More Catching Up

So, while I was jollying it up in Scarborough,  Matt entertained Jon, Rachel and Jake for the weekend as well as being in charge of kinders.  It was unbelievably hot so they escaped up a mountain and found a cache

On finding a cache!

 Within a couple of days of my return we had Helen, Emily and Rosie visiting for a week and in the middle of that was Katerina's 5th Birthday.  It was really hot weather and I really thought that having a birthday on a Saturday with an afternoon party might have been rather hard work but it went really smoothly and it was good having Matt here to help do things too.

She just wanted a green number 5.  Not sure it's my best cake :-/

Opening pressies

Favourite friend William at her party

Too excited

Bag decorating

Trading gold coins for treasure

Best lil brother

Best friend Wendy

Kindergarten friend Milena

cake

water fun

As usual I was exhausted after her party and still made jam as all the berries were going mouldy!

Spent a lot of at Furtherbad with Helen and her girls

Emily and Alex at Tegernsee

Panorama from bridge overlooking Tegernsee from Gmund

On BOB

Matt took charge while Helen and I had some fun

Helen and I on well deserved bike ride!

Helen and I both travelled up to the airport together to fly back to the UK.  Me to Birmingham and she to London.

We had a lovely week in sunny -  yes SUNNY and WARM Devon.  It's so much more relaxed when the weather is good. Alex just loves his Grandad and could potter all day like him.  We went to the beach, swam in the sea and went up on the moor -Darkmoor as Katie calls it!

Driving the "new" tractor

Walking down to the beach

Following his favourite Grandad

fun at the beach

Dad wishes he'd got changed

Rusty driving the tractor

Bigbury beach with the cousins

building a boat

Swimming in a pool

In Grandad's greenhouse (note he has his slippers on!)

Gutter tor with Grandad John

Good cache treasure

And then one of the reasons for going to England was the fact that I ordered Katie and Islabike which is her first bike with gears and super light.  It was delivered to mum and dad's and I didn't unpack it so it was fairly easy to transport in the box it was sent in. 

Demonstrating how light it is

First test ride

I'm not sure who loves her bike more - us or her!  It is so gorgeous.  We went for a ride to the Jazz beer garden which is 11km away and she rode it there and back.  Very impressive. She loves using the gears.  It has seven and for the first couple of rides she could go from 1to 7 quite easily but not back.  Crucial for a hill.  She's got it now.


Then I went gallivanting off again for a weekend to Newcastle which was good fun and while I was away Matt took the kids to Märchenwald which is a fun place near us.

On a ride!

This last week has been a little more relaxing.  Went to a Berry picking place and Katie and Wendy (5 going on 15 attitudes at he moment) decided to run off in the maize maze and could we find them?  over and hour later they come out with someone and the only thing is Katie is miffed as they wouldn't let her get her stamp on her paper!  No fear those two!

Alex in the maze

Picking blueberries

Yum

Playing on the straw

And now the weather has broken - just in time for our next lot of visitors on Tuesday.

Small Catch Up

We (I) have been so unbelievably busy I realised that I need to add some more of our summer adventures on here - and we haven't even been on holiday yet!

So, in a nutshell, these are a few of the things we have done:

Day trip to Garmisch, and up the Eckbauerbahn, walk down through the Partnachklamm finished off with a sommerrodelbahn - good day out.

Alex on the funky lift

Happy Hikers

Excited running through the Partnachklamm

And finishing the rodelbahn

Alex learns to ride a pedal bike.  A great thing as now we can go faster.  We were just about to take the pedals off the bike we were handed down to make it a laufrad, and I suggested Alex just gave it a try with the pedals.  He was fab!

First go on his pedal bike

Lots of swimming in our local outdoor pool and with Celina, Wendy and Nico.

At Michaelibad with Wendy

At Further bad - our local pool

Alex having fun

 A Weekend trip to Switzerland where my cousin Rebecca has a chalet.  It was a long drive on a Friday night and ended up driving through big storms and torrential rain but the whole weekend was beautiful weather and we had such a lovely time that I felt like we had been away for ages.  It was lovely to see Rebecca and the boys too and was so easy staying with them. 

View to wake up to after arriving in the middle of a wet night

On the lift to the top at Tyon

Running through the meadow

With Rebecca and 2 of her boys

Happy wanderers

Marching up the hill

Running to get the cache

Highest cache

On the way down

bedtime

drink time!

Photo time!  What a view

Morning

Breakfast outside

Oli was the kids favourite!

Snack stop

Racing wood

Freddie, Oli and Aurthur

Katie balancing

Then I had my Scarborough reunion trip.  Talk about excited!  I was so looking forward to a plane trip on my own without kids where I could doze off, but I was just too excited!  I met Sam on the platform at York station and ran in a crazed way up to her. It's been 19 years!  Then Jo, Carrie and Rachel jumped on the same train and we were crazed yapping loons all the way to Scarborough.  Needless to say we had a great weekend and I was so glad I made the effort and went.  

19 years on.

And 19 years since I drank this. It was ok though

Banalmarama!  The reason for the Ramshill on a Friday night

Do do ron ron ron!

Strolling on Sunday with Sam

We never did this at college!

Or this!

But Flames lied up to the memory.  Best pizza ever!

Nom nom

And now I will stop as I need to go to bed and this has taken ages.  Still tons to go!  This was just July and now it's nearly the end of August!