Our half term story

I'm briefly online at the moment, as I'm still at work. The reason? dh is ill.....last seen in the vacinity of the toilet with a tummy bug, which we think ss had on Sunday night, probably picked up here in the store, by eating without washing his hands at a guess, after contact with who knows who? as its apparently going around.....I'm really hoping I don't get it, as dh is away this weekend (if he's better) running larp at York. Thus I need to be here to open and close the store (we have staff now, so they'll manage during the day)

Since I was last here we've experienced dd1's 5th birthday, a trip to the zoo, a trip around Meadowhall and the trip back home from ss's house, not all on the same day I hasten to add, but still the same week, in fact half term was positively mad.

The first Saturday we hitched a lift with C&M upto the LARP kit fair in Barnsley, I acquired some Xmas presents for Gabriel (being sent to Santa obviously) and had a nice pootle around a few of the buildings/stores in the same site, picking up a few other Xmas bits and bobs too. The Sunday was spent running Pokemon for me, whilst dh and the girls did? in the evening we trundled to H's birthday party, Halloweeon theme, which the girls enjoyed immensely. Monday the girls went to Butlins with the GP's (grandparents) whilst dh and I worked, mum kindly had the kids the next day till 4pm as well, so dh and I stole out to dinner via Toys r Us to get Birthday and Xmas presents. We attempted a romantic meal at Frankie and Bennies in Derby, only to be scuppered by knowing 3 people the moment we walked in, followed by a further 2 a few minutes later, lol.

Wednesday saw us attempting to pick ss up, we managed this bit, only to be scuppered on the way home, due to an unfortunate accident on the M1 (some poor soul died) thus a 4.5 hr trip home, via Sheffield, A61 to Chesterfield and the Ripley ensued. At 6pm I bailed us out into Frankie and Bennies again, as I was going potty in the car for 3.5hrs with the kids, who were being remarkably good in the circumstances, but teatime is teatime and an expensive one at that.

Thursday we all went to the Zoo to meet Auntie L and cousin W, I think the kids all enjoyed themselves, SS enjoyed the ghost train the most, even the bloke rattling the chains in the back. The dd's made witches hats and liked the rides there too, not sure how much interest the animals got, although dd2 keeps rattling on about the monkeys, so she must have paid some attention. T popped over in the evening and we had a lovely natter and catch up, as it's been over a year since I saw her last, due to work and life commitments on both of our parts. Doesn't time fly when your having fun?

Friday was Halloween, spent mainly at home, L was turning up, but postponed until Sat. I ran Halloween Pokemon in the evening, the joined dh at home, where I ended up back at Tescos, as we needed party food and stuff to sculpt dd1's birthday cake, a magnificent set of 3 swiss roll towers, in white icing :-) with an icing dragon and icecream cone towers, which dh and I completed in the early hours after much messing about, but it was worth it for the look on her face :-)

Saturday was dd1's birthday, L, finally turned up as did various relatives and fun was had by all. Plus a fair bit of catching up too.
Sunday was the birthday extension, as this time it was the friends party at a play centre, which was fun for them all too.

and that my readers is the story of the last week or so.... I hope you weren't too bored by it all, I'd love to post that I'd done crafting or something nice, but, oh hang on, actually I did manage a bit of cooking storage on Sunday whilst L was entertaing the kids for me, that was it, I peeled 30 apples, stewed and froze them, followed by par boiling and freezing the parsnips and making up soup for lunch which I also froze afterwards. Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking about it all.