Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.....

This was the view as we started down the LOOOONNNNGGGGG path down to Rhossili Beach.

Ruth and Alex looking relieved and happy after we finally found the geocache we'd been searching for for hours (well thats what it felt like!)

Gnorman the Gnome at Rhossili - a tribute to the film Amelie.

Alex with the beach to himself - well it was pretty quiet when we got there. Got busier later on though. Love the reflection in this photo.

Worm's Head. It really does look like a dragon sticking its snout in the air from the beach.

After getting up at 6am and leaving at 7.30, we arrived at the beach around 11am. We had a walk first (its a really big beach), then settled down for digging, and playing in the sea. Even though it was overcast it was quite warm, and John and I managed to burn. WE had a lovely day, even fitting in a bit of geocaching. We got home about 11.30pm, absolutely shattered, but having had a lovely day. Really liked the Swansea/Gower area - trying to persuade everone we should live there!

Mini Album No.1

When I first opened the packaging of the acrylic Papermania album, I was a bit confused by its green colour - but this was just a protective film, which came off fairly easily. They will be retailing for RRP £9.99 for the 6 page acrylic version - maybe this might seem a bit steep, but the pages are really thick, and I love the shape - defiantly worth it in my opinion.

As you can see, I made the book to document Ruth being the flower girl at our wedding. The shape of the pages immediately made me think of flowers, and I'd been planning on making her a mini book with the photos for a while.

I really enjoyed working with the album, and used BasicGrey Euphoria papers, Bazzil Cardstock, Anita's Acrylic Paint, various ribbons, Heidi Swapp Ghost Shapes, Prima Flowers, Stickles and Kaiser Craft Rhinestones. I loved how it came out.

Off to craft group tonight, but will get to work on the chipboard album soon - planning on making a Best Boy album with the photos of Alex from the wedding.

My baby is 7!!!!!

And so handsome! Can't believe he's 7 already. He has been perfectly behaved today - so proud of him. His current favourite toys are Lego, and almost half of his presents were Lego. The one he'd wanted most was the Lego Fire Station, and had great fun putting it together with Daddy.

The smoking gun - well candle anyway.
For his birthday treat we went to Goodrich Castle (one of my favourite places as a child) to watch a sword fighting demonstration. Alex bought himself a wooden sword with his birthday money, and made a great friend in the more convincing of the 2 knights.

Very proud of this girl - she is scared of heights, and not at all adventurous, but climbed the tallest tower, with a really scary spiral stone staircase with only a rope to hold onto (and at times in almost total darkness) - I was scared, so she did so well. Hope she's proud of herself for overcoming her fear too.

This is a view of that tower from the moat....

...and this is the view from the top.


This was Alex trying on his favourite knights helmet (check out his badge - he loved that total strangers were wishing him Happy Birthday, as he'd never say anything himself).

My favourite view of the castle from the path leading to it.


And got this fabulous parcel today with goodies to blog test for Do Crafts. Yum! Got some great ideas - its so great having amazing wedding photos to scrap :)

Ahhhhhhhhhhh

My best friend Harriet and I have gone through some tough times together. We were both teenage parents (17/18 - not 14 or something!) and have overcome some serious stuff. She's one of those people who although I don't see her as often as I'd like, we always pick up exactly where we left off. In fact she's more like a sister really. I can tell her anything and she'll never judge me. I know she'll always be there for me, and I hope she feels the same about me.

She gave birth to her 2nd son last weekend, and Ruth, Alex and I popped in on Monday to meet him, and drop off a couple of little presents. They are such a beautiful family. So proud to call them my friends. Josh, her eldest son is just a couple of weeks older than Ruth, and a credit to his Mum.

Love the yawn photo! Why is it so endearing?? Maybe because such a tiny baby can have such a huge yawn. Love baby yawning photos :)

Made a few things today - a clear mini book called 'its all in the details' with all the detail photos from the wedding, and another LO. On a bit of a roll now.

