Theseus and the Minotaur part 2

So when Theseus got to crete he met a princess.Who gave him some string so he could find his way out of the Labrinth.So the brave prince went to fight the beast.He found it in the Ladrinth and fought it. Suddenly the beast fell down dead. Theseus had won then he went to the princess and she came with him. Theseus was so excited that he forgot to put up the white flags. His Father thout that his son was dead so he threw himself from a clif and that is why the asian sea is called that.

Funny Feet

Hey all

Happy Wednesday!! Don't know why I felt an urge to say that - except I've got the afternoon off, the sun is shining and I'm feeling pretty happy!

Some good news today - I've been in an "acting" role as head of speech therapy since April 2006 when our previous head retired. Over the last year, the NHS has been reconfiguring all over the place so my job couldn't be made permanent - anyhoo, a letter landed on the mat today to say that I'm no longer just pretending, I'm head of service for real!! Mind, after the lengthy staff meeting yesterday I'm not sure if I still want the job!! No, I'm chuffed - that's good news :)

Anyway, here's a pic of my new office, just so you can see where I sit! - anyone recognise the mug!!?!?!?! Comments welcome ;o) (Thanx Sharon x)





Nick's doing well at work at the moment, lots of exciting new developments have opened up over the last few weeks so we're hoping for an interesting 2007!! He's been away in Leicester overnight with work - I phoned him this morning just before 9:30am to check how he was doing - only he'd not put his clock forward an hour on his phone for British Summer Time and thought it was still 8:30!! OOooooppsssss - he was s'posed to be meeting Les who works with him at 9:30 ready to leave to come back up north to Middlesbrough!!



So, the funny feet well.... Last Wednesday, Lauren and I went out for our first training run for the Race for Life. It went ok, except for my knee and foot really hurting as we ran (and Lauren was in pain too with her knees so we were a right pair!!). So, I went to a specialist running shop for some guy to check out if I needed special shoes for my funny flat feet. He made me do all sorts of exercises and said "yes, you have no arch on your left foot and almost none on your right - you really do have very flat feet" - no kidding!!!



Anyway, he tried one pair of shoes on me and made me run on the running machine but said they were still no good and he'd have to order some in - but they come from China and take 40 days!! So, I asked if I could still run in the meantime on my old shoes and would I injure myself - to which he simply replied "yes"! So, no running for me until the shoes arrive but in the meantime my Dad has advised cycling and general fitness stuff so since last Wednesday we've been running once and cycling 3 times and its going really well :o) I'm thoroughly enjoying getting out for 30minutes after work and thrashing the bike - great stress reliever!



Last weekend, Nick built a little wooden swing in the garden for the girls and Lauren took them out on it yesterday and took a few pics - here they are looking very cute :o)





So, Saturday is Lauren's 22nd birthday and Caitlin's 8th birthday party - to which she has invited 7 friends for a beauty party and a movie after. The beauty party bit is organised by a company called 'girls just wanna have fun' - if you want to see what she's up to, check out this link http://www.girls-just-wanna-have-fun.co.uk/ Caitlin is having a splashdown party - should be fun!! Next week there'll be plenty to blog I'm sure plus all the preparations for Easter too!.. and I'll pester Caitlin tonight to finish off her Theseus story ;o)

God bless and love to you all!!


Nikki xoxoxoxoxox

WAX

Hey all...

Any guys reading might just want to stop kinda now....





seriously.....






stop reading.......






well, don't blame me if you don't like it then!!

Lauren and I went to get waxed today - we've had "man legs" for the last 2 weeks - utterly minging!! Anyhoo - just wanted to share my pain with all you girlies out there - even after childbirth twice - I still said "ow"!!!!

Hope you are all having a fab weekend - Lauren and I have started training for the Race for Life this week and I'll update you on that properly next week. For now - childcare, cleaning and sorting out the washing calls!!!!

Big hugs to you all

Nikki xoxoxoxoxoxox

Caitlin in the paper!!

Hey all

Just a quickie to say that Caitlin is in the paper today - well a little pic of her and a bit about her school.

Check out http://ts17.gazettelive.co.uk/2007/03/barmy_brainboxes_at_barley_fie.html
Caitlin is in the shot with the other school councillors at the top - she's 2nd from the left (I think!) with her pants on her head!!!!!

Enjoy

Love to all

Nikki xoxoxoxo

Theseus and the Minitaur

Head of a bull body of a man the Minotaur was.The Irland of Crete was were the dreaded monster lived.Crete bullyed king Ashas in to getting 7 youths and 7 maidens to sail to Crete and be eaten by the Minotaur. The terrible Minotaur, who lived in the the winding paseges of the Labrinth,was feared by the town of king Ashas and his son Theseus. Theseus decied that he would go to Crete and kill the Minotaur.Ill write more an other day bye from Caitlin.

