The Future Begins Here...

Well, last weekend saw us all take a trip to Windermere - the whole family. We were fortunate enough to have free accomodation in the home of a friend as they were away on holiday. The children had a fabulous time and if you visit HERE you can see some of the photos from the weekend. We climbed Mitchells Knotts (on Claiffe Heights), which was a 600ft climb and all the children did the whole thing.

We walked for 2 1/2 hours and Caleb only hitched a lift for the last 1o minutes of that. He was amazing and Els was even more so. J & J are natural goats I have decided and P was confident too. The only one who was more hesitant was Boo - who didn't like the sheer drops of the side and was tearful a couple of times. But she made it and overall had a great time. Taking the buggy was a HUGE mistake - next time we will know that whilst bridle paths might be OK for an off-road buggy 'footpaths' really are not! But we did it and the buggy survived and proved it's worth. Next time I will also remember to study the gradients on the map rather than rely on the words of a guide book! Natty thought the whole carrying thing was hilarious - not sure Paul was in such agreement. BUT at least it didn't rain until after we got back to the boat to cross over back to Bowness. Aside from all the fun with the family, things are going forward with the church too. We had a fantastic time together on Sunday morning and the presence of God was very apparent. We have told the church here that we will be leaving sometime over the summer and the church there that we will be coming! Now we are just waiting for God to find us a home - which will truly take a miracle as there is SO little rental accommodation of a suitable size available up there. Plenty to buy, but that is not a possibility for us sadly. It may be that we need to move into holiday accommodation as a temporary measure - just to get us up there, but that will be a really extortionate stretch on our finances so could only be VERY short term.

On the schooly side of things; Paul brought some of the children home on Sunday whilst I followed with JA and N & E on the Monday (giving us time to do a little more exploring ;-) ) so he took JI, A, P & C up to Beeston Castle for the day and they had a lovely time it seems (sorry no pics - I had the camera). Then Tuesday was filled with making door plates for their friends. I made this one the other day for Nat

They just had to make one each too :-) That was followed with some reading poetry and a whole lot of playing! Wednesday we did NOTHING educational but the girls decided to 'clean the whole house' and promptly did so - to the best of their ability and made a pretty good job of it. Even JI jumped on board and cleaned and hoovered his room! Then Thursday was JA's school trip to Blist's Hill (IronBridge), to which we were all signed up, so off we went for the day. Brilliant!! An excellent day out. And that was our non-book week done and dusted.

Today I had my annual LEA review - no worries there - nice lady who seemed more than happy with what I had to say and what I have in place. Hope they are as nice in The Lakes!

And Today was my beautiful boy's 11th birthday - HAPPY BIRTHDAY not-so-little man!

Other news is, we have nesting robins in the garden.

AND we have 5 new baby rabbits - thanks to my friend's daughter's Big George :) Pics to follow when they are a little bigger.