Southend Luminocity Walk

As half term and a week off of work comes to an end we are still trying to make the most of the remaining family time. Last night after dinner we took a drive up to Southend seafront for a walk down the high street to take in the Luminocity lights which we missed out on last year. I think yesterday was the last day and the High Street was absolutely mobbed, traffic and parking was ok, but pedestrian wise it was rammed.

We took a walk from the Pier to the train station and managed to get a few piccies of Holly with some of the light installations, none of the boys as they are still camera/blog shy!! After our walk the kiddies claimed to be starving and so we treated them to some chips, ice-cream and donuts before heading home. All in all a pleasant evening and nice to get all 5 of us out of the house for a bit.

The bikes generated the electricity for this attraction, unfortunately the queue was too long for me to jump on there and power the whole of Essex for a few mins!!!

Me and H at the Star light on the pier.

The smoking star light.

The new Big Wheel in Adventure Island looks cool and absolutely dwarfs the old one.

The disco globe and some classic old school tunes.

This was a circular mirror / LED type of installation which you could go inside.

Holly and T in the LED light arches.

Honest 5 of us went, the other 2 were hiding from the camera.

Queue to walk through the arches was massive one end, but if you walked to the other end you could go straight through!!! Lightning Lane, hahaha.

Holly with some inflatable light up tree type thingies!

The disco light canopy was pretty impressive with basey tunes playing that you could feel through your chest.

Game of Throwing

To give me a break from painting the gym/garage and to give the kids something to do in the half term, I treated them to the Game of Throwing axe throwing experience in Chelmsford today. Holly was too young to participate so Tina took her over to Jump Street for some trampolining whilst me and the boys had a go at the axe throwing.

It was the first time any of us had tried axe throwing and I have to say it was really fun. The hour sessions whizzed by so quickly and I think we managed to get about 5 or 6 games in. I won the most, Joshua managed to win one game and Brandon cheated somewhat on the penultimate game to claim a draw with Joshua in a game where they fixed it for me to lose!!

So it was nice to show the boys that there is still life in the old dog yet and I can still whip their butt at certain activities. Even more impressive is that we found a physical / sporty type of activity which Brandon is no good at. He really was struggling and certainly not having as much fun as me and Josh. Because of his slight build he had to rely on the two handed overhead technique as opposed to the single arm used by me and Josh. Even with the double hand technique Brandon would often find his first axe of each round would not stick in the wood.

First time trying the Game of Throwing axe throwing in Chelmsford.

The old dog showing the young Jedi's how it is done and whipping their butts.

Josh did good and really pushed me in a few rounds. His size meant he could easily single arm throw.

Brandon was not enjoying it so much and because he was struggling he actually told the staff he was bored (sore loser!).

Brandon using the double arm overhead technqiue.

But still had to pick more axes off of the floor than pull them out of the wood.

Joshua was doing really well and his a good few 6's over the session.

But there was only one champ today.

Game 1 and you can see how Brandon was struggling. Don't ask why he called himself "dumbass" given his is the smartest out of all 3 of us!

Game 3 and Joshua pushed me hard in a very close game, pipping me by 2 points.

But then I really found my stride and got a monster score of 42.

A lot of cheating in the penultimate game, but Brandon claimed a draw/win.

Half Term Karting

Yesterday I took the kids to Basildon TeamSport indoor karting whilst Tina was having a sleep at home (having worked nights). The boys both had 2x 15 min races with a pretty full track of 15-16 other drivers.

Brandon absolutely killed it and won both sessions with the quickest time. In fact at the end of his second session he was sitting at the top of the quickest lap time all day!. I guess sitting there playing driving games on the PS5 is finally paying off. 

Joshua also did very well and was a lot closer to Brandon than he usually is. He came 3rd overall and was only 1 sec a lap slower than Brandon which when you consider the power to weight ratio is pretty impressive.

Holly couldn't join in this session as it was the adult faster karts, but we have now been told she can do the family karting sessions as long as I go on with her. This is going to hurt if all 4 of us go - why is karting so bloody expensive?????

Holly didn't race yesterday but helped me signal the positions to the boys as they drive past us.

Brandon absolutely killed both races in 1st place. A very respectable 3rd for Joshua.

At the point we left the center Brandon had the fastest time of the day out of all the adults.

Brandon's New Girlfriend

So Brandon has a new girlfriend called Tegan who he has now been seeing for about 3 weeks. She is a lovely little girl and we got to meet her for the first time yesterday when she came over to see him for Valentines Day and also stayed for dinner. 

She bought Brandon a really nice his and hers necklace which is quite cute. Brandon on the other hand was a nightmare and we pretty much had to force him to go around the shop to get her a card and some chocolates. Then he gave her a little bracelet which he picked up from Florida for a previous girlfriend that he split up with!!!

Whilst both Brandon and Josh have both had girlfriends in the past, this is the first one that either of them have brought home to meet us. So something new to experience as a parent. Although Tegan goes to Brandon's school, she lives over in Basildon so we have also entered a new era of parenting where we not only are a taxi to 3 kids of our own, but also have to drop off and pick up girlfriend now!!!!

Holly's Memory Magic

Despite me taking the week off work for half term, we have had a pretty uneventful week so far with mostly decorating, the odd cycle ride and then some swimming. Hopefully towards the back end of this week we will do some more exciting stuff with the kiddies.

One of the things I did with Holly earlier this week was to dig out some old magic sets of the boys which they have hardly used. There was one particular memory reading trick which Holly is amazing at. Basically there are 4 circular cards each with 6 random pictures on. Some of the pictures repeat on other cards, some don't. The idea is that you ask someone to think of any of the items on the cars, then turn over only the cars that have that picture on it. 

To then pretend to read the person's memory you look at the back of the cards and there is a character holding up 1, 2, 3 or 4 cards and you add the number of cards together, check this on a cheat sheet list and it will tell you what picture it correlates too. Well after me doing this about 3 times to Holly to had memorised every combination of pictures and cards and can do the trick without even knowing about the card counting or the cheat sheet. You can literally test her with any picture and she will 100% get it right!!!! Not bad for someone with learning difficulties.

Holly was so proud of herself that she even took the card trick in to school to show her friends nd teachers.

Holly the psychic memory reader.

For circular cards with various random pictures, Holly has memorised the lot!!

She didn't even realise it was a trick and that you count the number of cards held up and look on a cheat sheet.

"Player of the Match" for Holly & Zombie Brandon

As if winning "Star of the Week" wasn't enough last week. Holly only went and won "Player of the Match" in her football match today. She played in goal for the whole game and managed to keep a clean sheet in a very tight 0-0 draw - so a perfect game for a keeper. All the other parents commented on how good she is in goal and I think they would prefer her to be the teams goal keeper rather than just the reserve when the other girl isn't there. Holly certainly gave the coaches something to think about with her performance today.

Player of the match for keeping a clean sheet in todays match.

Mean while Brandon was doing his best Zombie impression in his Cup Game today which he won 4-3 on penalties.

"Star of the Week" for Holly

Amazing work by Holly last week improving in her reading, sharing ideas in class and working hard on her mathematics which continues to get stronger everyday. As a result of all of her hard work she was awarded "Star of the Week" last week. Well done champ.

Star of the Week and starting 2023 off with a bang.

What can you say, improving her reading, contributing ideas and working hard at her Maths. Perfect.