Holly Moves to Wickford Dance Studio

Holly has been doing her ballet classes at San Marie dance school for well over 2 years now. The classes are run behind closed doors and in all this time we have never once seen her dance. She feels embarrassed dancing or practicing at home so I have absolutely no idea what she gets up to every weekend. You would think the dance school could put on a little show every now and then or maybe have a grade system to at least show us that she is making progress, but we've had nothing in 2 years.

Due to this frustration we finally decided to try Holly at a new dance school and thus she has had a couple of try-outs doing modern disco type dancing at King's Dance Studios in Wickford. At first she was very nervous but now she absolutely loves it and seems to enjoy it much more than ballet. What’s even better is we are allowed to stay there and watch her (even though she doesn’t like being watched) so at least we know what she is getting for the money we pay!

Kelly Care Childcare Services

There hasn't been much time to write blogs over the last two weeks what with the kids settling back in to school, work being busy, the on-going house extension,Tina doing her Shine walk and me defending my Crossfit Same Sex Pairs Castle Games title. In addition to this we as a family are having to adapt to the fact that Tina has just started a new job at Kelly Care Childcare.

Tina has been looking for work for over a year now so it is great that she finally has a little job to firstly get her back out working and secondly to start bringing in some more money. Due to the ever increasing costs of childcare, Tina has not been able to work since before Holly was born, so almost 6 years as a stay at home Mum. Ironically it was childcare costs that stopped her from working and now she works in childcare services with Kelly Care. Ideally Tina would find a job in school hours but they are hard to come by, so her Kelly Care job is two hours a day from 7am to 9am.

The two boys have really had to step up to the plate and take much more responsibility for getting themselves ready for school, making their own breakfast and ensuring they get to school on time in the morning and on their own. Joshua has really shown a lot of maturity and has definitely stepped up to the mark in making sure everything runs smoothly in the morning.

With Holly we have managed to get her booked in to Tina's Kelly Care club for 3 of the 5 mornings a week (free of charge). Then on one morning she has started doing gymnastics which helps massively. This just left one morning of the week as a problem and I have had to negotiate some flexible working hours enabling me to do the school run on the problematic day on the condition that I work later in the evening to make up the hours.

So all of us have had to adapt and change or routine slightly in order for Tina to take on this job. Anyway it is early days so lets see if this all works out OK.

Wickford Town Carnival 2019

As part of Holly's Rainbow's club she was participating in the Wickford Town Carnival yesterday. In all the years we have lived in Wickford we have hardly ever seen the Carnival due to either A) football training or B) the weather being diabolical. However yesterday football training finished early enough to attend and the weather was a scorching 23 degrees for mid September.

Holly's Rainbow's leaders were dressed as Beatles and the float that they rode on through the Carnival was done like the Yellow Submarine. They all looked amazing in their bright costumes and as a result they were awarded 1st place for their efforts. Amazing.

Scouts had made this giant rocket float for the carnival.

One of the many Princesses on floats.

I thought this float looked amazing.

Air cadets had some great plane costumes.

Another military themed float.

Then in comes the Rainbows in the Yellow Submarine.

Holly looking beautiful wearing her dress and her hat she made specially for the Carnival.

Such a good experience for the little girls.

Also on show was this Back To The Future replica Delorean.

Princess Holly ready for the carnival.

Holly with a load of her fellow Rainbow friends.

All on the float and ready to go.

First place for their float and costumes, great effort.

We all live in a Yellow Submarine......

Wick Country Park Kite Festival

Last weekend was the annual kite flying festival over the Wick Country Park just opposite where we live. Unfortunately there was next to no wind and subsequently there was very little kite activity going on. The boys weren’t interested anyway so Tina took Holly over there to check out what was going on. Despite there not being many kites, there was a few craft activities for Holly to participate in and there were a few old classic cars on show.

Holly has recently adopted an old Samsung phone that we had knocking around the house and uses it in the house for anything that requires WIFI. Currently she has no SIM card and phone number and I intend to keep it that way for some time yet. But surprisingly she has become a right little David Bailey with the phone camera and goes around taking pictures of absolutely anything and everything. Anyway here are a few of her snaps from over the kite festival.

Holly playing with her new/old phone in one of the classic cars.

Lovely old Jaguar.

