An excellent week

This has been one of those wonderful sparkly weeks, full of friends and adventures and fun!

After seeing some local home ed families at soft play on Monday, we met up with some of them again (and more) on Wednesday.  We went to the splash park in Leighton Buzzard.  It was glorious when the sun was out, but chilly when the clouds came over.  Fred (as usual!) spent the entire time in the water, nearly 3 hours.  Luckily we were with so many families that there were lots of children in and out of the water so he always had someone to play with.  Betsy and Meg hopped between the splash park and the playground, changing in and out of their swimming costumes several times.

It's likely this will be a more-or-less-regular meet up over the summer months, at least until the school holidays.  It's a good one for us - people the kids like, 25 minutes from the house, cheap parking.

On Thursday Amanda, Caden and Miles came over for a play, and we did a quick science experiment.  I didn't get any photos but it was this colour changing milk activity.  

After they left Alex Matthew and Autumn came over.  Meg and Autumn hit it off and played together for ages.  Alex, Matthew and Betsy joined worlds on Minecraft and were having such a great time.

Friday was brilliant.  We met two families at the Thames at Wallingford.  There is a little beach there, and Moss's mum had brought a plastic boat (really a sandpit but it floats!), a raft and a paddle.  The kids had a blast.  Fred (as usual!) stayed in the river for the whole time (3.5 hours).  Betsy and Meg went in and out, and pulled each other along in the boat.  Meg enjoyed playing in the clay earth.  She didn't enjoy me getting the worst off in the cold river though!

On Saturday Fred and Betsy were due to go to Zoe's for a sleepover.  I wasn't entirely surprised when Fred changed his mind at the last minute - but a couple of phone calls later Billy decided to come to us instead.  It was lovely to have him here.  Everyone was about, so the kids played out on the little road with nerf guns and scooters with the neighbours.

Fred struggled to get to sleep later as Billy snored a little (about the same as Fred, but he doesn't hear himself!), but with some help from a 3 hour piano youtube  track, ear defenders and advice to count very slowly to 100, he got to sleep.

Today has been another warm and sunny day.  Rob bought a new paddling pool and we had pretty much all the neighbours over for a water fight.

In other news, Rob mentioned painting the bathroom yesterday.  Today he bought paint and did the first coat.  Go Rob!

The other night I took a photo of the Fred and Betsy when I was checking on them before bed.  They are so cute!  I took a photo of the view from my pillow too.  I love my granny stripe blanket :-)