It was Grandad and Grandma's 60th wedding anniversary yesterday, so we're all going up there for lunch. It'll be the first time they've seen the wedding photos of John and I, so I'm looking forward to that.

Please sign this petition if you have a moment.

RMH Haslar is set to close, but is still operational and could be made into a great home for our injured service personnel.
Some background:
'2 Para' alone have on their current tour sent back over 50 casualties to the UK, and even that many cannot be accommodated at Selly Oak Hospital. So when all of the casualties from other battle groups are added to this figure, how is ONE ward in ONE NHS hospital going to cope?
It cannot.
And as a result the individual troops are sent home to recover relying on NHS visiting services which themselves are over committed.
We need a dedicated military hospital if servicemen and servicewomen, who have been committed to hostilities and injured, are to get the medical care they rightly deserve.

A lot more than 5000 names are needed for this petition to survive, and quite cynically, Downing Street has put a time limit of one month - during the summer holidays - for this to be achieved. Please support it - please copy the link below to confirm your signature on the petition.

Please forward this email to as many people as you can.
Thanks.
Go to http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Wounded/ - it takes 1 minute to fill the form

The petition was created by Denzil Connick and reads: 'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Create a dedicated Military & Veterans Hospital within the UK.'

Life's lessons can come in strange ways

Yesterday we were asked to look into a house swap (Housing Association) with another family - they want a 2 bed, we want a 3 bed - perfect. Or so you'd think. Firstly the house is on the 'quiet end' of the most notorious road in our town (although to be fair, we love in such a wonderful place, its better than most others). It was also mid terrace - not the end of the world, but I've always lived in semis. It was rendered in grey concrete stuff too. No actual car parking, and the front door is a long way down an alley, so the back garden was turned into a drive. Ok fair enough, not a good start, but we really NEED a bigger house, so I was prepared to go in and if it was ok, we'd consider it. Bear in mind that after I got the phone cal, I spent every waking hour (about 12) cleaning and tidying for them to look round, and my house wasn't that bad to start with.

Was a bit surprised when we got there and all the curtains were shut. The entire house. There was stuff everywhere. Walls bright red, kitchen falling off the wall, stuff soaking in the bath, and generally grimy. The people were nice though. Just couldn't understand why you wouldn't at least try and make the house look its best to try and persuade people to swap with you.

But it taught us an important lesson - yes, our house may be too small for the 4 of us, and there are things that could be a lot better, but OMG they could be SO much worse. We got home to our light, clean(ish), tidy(ish) house, and realised how lucky we are. We love our house.

I think the whole experience was worth it for us to realise how lucky we are.

And my Studio Calico kit just arrive, and I'm about to go an see my best friends new baby, so I'm feeling pretty good about the world right now.

Been trying to teach Ruth about counting her blessings, and seems like doing the same has really shone a light in here :)

Wii got one....

A Wii Fit that is. It arrived on Friday, to great delight. I was very pleased when it told me my weight/BMI were ideal, until it told me I needed to loose a stone, (the cheek of it!) as I was a fraction away from the line between ideal and overweight. Fine, I thought, I'll stop snacking between meals, and do at least 30 mins on the Wii Fit a day. So I did - and I've been gaining weight!!! How is that possible?! John, who is slap bang in the middle of ideal decided to loose 4 lbs to be absolutely perfect, and has already lost 3. Grrrrrrrr.

I will persevere though. Even though I feel hungry all the time and am craving chocolate.

Managed to finish the LO I started at Kirsty's on Wednesday - honestly, I'm not really the worlds slowest scrapper, I just had a really good idea for the title letters, which took me a while to pull together.

I've got to the stage at the moment, where I'm loving all the LOs etc that I do - a pleasant change for me.

Right, back off to check the roast potatoes (and yes, I do realise that they don't really help when you're trying to loose weight).