Bank Holiday Monday

This is a quick photo recap of the past few days.

Chrissie and Helen

My niece, Helen and her girlfriend, Chrissie are over from Chicago at the moment. They arrived in East Grinstead on Saturday at lunch time so after picking them up from the station, we went to The Broadway for lunch (this seems to be becoming a habit with visitors here!). On Sunday we popped into town in the morning and then had a braai (bbq) in the afternoon. Although the sun was out there was quite a strong wind but we were brave and toughed it out outside while we ate before hurrying back inside ;o) Today the girls went to Arundel Castle with Deb and Dave and this evening we all met up for a Thai meal at Mae Ping. The food was wonderful and quite filling. Thanks Dave and Deb for a lovely meal.

Deb and Dave

Emily and Hugh

Jon and myself.

Unfortunately, Claire and Craig didn't make it to the meal as Craig ended up in Minor Injuries at the Queen Victoria Hospital about an hour before we were due to leave. He had been playing football with friends, landed awkwardly and hurt his ankle. They ended up being at the hospital until about 9pm and I went and picked them up after getting home from the meal. Fortunately it doesn't look like anything has been broken and is just a severe strain. Craig will be off work for the week and has been told to put ice on it at regular intervals. I was a bit surprised they hadn't bandaged it up but perhaps that's in case of more swelling?? He's taken some ibuprofen and they've headed off to bed now.

But to end on a happier note, I thought I'd show you the photo I took for my tag book a few days ago. It shows the little baby things Claire has started buying. So exciting!! She's now 16 weeks and looking forward to her 20 week scan.

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I hope you've had a good weekend too :o). Emily is on half term this week so not quite as much rushing around and I'll try and post a bit more regularly.

xx

Birthday post

I had a fantastic birthday yesterday - so much so, I didn't get round to doing a blog post! My morning started out with Emily getting her own back on me as she took lots of photos of me opening presents ;o)

Emily had made her own birthday card to give me which included the appropriate number of kisses - one for each year of my age ;o) (no numbers given lol!)

Bournville chocolate

Wearing a scarf given to me by my friend Helena.

I had arranged to meet up with my friend Alison for a coffee - we always have a good laugh when we get together and it felt like it'd been ages since we'd last caught up. I couldn't think of a better way to spend my birthday morning - thanks Ali! In the brief lull between getting home and family arriving for tea and cakes in the afternoon, Hugh suggested I download "Words with Friends" on my iPhone so we could play against each other. He was beating me all the way through until I finished all my letters first and won the game ☺ Don't think he was too impressed, lol! Next up, some flowers arrived from Jon. I did have to smile when I opened the door, he has learnt to order me flowers in a vase (haha!). Over the years Jon has sent me bouquets of flowers and most times I have taken them back to the florists and asked them to arrange them in a vase for me because I am hopeless at flower arranging ;o) - hence Jon has now learnt and my flowers came arranged for me! My sister in law, Debbie brought me some beautiful yellow roses (those I can arrange because I have the idea vase for them!). I also got another two lots of flowers and the lounge looks wonderful! Family arrived for tea and cake and because I'd done my baking the day before it was easy to just make the tea and coffee and serve. Above are Mum, my brother Iain and Dad.

My niece, Faith and sister in law, Louise.

Theresa came with Tyler and Alyssa but Tyler slept through the whole thing. Alyssa on the other hand was quite wide awake and I even got a few chuckles from her. She's growing up so quickly!

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It's become a bit of a tradition that we go out for dinner when it's someones birthday. Last night was no exception and we went to The Wing Wah for a Chinese meal. I love going out as a family and the "children" are now old enough that we can have a laugh and enjoy each others company.

Claire and Craig

Emily

Hugh and Sarah

Jon

Me ;o)

And finally, a cake given to me by another friend, Myung San.

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What a great way to spend my birthday. Only another year to go and then we can do it all over again ;o) and I'll be a Grandma too!

xx

Sometimes life gets in the way

I still haven't got into a proper routine which includes blogging and the next month isn't looking much better ;o). I thought I might be caught up this week but it doesn't look likely. I have cakes to bake today ready for tea and cakes here tomorrow, the VAT paperwork to gather up and get to the Accountant and a quilt to make. On top of that, Emily goes on half term at the end of this week so we'll be busy next week and a week after she goes back, my sister Norma arrives from South Africa to stay with us for 4 weeks :o) We're so excited that she's coming over and can't wait for her to get here.

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In the meantime, a few more photos.

My nephew Ryan teaching his two boys to play pool

Some of our group

Shannon with her twin niece and nephew

Owen

Our roses have bloomed in the last week :o) These yellow ones are my favourite and the scent from them is fantastic - I wish we had smellovision Our quiet Sunday afternoon, the weather was beautiful and Jon and I sat out for a good part of the day. We have to make the most of any decent weather! And finally, Aldi opened a store in East Grinstead on Thursday last week. Mum, Dad and I popped in after I'd taken them to Homebase for some compost. While wandering around the shop I spotted some Sangria - I don't actually drink normally but I do enjoy Sangria and decided to buy a bottle to try. On Saturday afternoon my parents came round for a braai (bbq) and we opened the Sangria :) It was really nice so, yesterday, I went back to buy some more to put aside. There were only 3 bottles left - so I bought them all ;o). I look forward to sharing a glass (or two) out on the patio with Norma while she is here.

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I have now started my baking - red velvet cupcakes made and lemon drizzle traybake made. Just the carrot cake still to do.

xx

Canadian family

A few photos of our Canadian family taken while they were over here. As I said before, we didn't take many photos at all - we were just enjoying being together again and catching up.

