Sunday 27 April 2014

Bobs birthday present.

It was Bobs birthday on the 17th April. I suggested all sorts of different ideas but nothing I suggested seemed to appeal to him. He had asked for wii infinity figures but as at least three other people were getting him some of them I decided on something different. I bought tickets to take him to a musical based on Dr Seuss. It was being run by Centrestage Music Theatre

Bob outside with the posters



Centrestage was started in 2006, it has something for everyone. Whether it is vocal, dance or acting workshops, technical activities or specialised outreach programmes and performances, you will feel welcomed and valued at Centrestage.
Leadership through the Arts is at the core of all activities, regardless of the participant's age, background or previous experience. Come and join us and have an unforgettable experience.  Centrestage allows everyone to participate in activities and projects that make a real difference to the community.
The show was on over the weekend and we were at the final of the four shows.

Bob reading the programme 





Synopsis
Horton the Elephant, the Cat in the Hat, and all of your favourite Dr. Seuss characters spring to life onstage in Seussical jr, a fantastical musical extravaganza, presented by the 10-14yrs MT Company.
On the way to Kilmarnock we went over the new flyover, Bob thought this was brilliant and was amazed at the road beneath us.

During the show Bob felt sorry for poor Horton as he was being bullied, Bob doesn't like bullies they make him sad. But he loved the show, clapping along and laughing at parts.

Took some pictures at the show. Have pixelated the faces of the children who don't have make up on, not that I think any of you will recognise them.





Jo Jo


The cat in the hat

Thing 1 and Thing 2 are Bobs favourite






The children on stage were amazing, you could tell they had worked very hard, but they seemed to really be enjoying what they were doing.

A great afternoon out and a present Bob will remember for a long time.

Saturday 26 April 2014

Project 365, week 17, 20th - 26th April

Sunday

This cow came into our lives a while ago, and has been packaged  in the loft ever since. But hubby dug her out and we are planing on sending her to Chloe's Chemoo Cows. They can use the cow as a raffle prize.

Chloe's Chemoo Cows was set up in September 2011 in memory of Chloe Alexandra McNeil. At 11 years of age she lost her fight with an inoperable and incurable brain tumour just 9 months after her initial diagnosis.
You can read more about the charity here.

Quite difficult to get a good photograph of him.







Monday

My daughter and I took the four children out for a run around the local country estate. Have written a post all about their fun here  Here are the twins, now five months old sat in their buggy watching what is going on.










Tuesday

We took a run to Stirling to visit son No1 today. Sadly there had been an accident on the motorway on the south bound lane when we were going north, which slowed down us down to a crawl or slower for a few miles. But it did give us a chance to take a photograph of this statue that we normally drive past at 70mph.
On the way back OH decided we should go back onto the motorway to go home....a bad mistake.....as it took 2 hrs to travel 8 miles.......dont know how people voluntarily drive roads this busy going to/from work every day.








Wednesday.

Daughter had taken the twins to A&E on Tuesday night as Dinky was having trouble breathing. She took stuff with her in case they kept them in. They both have bronchiolitis, with Minky being a few days behind his sister.  Daughter has not had much sleep this week, so I had popped in to see them on my way home. Was trying to get photos of Dinky in her new toy, but Minky kept grabbing the camera and trying to chew it, so I took photos of him as well.  His hand was near the lens and I am behind him, I just liked this picture.





Thursday

It was a beautiful evening and so as we have become addicted to geocaching I took the kids off to find a few up one of the hills near us. The first cache we found was at an old half crumbled kirk. We read some of the gravestones and the children decide they would be zombies, so here is Bob lying on a fallen tree being a zombie. You can read our exploits here








Friday

When we had been out last night, Fifi had seen a tree with white blossom on it, and picked me some as she thought I might like to photograph of it, so here it is.






