Catch up Sunday

I started writing on the blog again with very good intentions of trying to post at least every couple of days. Unfortunately, sometimes life has other ideas about how you spend you time and this week was one such time. However, here is a quick recap of our past week.

 

 Emily turned 16 last Saturday.

I can't believe my "baby" is now old enough to work and has her National Insurance Number.  Jon did print out a list of all the things she is now able to do - not all of which I would want her to do ;o)

 She got to open one present first thing in the morning before I headed out for a short while. She had decided to keep opening the rest until I got home again.  This one is a lovely little silver bracelet with a heart charm.  I did mean to get a clearer photo but forgot until I was putting this together (oops!)

 Alice and Claire came back to the house with me and Alice was more than happy to help Aunty Em open her presents.

Emily's birthday balloon was a big hit with Alice and she carried it around for a good part of the day.

 Emily probably won't be thrilled that I've posted this photo ;o)  The one I took when she was blowing out the candles was way too dark so I asked her to blow again - this was the look she gave me lol!

 Sunday saw me meeting up with Claire and Alice again for a cup of coffee at Starbucks.  I guess funny faces run in our family.

 The weather has certainly been cooling down recently but, if I'm honest, I'm actually enjoying the cooler weather and being able to cosy up in warm jumpers.  When we first moved back to the UK I might not have been quite so excited.  I was so chuffed that I managed to get a shot of this spider web in focus.  It looked so pretty from the kitchen window so I'd gone outside to take a photo but it just didn't work.  I came back inside and tried again and managed to get this shot.

Tuesday certainly didn't begin the way any of us expected.  I was woken by the phone at 12.50am and Mum telling me that Dad had had a stroke and had been taken to one of the local hospitals.  I spoke to the paramedic who was with Mum who confirmed this but advised that we wait and phone the hospital in the morning.  Fortunately it was a mild stroke but it has affected the left side of Dad's body and he wasn't able to feel or move his left arm and leg.  Fortunately, each time we go down to visit we are seeing some improvement which is very encouraging.

I've still been having Alice while Claire is at work and she does wonders to take my mind off the more serious issues.  I love watching her play and playing with her ;o)  She really is a little ray of sunshine and so funny too.

 She loves my iPad but did make me laugh on Friday.  When it's time to go and pick Claire up from work Alice helps to collect all her things together - her dummy, her bunny, her blanket (which should stay here but she likes to take it) and then on Friday she said "my iPad!"  She wasn't very impressed when I told her it was Grandma's iPad and it was staying here. 

 

And finally a photo of Dad, taken yesterday.  He was in good spirits and was making us laugh with some of his "stories".  When it came to taking photos he had great fun making faces at me. I did manage to get this one which I really like. 

The good news is that yesterday Dad was able to lift both his left arm and leg off the bed - something he wasn't able to do at the start of the week.  He did make us laugh when he told us the Physio lady said they were going to move him to a bed in the Rehab ward as soon as one became available and he told her he wasn't really that keen on going to the gym or exercising!  So funny!! He was enjoying not having to do physio over the weekend but was sure they were going to make him work twice as hard on Monday.  It's good to see the improvements, they may seem small to him but they are all steps in the right direction and we're hoping they continue. 

My thoughts and prayers this weekend are with Deb (Paper Turtle); Deb's Mum, Marti; Carrie (Rosalind Revival) and their family. Love to you all. xx

Kidnapped ;)

Last night Emily was "kidnapped" by her friends.  Saturday is Emily's birthday but she didn't know what she wanted to do for it so decided she would just have a quiet birthday this year.  Her friends had another idea!

I love that these girls wanted to do something for Emily and planned a surprise birthday sleepover without Emily knowing a thing. One of her friends contacted me in a private Facebook message to make sure it would be okay for them to go ahead with the plans and to ask me to pack a bag for Emily so she'd be ready to go when the arrived.  They got here at about 9pm (they had a half day at school yesterday and have today off too) and Emily couldn't take in what was going on. I think she was still in shock by the time she left ;o) The girls had brought a blindfold for her so she wouldn't know where she was going and one of the Mum's was ready to drive them to the friend's house. Such fun and I'm so glad she has such a great group of friends.

At this stage we're not sure what the moustaches & sideburns were for but I dare say we'll find out when she gets home.  I bet they'll have had a fantastic time!

xx

Thursday

 

Our Acer is getting it's Autumn colour. Love this time of year!

 

xx

CNBlue

On Saturday Emily and I were at The O2 in London to see CNBlue (A Korean pop/rock band) in concert.  

 

We'd never been to The O2 before but, after reassurances from a friend, I decided to drive rather than go by train and I'm glad I did because it was fairly straight forward.  After parking we had a short distance to walk to get to the venue.

 

 I didn't know they had cable cars next to the Dome.  I'm not sure what they're for or whether it's just for people to be able to go up and see the view?  Not something either Emily or I would enjoy so we didn't try and find out more.

 First view of what was The Millenium Dome and is now The O2 arena.

We were amazed by the number of restaurants we could choose to eat at but as it was only coming up to 5pm and neither of us was very hungry, we settled on TGI Fridays.

After dinner we lined up in our queue waiting for the doors to open at 6pm.  The band came on stage just after 7pm and played for two hours.  It'd been a long time since I'd been to a concert but it was fun and the girls were super excited - there was a fair amount of screaming, lots of light sticks being waved and everybody having a good time.  (I was, however, quite glad to see I wasn't the only Mum there ;) )  Photography was a bit of a challenge but by pushing my ISO to 6400 I did manage to get a couple of reasonable shots which Emily is happy about.  Here are some of the photos.

 

I know that's now been two posts in two days and although I am going to try and start posting more regularly again, I don't know that it'll be every day. However, I do still have the photos from our trip to the Harry Potter Studio Tour which Emily and I did at the end of August. Emily did say she'd do a guest post for that one but I haven't edited the photos yet.  Something to look forward to (?).

xx