Now thats a real classic, an old Rolls Royce.

Our little David Bailey in action.

Enjoying some craft activities.

Nice to see some teeth finally growing through when she smiles.

Holly hard at work creating a bear mask.

And here is the finished mask.

Edulink and Two Merit Awards for Joshua

So Joshua has been back at senior school for a week now and seems to have settled in really, really well. He has made new friends and even has a new girlfriend from different form in Year 7. We haven’t met her yet but apparently he has arranged to go around hers after school this Friday. I have had a little chat with him and told him it is fantastic that he is making new friends and has a girlfriend, but I have also warned him that if there are any signs that his new found love interferes with his school work then we will have problems. So far we have no problems with his school work as he has been awarded to Merit Awards in his first week which is just fantastic.

Joshua decided not to try out for the football team last night which I was a little disappointed with. His confidence in football is just shot and I think he felt he had no chance of making the team and subsequently didn’t bother going. On the flip side though he seems very keen to try out for the school rugby team this Thursday and arguably rugby should be much better suited to him than football.

One thing that has changed a lot with secondary schools is the way you can manage your child’s schooling from a simple App on your phone. The school uses an App called Edulink which shows us everything from his attendance, his timetable, his homework, merit awards, dietary requirements, exams and pretty much anything else school related. It’s a really good App to have everything in one place and to understand his timetable and what homework he has got to get done. My how things have changed since I was at school when we didn’t even have mobile phones – let alone smart phones.

Edulink App seems pretty comprehensive for tracking Joshua's secondary schooling. 

We can see all his homework and whether he has done it or not.

We can check on his attendance records for each subject.

And also see his daily timetable so we know what subjects he has and where he is.

Summer Holiday Adventure Island

Before the kids went back to school I took one last day off and we had a really nice family day out at Adventure Island in Southend. We know someone who can get discounted tickets and as it is so local it makes for a really good day and good value for money. The kids all loved it and we spent something like 7 hours there in total - so everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. 

The boys are now both on blue band and Holly is now green band. Disappointingly Joshua and Brandon both wimped out of trying the new ride for 2019 called Axis. This year Holly was that little bit taller and could go on a lot more rides than previously, but the poor little girl was in tears when they told her she could not go on the water slides.

Joshua is getting a bit big for the little Whiplash ride.

Brandon trying to act all grown up but secretly really enjoying the Whiplash, his smile can't hide it.

Holly wasn't hiding anything and absolutely loved it.

Nice to see all three of them on a ride without needed an adult to accompany them.

This was Holly's first coaster a few years back, now she's big enough to ride with her elder brothers.

Having fun on the kiddie coaster.

Joshua and Brandon really not impressed with Dragon Fury.

And I made Tina go with Holly as I didn't fancy going around and around and then backwards.

Me and H on another roller coaster.

Whilst Josh and B went on the big Zumba ride (blue and red t-shirts at the front).

The boys made the mistake of going on the claw and felt it was really unsafe. This is why they refused to go an Axis.

Josh and B outside the crooked house.

Tina once again draws the short straw and has to ride on "Drop'N'Smile" with Holly.

I don't think she is impressed.

Holly on the Helter Skelter.

Brandon getting a bit sideways down the slide.

Again  think Josh might be getting too big for this.

The boys may be outgrowing the smaller rides but Holly still enjoys them all.

And Tina draws the short straw yet again with another little stomach churner.

Joshua and Brandon get front row seats on Rage.

What goes up....... must come down......

Joshua managed to get absolutely soaked on the water slide.

Brandon by contrast managed to stay completely dry.

Brandon finishing the water slide and disappointed not to get a soaking as it was such a hot day.

Holly really didn't want a picture taken with the dinosaurs.

But she's OK with taking a selfie with Daddy.

Lovely view across Adventure Island from on top of the Green Coaster.

Holly looking out over Southend from up high.

Joshua braves raising his hands on the Rage drop. Brandon has a look of ore fear but actually really likes Rage.

Holly on a little train ride.

The boys went on the petrol go-karts for the first time and Joshua won fairly comfortably.

Brandon probably would have won but got stuck behind some numpty going super slow and kept blocking his overtaking, resulting in Brandon getting told ff for bumping.

And as Tina hadn't been on enough of the naff rides she had to finish off with the Skater ride as well!!!