Saturday

I had won a pair of tickets to see Alan Davies. As we could not go the evening it was on I asked family and friends if anybody wanted the tickets. So a friend of daughter No3's took them. As a thank you, which I did not expect, she bought me this lovely card, with a scented candle and a glass candle holder in a pretty gift bag. Thank you Alana.





ps, while the older two were at Guides and Cubs daughter No1 brought the twins up to get her a break from them for an hour. I took a video of Minky babbling away to me whilst he chews Fifi's brown rabbit.






ps - me having a conversation with a very vocal Minky, he much more talkative than his sister.

We have been geocaching again - it is addictive

Since we first tried geocaching a few weeks back, I seriously have become quite addicted to it. I took out a premium membership to Geocaching.com as they have some useful information on their site. You can register and use their site for free if you want to as I did for the first few weeks, but people pay to run these sites and I prefer to take out membership if I am going to carry on using them. 

I over the last month have also tried a few different free caching apps but have found them to be unreliable, either not showing the caches that you are near or not logging on, and again decided as I am enjoying the hobby to pay for the proper app as well. Have only used it the once so far and I am sure there is a lot more I can do with it and will learn more when I have the time to use it again. 

Its nice to see by sharing blog posts that other people take the time to read can inspire them to go out and try the hobby as well. My friend Cheryl at Madhouse Family reviews has been out twice so far and is enjoying it as much as me. Here are her two posts,  one and two  why not have a read of somebody elses experiences. Cheryl is doing urban caching due to her local, where as I am doing rural as round here they are all in parks, on beaches, along river walks or up the top of hills.  

On Thursday hubby and I needed to go into the town for a few things, so we decided whilst out we would go down the beach and collect some small rocks to put into the bottom of some plant pots we need to make up with flowers in. Whilst we were at the beach we looked for any nearby caches and found one along the beach. 

 So we went up to one called Deil's Dyke. Was a beautiful day for a walk, and the cache was at the top of a hill over looking the beach. 


our view from the cache

the cache tucked in the crack in the rock

the contents of the cache

Not only is geocaching fun it is a great way of getting exercise, this one was over a mile round trip from where we parked the car. 



I phoned the children before I picked them up to see if they fancied finding a few local caches, and as they said yes I asked them to find a small "treasure" each that they could take and swap for a treasure already in the caches. 

We set off for the first one, was a bit difficult to find somewhere to park as the road is a single track twisty hedge-lined road with very few passing places on, but we found a bit out the way as set off for ur first adventure. 

Our first one was up at;
Barnweill Church  is a ruined pre-reformation kirk situated on rising ground on the slopes of Barnweill Hill, ; about 3km from Tarbolton. The church was known locally as the "Kirk in the Wood". It lies about 170m North North-East of Kirkhill Farm. Barnweill was central to the Protestant Reformation in Ayrshire through its association with John Knox.

The children had fun looking round the old church, and reading the gravestones, and as they were in a graveyard decided they would play at being zombies. They took it in turns at being dead and then came to me for some imaginary salt to bring the zombies back to life.

Bob being a zombie

Fii being a zombie

walking round the ruined church walls. 

the ruined church

the view south east from the church

zoomed in to the windmills in the dstance

One curiosity is a memorial to Col J W Neil Smith of Barnweill and Swindridgemuir that also bears the details of his wife Evelyn Mary Mapis Duke who died on June 21 1940. 'Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner' is carved on this stone and on a smaller wooden cross that bears her details alone




Once they had played and explored we went and found the cache, a fairly easy find. The children looked at the treasures and Bob swapped a toy soldier he had brought for a plastic dinosaur he fancied.


looking in the cache

the caches hiding place

Bob did a swap

Once we had put this cache back where we found it we headed off for the next one. You can just about see it in the pictures of the children being zombies, on the horizon with trees either side. As we had driven down to where we were and knew there were not going to be any place we could park if we took the car, and also there was no where easy to turn the car round we decided to walk it. 

