Happy 40th, Will

This afternoon we went down to The Broadway for an early 40th birthday celebration for Will. Friends and family came for drinks and food and to celebrate with Will. Tyler is at the age where he loves cakes and candles so the fact that Will was going to have 40 on his cake was good news ;o). Not sure that he enjoyed the wait while the candles were being put on the cake and lit.

Glad I wasn't the one having to blow out all the candles

Singing Happy Birthday

Getting to work on blowing them out Tyler lends a hand

Theresa finally gets to sit down for a while.

Will's daughter Jemma

Shane and Emma

Craig and Claire

Louise and Iain

Jon

Mike

A very enjoyable afternoon, thank you Will and Theresa. Hope you enjoy your actual birthday tomorrow Will.

In a final note, we have just hit our £250 target for Race for Life 2009. We really appreciate all the donations we've received and thank everyone who has sponsored us.

xx

Race for Life 2009

We would like to thank those who have sponsored us already as we reached our first target of £100. I have now raised our target to £150 as we still have another 6 weeks before we do the walk. Time to go do some training :) xx UPDATED: Wow! We have passed our target again and have now set a new target of £250. We've more than doubled our original target and really appreciate all the support we're being given. Thank you, thank you, thank you!! =)

Happy Mother's Day

To all the Mum's out there who are celebrating Mother's Day today, I hope you have a wonderful day and are spoilt by those who love you. In the UK we celebrated Mother's Day back in March but I realise most countries celebrate in May (why are we different?? - anyone know the answer to that one?) and it's our chance to wish all of you a Happy Mother's Day too. To Shannon and Jillian, I hope you had a good flight home again and that the jet lag doesn't hit too hard. I'm sure your husbands and families will be happy to have you back. Looking forward to seeing the photos you took while you were here. xx

It's been a while

The time is flying by and it's getting to the stage where I don't know where to start with an update. Even Cloud looks a bit concerned ;o)

You'll be glad to know she's been to the dog parlour since then and looks nice and clean again. We had a busy weekend this past weekend. On Saturday, Emily and I went out to Gatwick Airport to meet Pat (Shannon's Mum). She had flown in from Vancouver and had a wait at Gatwick before carrying on down to Newquay in Cornwall. We met for lunch and a catch up. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos because I'm more wary of taking photos in airports.

On Sunday Shannon (Jon's nephew Ryan's wife) arrived from Vancouver with her friend and business partner, Jillian. Shannon and Jillian have a photography business together, Lucy Lime Studios.

Jillian hadn't been to the UK before and they wanted to up to London on Monday so came to stay with us for a couple of nights. It was lovely to have them here and see Shannon again. Shannon and Ryan lived in East Grinstead for a while before going back to Canada and we used to meet up fairly regularly for coffee and chats.

Shannon

Jillian's Dad is from Scotland and he had told her that if she got the chance she was to get a Flake 99 from the ice cream van. They had been here for about an hour when an ice cream van came round playing it's tune (and we've not been having them round regularly yet because it hasn't been warm enough) and she was able to get a Flake 99. (For those who don't know, a Flake 99 is an ice cream cone with soft serve ice cream and a chocolate flake in it) The reason she had to have one is that the ice cream vans over here have soft serve ice cream in them and, I believe, this isn't the case in Canada. I think Jillian was pleased to be able to tick one thing off her list of things to do, or get, so quickly.

Jillianchatting to my Dad

You may be wondering why everyone is arriving back in the UK at the same time. The answer is quite special - Shannon's younger sister, Theresa, had twins a couple of weeks ago - a boy, Joel and a girl, Summer. Pat is here for three weeks to help out and Shannon and Jillian couldn't miss the chance to come over and take newborn photos! Congrats again Theresa, Chris and big brother Dylan - looking foward to seeing Shannon and Jillian's photos of your family.

I've still been playing with my camera and different lenses so I thought I'd fill up the rest of this post with a few more photos ;o) Claire Jon Bumble bee in the azalea

I'll leave it at that for tonight and try and post again soon. Can't believe we're nearly at the weekend again - yippee!!

xx

PS Started using WiiFit again (after 93 days, it tells me!) and intend to start going for walks from next week. Hoping this will help me get round the 5 km track for Race for Life. Glad we still have over a month to go ;o)

Race for Life 2009

Emily after completing Race for Life 2008

Claire, Emily and I have just signed up to take part in Race for Life 2009 in aid of Cancer Research. This takes place in Ardingly on 28 June and is a 5km walk/jog/run -in my case I think it will definitely be walk ;o). We know a few people who have had cancer, some have survived and others haven't. It is such a worthwhile cause and we are hoping to raise about £100 pounds. If anyone who reads this blog would like to sponser us we have set up a sponsorship page on the Race for Life website which can be found here. To anyone who does sponsor us, we thank you in advance.

Now it's time to think about doing a little bit of training before the event. I've no doubt I will keep you posted on how we're getting on along the way.

xx