kids played on the floor while us adults chatted in a civilised and very enjoyable way.
Next stop on Saturday afternoon was to Sofia's house to see her new baby brother Storm and spend an hour or so chatting with their parents, Linda and Paer. Paer made delicious popcorn soup and we all had some. Rhiannon and Sofia were so happy to see each other and even though they didn't speak much, they played and laughed the whole time.
Rhiannon got to hold baby Storm all by herself and she was so thrilled about it.
On Saturday night we had a neighborhood get together at Bentley's foster family's house. There were 5 families there (including us) and it was so wonderful to visit with everyone at once. Here we are walking over from Kristoffer's house.
Monica brought over some long balloons and a book on how to make animal shapes, swords, and hats from them. So it was quite chaotic for some time as kids were running wild with their balloon swords.
On Sunday morning, we visited with R & T's former best buds Sofie and Johanne and their parents. The kids played in their backyard snow playground while us adults sat on reindeer skin covered sofas carved into the snow, drank coffee and ate pancake-type things.
By 1pm on Sunday afternoon, we were a bit exhausted from all of the intense visiting! Perfect time to jump into the car and drive for 3+ hours into the mountains to have Part 2 of our Norwegian holiday....