Hello??! Blogger's still here then!!

So, FB is all well and good but it is a bit impersonal (randomly enough!) and there are far too many people who can see far too many details so - back to blogging!! I'm going to try and update my blog more regularly and particularly with stuff about the girls rather than pasting that all over FB ;o)

Shopping to unpack for now but hopefully a proper post later!

Nikki xoxo

our new caravan

In mid October Nick and I went to the HUGE national caravan show at the NEC in Birmingham with our good friend Sarah who kindly let us stay in her caravan so that we could experience the full caravan experience!! It was such a hoot!! The caravan "site" was in the car park of the NEC where they had established generators, water points, waste points and a large white marquee with a bar and "entertainment" ;o) The main event of course was caravan hunting and after 3 days of debating, searching and analysing, we finally decided on the Lunar Lexon TL in a dealer special version called the Ultima - and this is us standing in front of it!! So, next year we're off caravaning! We pick up our van from the dealer in March, hopefully in time for Izzy's birthday but definitely in time for some trips away from Easter! Very exciting :o) hheheheeee

Nikki x

Blog in bits part 12 - the finale!

Well, if you've read through all 12 I'm impressed!!! This brings us to the last weekend in September where Nick and I went to Leeds for the night to celebrate our anniversary and the girls went to stay with my parents :o) On the Sunday, Caitlin had arranged to cook Sunday dinner with my Mum - Caitlin is a HUGE fan of pork with crackling and she did a fab job aided and abeted by her Nanna. Here are the 3 girls on the way home after dinner - Apple would be proud!!! ;o)

The last bit of news is Caitie's developing skills in karate! She goes twice a week and is now a red belt and has her gee (her white outfit!) she's getting on really well with it - check out the moves!!

That brings us bang up to date folks!! I will try not to leave it SOOOoo long before the next blog - watch out for more exciting installments!!

Love to all and God bless!!

Nikki xx

Blog in bits part 11

This brings us to the middle of September where a randomly stunningly warm and gorgeous Sunday afternoon took us to Staithes! Nick was away so Bergny and I took the girls. It was a special trip for Bergny as she'd done a jigsaw puzzle of Staithes with her Gran in Iceland and it was cool to show her the real thing!!

Staithes is always special to me as we had 2 family holidays there when I was a kid - and I found High House where we stayed and took a picture (the white house on the hill on its own!!).

We rockpooled, ate ice cream and the girls made friends with 2 boys who were also rockpooling there that day. It was a lovely lovely day - a kind of celebration of the end of summer!!

Blog in bits part 10!!!

Right at the end of the summer holidays, we decided to go to Flamingo Land for the day.....as you can see, the weather was NOT so pleasant!! We had to stop in Pickering en route to buy waterproofs hahahaaa - Izzy loved her all in one!!
When we arrived, we headed for the rides..... Nick took Bergny on the Kumali - awesome roller coaster where you dangle your feet down (their feet are on the pic!!). Turns out - Bergny had never done a BIG coaster before - a fact she never mentioned before she went on - heheheeeeeee - she loved it tho!! hahahaaaa

Blog in bits part 9

As you may know, Nick and I have been involved in a cooking competition for some years now with my Mum and Dad! The "challenge dinners" have taken various forms over the years with different rules and criteria. The most recent one was no limits, no guidance but rounds were scored out of 20 - for the starter, the main, the dessert, the wine selection and the overall experience giving a total score out of 100. This round started nearly 2 years ago!!! Mum, Dad and I got our rounds done between January and August 2008 - and then it was August bank holiday 09 before Nick did his round!!! The scores had been kept in sealed envelopes ever since!! Nick did a Heston Blumenthal inspired menu and it was certainly a hot contender for the top prize!! Caitlin couldn't bear to go to bed so she and Bergny took all the scores, totted them up and revealed the order in reverse - Mum came 4th, I came 3rd...... Nick came 2nd and my Dad was the winner. As you can see, he was marginally satisfied!!! heheheheeeeee Nick managed to congratulate him (through gritted teeth!!!) heheeee it was SUCH fun!! Nick bought lots of new Heston inspired cooking gadgets and had a great time cooking and it was very close in the end. We think Nick was little down by Willy's Wonky chocolate - a bit toooo bitter in the pudding! :o) Next year we'll start again with some new rules and criteria - and a budget!! ;o)

Blog in bits part 8

So, this is our new arrival "Kipper"!!!! We decided not to keep a boy from Muffin's litter cos apparently mummy cats usually reject their offspring and it can be difficult to get them to like each other again - well, Muffin seemed perfectly happy in the end but we'd already made the decision to welcome Kipper to our house!! He's a short haired, straight footed and bob tailed Pixie-bob so the total opposite to Muffin :o) Fortunately, the pair of them get on well, particularly now that the kittens have all left, and normality has returned to our house!! Muffin needs to be spayed now, Kipper's already neutered and (after a shaky start where Kipper was SOOoooooooo timid!!) our cat collection is now complete!! I've also included a pic of the final terrible trio - Spud, Oskar and Ulfar (as he is now is - male version of Ylfa!!) and a cute photo of Spud on her own - gorgeous cat!!!

blog in bits part 7

And the day after U2, we had a fun day out in London with Sarah and Dan - this mainly involved eating food, drinking alcohol and "appreciating" modern art!!! Dan and I caused significant embarrassment to Nick and Sarah by walking around the Tate Modern making "inciteful" comments about the art and putting our fingers to our chins and our heads on one side to "contemplate" articstically ;o) There were some very strange pieces of "art" there - including a video piece of 2 naked people bouncing on a chair and throwing a beach ball and a naked man hitting himself with a boxing glove and throwing tomato sauce about!! go figure!!.......

The "best" pictures were a pair - one was a total burgundy rectangle with a lighter coloured strip down one side and the other was 3 colours in a rectangle - these were entitled "adam" and "eve" and there were paragraphs of prose next to each explaining what the "artist" was doing - well, I could do that - I'm handy with a large wall, a single colour and a roller brush and I can write paragraphs of tripe to accompany it if it will make me millions!!! hahahahaaaa We're suggesting that Izzy tries her hand cos her work is much better than most that we saw there!! The champagne's good at the Tate modern tho and excellent views across London ;o)

th thate

Blog in bits part 6

Just a few other highlights of the summer from my mobile phone... Caitie playing Dandini in Cinderella and Rockafella at school at the end of term - fantastic performance!! We also went to see Ice Age in 3d - amazing film - may be my fave Ice Age and they are my fave films anyway!! We also went to Leeds City Museum with Mum and Dad - and Dad and the girls got to dress up!! heheheeee great fun!

Blog in bits part 5 - U2 at Wembley!

Firstly please excuse the photos!! We read on the tickets that we couldn't take cameras into Wembley so I only had my phone camera - hopefully you'll get the idea tho!!

Nick and I with our friends Sarah and Dan went down to that there London to see U2 at Wembley - it was AMAZING!!! One of the highlights of my life so far!! U2 were not particularly my fave band before we went but BOY are they now!! They played an amazing mix of old stuff and new stuff, the set was amazing, the lighting and effects were incredible and this screen thing totally had Nick's jaw on the ground!! Wembley itself was just huge and atmospheric and I have now run out of superlatives but basically - WOW!!!!!!