SNOW!!!!!!

Good morning all!!!


This was the view outside our windows on Thursday 20th March at 7:03am!! Random.....

Its still snowing hard so I wonder what it will look like later!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!! We're off to get our wellies on ;o)

Love to all

Nikki xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

PHEW!!!... what a busy month March has been!

Well, I know its been a while but BOY have we been busy!!!!!

So, we returned from Oasis and I hit the ground running with a full week of reviewing our Special Needs service so that was a major hectic one!

We finished that week with Caitlin going off to see my parents. Nick, Izzy and I joined her on the Sunday for another yummy Sunday dinner (thanks Mum!) and a visit to a car dealership in Wakefield called the Car People. It was SUCH a rainy day - but Mum and Dad occupied the little people whilst Nick and I braved the weather to work out which car Nick would like to trade the TT in for. He wanted a big family / business car and I'm going to trade in my PT cruiser for a little car.... so, Nick ended up with a big BMW five series :o) Big joke on this is Izzy gets to nursery the Friday after Nick picked it up and told the staff there "Daddy's got a new car, its a Beemer" - "what's a Beemer" asks Sarah who looks after her "its a big fish tank" comes the innocent reply!!! Hehehehehehhee - kids say the cutest things :o)

Monday 5th March, I set off for Plymouth on the train with a colleague from work. My BLAST programme is being rolled out to all the daycare and nursery settings there (check out www.blastprogramme.co.uk if you want to see what I've been up to!). It was a 7 hour train journey but Paula (my colleague) and I chatted and chilled and it wasn't too bad. The training was over 2 full days on Tuesday and Wednesday and on Wednesday night I went to my sister Mel's house which was a super special bonus cos I haven't seen her for about 18 months. Mel and I got to chat and catch up and I spent the night with them, even seeing Mo off to nursery on Thursday morning before joining Paula on the train to come home. Have a look at a couple of pics of my niece and nephews (Millie, Tal and Mo) and some plymouth shots :o)
















After all of that, I got home on Thursday night and last weekend Lauren went to Dublin and Nick and the girls and I had a weekend at home. Friday night our friends Ros and Phil and the boys Joe and Finn came over for the night and we all went to Redcar on Saturday morning. It was VERY VERY windy but we still had a lovely time and then went to play on the slotties and had fish and chips! Saturday afternoon saw the four of us looking at caravans near Catterick - very tempting but in the end we decided to stick to our tent plan - but there aren't many good tent shops our way so on the spur of the moment we phoned my mum and invited ourselves over for Saturday night and a trip to their local excellent camping shop on Sunday!!!


Dad cooked a lovely dinner on Saturday night and on Sunday morning, Nick, Dad, the girls and I went to cannon hall whilst mum cooked dinner. Then after a yummy dinner, we went to Mitchells to look at the tents. Cannon hall is a fab open farm with an even more fab farm shop!! The girls fed the geese and then we saw heavily pregnant pigs and sheep and had a play on the new adventure playground there - have a look at some pics of us all!!








So, did we buy a tent??!?!?!?! You betcha!!!! A fab 4 bedroom tent called an Outwell Nebraska - and here's a pic!! We're going for a trial weekend to the Lakes this spring then our main summer holiday is probably going to be a week in Devon at the Woodlands campsite and leisure park - more details to follow!!



This week started with work as normal. On Wednesday, Izzy took a cake and some chocs into nursery for a day early birthday party - she counted down all week!! Her birthday was on Thursday and she got amazing presents - Fifi and the Flowertots, Little Pony, teddy bears, leap pads and books, Dora stuff, arts and crafts stuff, fab books - the list goes on!! She really enjoyed herself and totally understood what was going on and what it was all about :o) She spent her actual birthday with Lauren and called in at work to see my new offices and have a "happy birthday" sung to her by some of my colleagues! Lauren took her to Burger King for a treat (if you class fast food as a treat!! Izzy loved it!!) and played with all her toys with her.


Friday was Comic Relief day (red nose day) - for our foreign blog readers, its a charity event on TV where lots of money is raised for people in the UK and Africa and the brits wear red noses!! Caitlin had a "mad hair" day at school and had to pay £1 for the privelege of going to school with mad hair!!! Lauren also works at the school so had to do mad hair! Here are some pics of red noses and mad hair to show you what its all about!!!!




Yesterday (Saturday) she had her big birthday party at Crazy Corner with all of her nursery friends. It was lovely to meet and chat to all the Mums and Dads we just see in passing rushing in or out of nursery and the kids had a fab time. Here's some Crazy Corner pics for you....