So we walked up the hill, was a bit further than it looked, took us approx thirty mins to walk up there. 
The Wallace Monument is a picturesque Gothic structure and is in a prominent situation, built to commemorate William Wallace at the time of an upsurge in the Scottish desire for self-determination, predating the 1869 Wallace Monument at Stirling.


the arrow shows you where we went next

the second cache being explored

Fifi too a ball and left a moshi monster

not overly hidden behind the tree
 They had fun running around and playing, here Fifi was (playing) pinning Bob to a tree.

got you

stood at the door of the monument


The monument is not open to the public. OH has been up their before as has Bob and Fifi's parents many years ago ( before Bob was born). Not sure if he is still in the house but there are two houses up at the monument and we were friends with one of the tenants and he would let you have the key. I have not been up as it has a spiral staircase and I cannot come down a spiral staircase due to balance problems, but I am assured the view is outstanding.



they read the sign.

our village from the monument. 


They played around up here for quite a while, again they were playing games and Bob managed to fall into a patch of nettles, so that put paid to the adventure.

We are going to put some thought into the area we live in, up here, the farm, the village, and Auchencruive and in the coming weeks are going to put together some cache's of our own and place them for other people to find, should be fun.

Again great exercise, a history lesson, some fresh air, and some pleasurable time together.



fun as a gran

Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

Run wild run free at Auchincruive

Daughter No1 phoned on Monday evening to say she was taking the kids out for a run did I want to come. Well it was a lovely evening, and so as Auchencruive is only a few miles away we decided to go there instead of driving through the town at tea time on a bank holiday to go to the beach. My daughter also admits to never having been to Auchincruive, we have loved it and walked it for years.

So we set off for the short drive. We parked up at the vets end, it is too complicated to get to the river walk now since it was bought over a few months back and the new owners have built fences everywhere.

The children were like a pair of cows that had been cooped up in a barn all winter and set free, running off and bouncing in all directions. The majority of the time we were there they spent climbing trees.or on Bob's case trying to climb trees. I know he has just turned eight, but he seems to struggle with the concept of how to climb.

I kept having to instruct him on keep to the trunk, move your feet, keep your tongue in, and dont get your arms up and behind you else you will dislocate your shoulder.

tongue out and arms at the back

starting on the lower trees

with much instruction to get this high


 Fifi proceeded to tell us that she has only ever fallen out of a tree once, less then two minutes later she was lying in a scratched heap on the ground. Luckily she hadn't really hurt much other than her pride, but we did laugh at her afterwards.


posing in the tree

 Sometimes they make you wonder, here he is trying to decide whether he can jump or not, it was approx two feet high from where he is sitting, if that, he stands on his bed and jumps and its over three feet tall.


will I jump or wont I? 

along rather than up

doing gymnastics

At one point they decided to play hide and seek. Again Bob struggles with the concept of this, he still seems to think if he hides behind his hands you wont see him. He "hid" approx three feet away from where his sister was counting. Of course Fifi hides properly, so Bob got himself very frustrated and angry cos he could not find his sister. She had gone into one of the low bushes, when we shouted for her to come out she was stuck, she couldn't get back out!! We did rescue her.

Bob looking for Fifi


There are also some very beautiful trees and flowers out at the moment.

prickly tuplis

a small fly on the tulip

Fifi's favourite a purple tulip

my favourite, a red and white one

hugh rhododendron trees/bushes?  

a  pink rhododendron 

Fifi showing the twins the tulips


The two of them had a great time, enjoyed the freedom and the something different to do. 

Poor little Dinky was all snotty and gunky and struggling to breath, not a happy bunny at all. Mummy ended up having to take them to A&E on Tuesday as Dinky was struggling to breath. The both have bronchiolitis so there poor mummy has had little sleep this week. He is a few days behind her. I would take them for half a day or overnight to let her get some sleep but as they are still breast fed then its not possible. 

the gruesome twosome. 


Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall