Holidays Are Coming, Holidays Are Coming.

After a busy day yesterday we ended the day with a nice little family get together over the Honey Pot for Uncle Paul's Birthday. As time was ticking on, we decided to let the kiddies eat out which they obviously enjoyed. It is always good when we all get together and Mum would be looking down on us all feeling very proud.

 

Most of the family celebrating Uncles Paul's birthday over at the Honey Pot.

 

Today I had my first Sunday over the Xmas break with no football and so we decided to rise early as the boys wanted to again do the Chelmsford Junior Park Run. This weeks event was Xmas themed where they had to wear a Christmas jumper and/or hat. There were some 89 runners this week and the weather was perfect for running. The course was ran in reverse and Brandon got off to an absolute flyer and was actually leading Joshua for the first lap. Both boys did outstanding today and got personal bests, Joshua with a time of 9 mins 39 seconds and Brandon with a time of 9 mins and 53 seconds (his first time under the 10 minute barrier).

 

All the little Santa;s getting warmed up before the race.

Race on and Brandon has a flyer and leads Joshua for the first lap.

Looking good as Brandon races home for a new PB under 10 mins.

No wonder Joshua got a PB, it looks like he was being chased by a bear!!!

 

As a festive treat and to reward the boys for their PB's we treated them to some Dunkin Donuts. The Xmas themed donuts looked and tasted absolutely amazing.

 

Dunkin Donuts festive reward for the PB's.

Joshua with his bubblegum milkshake and reindeer donut.



Brandon with his triple choc donut.



Holly just seemed to enjoy pulling the topping off of her donut.

 

After getting back from Chelmsford me and the boys started work on our annual giant Xmas cracker which we make for Boxing Day every year. This year they wanted to make the cracker in a West Ham theme and I have to say the result is stunning. The plain, completed cracker looked really good and it almost seemed a shame to then decorate it with little Xmas stickers. I think this is definitely one of our better crackers. Now we just need to wait for Christmas Eve so that Father Christmas can fill it with secret Santa presents.

 

Fabrication begins as me and Joshua start creating the cracker.

The middle section looked great in West Ham blue with a large West Ham logo stuck in the middle.

Joshua adding the finishing touches. Seems a shame to now cover it in Xmas stickers.

Great colour scheme and a good looking giant cracker. 2 hours work, well done.



However we agreed it needed to be more festive so on go some additional Xmas stickers.

Brandon didn't help much with the fabrication but got his hands dirty when it came to decorating the cracker.

Even Holly got involved this year and was putting a couple of stickers on the cracker.



Me and the kiddies with our finished giant festive West Ham Christmas cracker.

 

To finish a very busy and very festive day we spent the afternoon heading over to Market Place in Romford to see the famous Coca Cola Xmas lorry. There must have been thousands of people head over there to see the truck and the queue to get a photo taken with the cab was a good few hundred yards long. Its quite amazing how a simply lorry has become a modern day symbol of Xmas. The two boys were walking around singing "holidays are coming, holidays are coming!". In the market place there was also a few other attractions and Joshua and Brandon went on the traditional Ferris wheel with Tina to finish off our trip.

 

Me and the kiddies with the Coca Cola lorry.

A nice picture of Holly and me.

Tina and the kiddies standing by the side of the lorry.

A rare picture of all five of us at the Coca Cola lorry.



Joshua, Brandon and Tina enjoying a ride on the Xmas Ferris wheel.

Up, up and away. There was even little snow flakes in the air during our visit.

The Ferris wheel looked amazing all lit up at night time.