The mad month of march finished with Mother's day today! I got a lovely picture frame with beautiful pics of the girls in it and some fab chocs ;o) My Mum and Dad came over for lunch and we just had a great family day together. Happy Mother's Day to the 2 most special mums to us - Jenny and Anne!!!! We love you both very much :o) Hope all Mums reading this had a truly fab day!! I know its not Mother's day everywhere today but Happy Mothers Day anyway!

As you may have noticed from the front page to my blog - I'm doing the race for life, a charity 5km run in aid of cancer research. Its all women who run it and Lauren and I are doing it together. I know 5km is not far, but I'm not very fit at the moment and my extremely flat feet are not the best for running so it will be a challenge as I aim to run the whole distance (no walking!) . Lauren and I start training this coming week - so keep us in your thoughts and if you feel so inclined, do check out my fundraising pages!!

Love to you all

Nikki xxxxxx

Oasis and half term

So.... did I give up wine for Lent?!?!?! Naaaahhhhhh!!!!! I have given up chocolate, cakes and biscuits though :o) Mind you, Lauren and I have found a new classification for "cake" which doesn't include all "cakes" - exclusions are tarts, pastries (which includes doughnuts - seriously - we checked on Wikipedia!), buns and pies - all of which are NOT cakes ;o) Basically, cakes are the small Mr Kipling type things that the girls eat for tea, spongecakes, cupcakes that's about it really!! Amazing eh?!

Nick was going to give up sugar in his tea, but didn't like the tea, so he was going to give up crisps, but then he wouldn't ever eat lunch, so then he was going to give up swearing, but that didn't bloody work so.... he's decided to give up giving up things for Lent! Weak excuses I know! Caitlin isn't giving things up but has a book of "things to do" each day of Lent (Lauren and I have the adult version of the same book) and it includes things like writing a thankyou letter, phoning someone out of the blue, giving someone an apple - so if something random arrives from one of us, you know why!

Half term was lovely, we went to Metroland for the day on Wednesday (Lauren, Caitlin and I) which was fun. Thursday we didn't go bowling cos we couldn't book a lane as it was half term so Olivia just came to play. Thursday night we packed up ready to set off early for Oasis Center Parks in the Lake District near Penrith.

The journey was not as beautiful as it often is, cloudy and foggy so we couldn't see much but Lauren got the idea of the moors and the rolling hills. Izzy wasn't that impressed though!

After loading up with loads of shopping at Penrith, we got to Oasis for lunch and enjoyed a nice meal before going and booking a spa experience for Nick and I for Saturday afternoon and going to our lodge.

The weekend had a major theme.... chilling

interspersed with Caitlin going horse riding

more chilling with i-pods

Nick doing spider man training

more chilling by the fire....

walks and rabbit watching outside

excitingly, whilst chilling, Izzy suddenly started drawing the most amazing smiley faces - what a step!! From scribbles to recognisable eyes, nose, mouth and a bit of hair almost overnight :o)

finishing up with Nick and Caitlin doing archery together, lots of fun in the pool and pheasant feeding at our backdoor

and finally a game of golf

clearly no cheating going on ;o)

So, lots of fun and relaxation and we really felt we'd had a good break - until we left Oasis at 7:20am Monday morning in order to get Caitlin to school on time and me back to work!! Hahahaha - still lovely to get a break and a change from the domestic routine.

This week we have put Izzy's name down for a school nursery place from September - she'll get to wear a uniform - aaahhhhhhhhh!!!

We'd planned she would be going to full time day care from May but Lauren has decided to stay in the UK until November so Izzy will continue as she is with 2 days at home with Lauren and 3 days in day nursery.

From September Barleyfields school will have full day care "wraparound" with a nursery place for 3 year olds. I'd planned Izzy would stay in day care until she was full time at school as I couldn't arrange to pick her up after 2.5 hours in school nursery each day and how would we manage holidays? Now, she'll go to school nursery then spend the rest of the day in the wraparound daycare at school and school holidays with her sister in the holiday club!

Excellent development at the school - and we're so pleased that Izzy will be able to go to nursery and start to build relationships with the staff and children that she'll go through school with :o) Izzy can't wait to go to "Farleyfields" with her sister - that will be a big blog in September!!

This weekend Caitlin is off to stay with her Nanna and Grandad and Lauren is going to her first football match - which is quite ironic as her boyfriend supports Newcastle and Lauren supports Middlesbrough (which she has to cos she can't change team and she supported them first!!) and her first match is Newcastle v Boro at St James Park (Newcastle home stadium) at the Newcastle end with her Newcastle mad boyfriend and his brother..... hmmmmmm - should she wear her Boro shirt?!?!?!?!!!!! Answers on a postcard to "Let's get Lauren some funny looks on Saturday at the Newcastle match" :o)

Love to you all

Nikkxxxxoxoxoxoxxxx