Owen is now 6 but lived in the UK when he was little. Shannon and I used to meet up quite regularly and go out and about around town with him. Shannon was hoping being here might jog his memory but I don't think he remembered anything :( We hadn't met Finton before they arrived, he's now 3 and was born in Canada after Ryan and Shannon left the UK. What a little cutie!!! He was just adorable - made you want to smother him in kisses (not that he would probably have enjoyed that!). I'm just so glad we got the chance to meet him at last.

Finton and Shannon :o)

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I need to edit a few more photos soon so I can post them as well. These are really for the boys Mama (Grandma) Merle who didn't make it over from SA as we had hoped. Hopefully we'll see you next year Merle!

xx

One month on ...

It's a month since we took Claire's first pregnancy photos - where she only had a little slope, not quite a bump. Well, yesterday it was time to take the second ones and there is more of a bump ;)

Claire is now 14.5 weeks pregnant and her next midwife's appointment is mid June. She's now thinking that she might find out what she's having at her 20 week scan at the beginning of July. I can understand why but it wouldn't have been for me, part of the "fun" of the birth was finding out whether the baby was a boy or a girl. There's still another 5 and a bit weeks before the scan, still time to change her mind again (perhaps a couple of times ;) ).

xx

8th picture in the 8th file

Mel at I Speak Melsh was playing along with finding the 8th photo in the 8th file on your computer and suggested we play along too and show the photo on our blogs. I was curious to see which photo would come up and here it is :o) It was taken on 17 September 2006. Emily is holding my cat, Charlie, who we had got from The Cat Protection centre the month before (after getting back from our holiday in Chicago). Emily looks so little - and so does Charlie! It's so sweet to look back on these photos and I'm now thinking I could do a "then and now" page with this photo and a current one of Emily and Charlie! Thanks Mel for getting us to play along :o)

xx

Slowly getting back to normal

Our guests have now left us; Shannon, Ryan and the boys left on Thursday to spend a week with Shannon's sister Theresa and her family in Newquey; while Darren and Natasha left on Friday to fly back to South Africa. Our house is quieter once more and we're slowly getting back into our routines. I didn't take nearly as many photos as I had intended to while everyone was here; we were too busy catching up and enjoying ourselves ;o). I have got a few but haven't edited them yet so will post them as I get to them.

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Yesterday Jon, Emily and I went down to Eastleigh in Hampshire to meet up with Michelle and Matthew for a lunch where all the parents could meet before the wedding. Jon and Ann (his first wife) hadn't seen each other for about 27 years so I'm sure it was quite strange for both of them. However, I'm really glad we got together as I'm sure everyone will feel that little bit more relaxed on the day of the wedding. It's not long to go now, only another 7 weeks! Emily has her half term break in a couple of weeks and we're hoping to go down to Eastleigh again and then on to Poole to have a look around and see where might be suitable for taking wedding photos. I think during the break we will also have to start looking for wedding outfits, shoes, etc. I have no clue at this stage what I'll be looking for but hopefully something will just feel right and it'll be job done.

A group photo from yesterday.

From left going clockwise round the table: Ann, Jon, Emily, Mary and John (Matthew's parents), Michelle, Matthew and Rowland (Ann's husband). Josh didn't want to be in the photo and seeing as I was taking the photo, I'm not in it either ;o)

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I'm going to leave it at that for now as it's time for me to feed the family :o). I hope you've had a good weekend, whatever you've been doing.

xx

May be absent for a few days

Things are likely to be quite busy around here for the next week, so I'm not sure how often I'll be posting. My nephew and his family are arriving from Canada today and his brother and his girlfriend arrive from South Africa tomorrow. There's likely to be a lot of family time and catching up going on (hopefully a chance to take some photos too ;o) )

Have a great weekend and I'll be back as soon as I can.

xx

It's been a few days ...

The past few days have whizzed by and I've hardly been going on my computer.

On Tuesday Mum and I went to Sevenoaks to a quilt shop I hadn't been to before (I'd never been to Sevenoaks before either!) to look for some material for the next quilt I'm making. I found these materials and the border material (the patterned fabric underneath the others) and a couple of others are from the Basic Grey "Eva" range by Moda. I'd never seen scrapbook papers as fabric before so this was quite cool! This morning Hugh, Claire, Mum, Dad and I went and voted first thing. We had to go to our local community centre and were in and out quite quickly. I'm interested to see what's going to happen with these elections, it's certainly the closest the parties have been in a long time!

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It was then time for us to head down to the hospital for Claire's 12 week scan. Claire and Craig both had the day off work for the scan so Craig came with us. It was the first time Craig had seen a scan and baby played to the audience. It raised it's arm and we could see the little hand and all the fingers and at one point it looked like it was sticking it's tongue out ;o)

It's amazing what a difference three weeks makes - from the little shrimp like blob to this little baby who is now 6cm long. So sweet!

Gadgets

I have to confess to being a bit sad when it comes to gadgets - I really do enjoy them. I love all my cameras, the different lenses, flashes etc; I love my iPod and from today, I can love my new iPhone too.

I've been looking at the iPhones for a while and with my phone contract eligible for an upgrade this month, I decided to take the plunge and get one. I'm enjoying what I'm seeing so far and looking forward to playing with it more tomorrow. Happy days :)

xx

Making me happy :)

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When Mum and I went to have tea in Lingfield this week, I saw this little bowl in the shop and immediately thought of it filled with M&Ms, Jelly Babies or Skittles :o). Today it's filled with Peanut M&Ms.

xx